‘ : 
THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 173 
diffused. At times the display would die down to a white glow 
in tre sky like the reflection of the lights of a large town or city 
when viewed from a distance; then the light rays would again 
suddenly shoot up into the sky commencing on the East and 
running West, the light graduaily increasing in intensity 
At 2.30 a.m. the display died down until only the diffused 
glow in the sky remained, but at 2.30 the Auroral light again in- 
creased in brilliance, and, assuming a curtain effect, the whole of 
the Southern sky appeared like 2 great curtain of quivering light, 
and, as though stirred with a gentle wind, the light would play 
as upon the folds of it as they moved; the light brightened con- 
siderably, the colours, which again were pink and green in the 
same order as before, increased in brilliance, becoming very vivid, 
especially in the Western portion of the display, the whole sky 
to the South presented a scene of wonderful beauty beyond de- 
scription. This magnificent curtain display continued till 2.45 
a.m., then dying out entirely from the sky. 
‘While at its height, the display was sufficiently powerful to 
quench the light of all stars in the vicinity with the cxception 
of those of the first magnitude, even these being considerably 
dimmed. 
On the night of Wednesday, the 24th idem, there was an- 
other display of Aurora Australis visible between 11.30 and 12 
p-m., but was only a bright white glow, as of city light, in the 
sky, which faded and brightened again until midnight, when it 
disappeared from the sky. 
VOLCANIC NECK AT HORNSBY. 
By Miss Hraruer Druarmonp. 
At Hornsby a neck of voleanie breccia has pierced the under- 
lying strata and outcrops at the bottom of Old Man’s Valley for 
one and a-quarter miles. The breccia has been denuded much 
more quickly than the sandstone, and so makes a valley 
300 ft. in depth. The breccia contains inclosures of a very in- 
teresting nature, shale, sandstone, and bitumen derived trom the 
underlying Triassic and Permocarboniferous strata. The bitu- 
men from the coal seams is often associated with calcite, being 
frequently surrounded therewith. This voleanie rock is of great 
interest, there being only two others of its kind near Sydney—at 
Prospect and Dundas. The rock is being quarried at tue north- 
ern end of the outcrop for road metal. Where exposed in the 
quarry it shows oxidisation and spheroidal weathering. 
