1852 | | 51 
March 2, 1852. 
Vice President Brinazs in the Chair. 
Letters were read | 
From the Linnean Society of London, dated Jan. 22d, 1852, acknow- 
ledging the receipt of the Proceedings, Vol. 5, Nos. 9 and 10. 
From the Smithsonian Institute, dated Washington, Feb. 17, 1852, 
acknowledging receipt of Proceedings, Vol..5, No. 12. 
From the American Philosophical Society, dated Feb. 21, 1852, 
acknowledging receipt of the Journal, Part 2, Vol. 2, new series, and of 
the Proceedings, Vol.5, No. 12. 
From Thomas Lawson, Surgeon General U. S. A. dated Feb. 7, 1852, 
requesting correction of an error in the Meteorological Register lately 
issued from the Department, a copy of which was sent to the Academy. 
From Dr. Samuel Webber, dated Charlestown, N. Hampshire, Feb. 25, 
1852, acknowledging receipt of his notice of election as a Corres- 
pondent. 
Dr. J. C. Fisher read the following: description of the Aurora of 
Thursday, Feb. 19th, 1852. The observations were made from an 
elevated point on the opposite side of the Schuylkill, where the view 
was entirely unobstructed. 
On the night of Thursday, the {9th of February last, a most beautiful Aurora 
was visible throughout the middle and northern parts of the United States. 
There were some circumstances connected with this one that seem to require a 
more particular description than usual. The air was calm and clear. The 
wind gvas light from the N. N. West. The temperature in the early part of 
the evening was about 25° F., but it fell very rapidly, and before morning it 
was 10° F. The Aurora began in the early part of the night with the appear- 
ance of a bank or arch of white light, rising about 15° or 16° above the horizon. 
This continued, with some few changes, to be its general character, ti!l about 9 
o’clock, when a series of remarkable and beautiful changes commenced, which, 
with some alternations of repose, lasted till the whole was lost in the dawn of 
day. A little after 10 o’clock it presented some of the most remarkable and 
beautiful changes it has ever been the good fortune of the writer to witness. 
The arch or bank of white light which formed the basis of the whole, appeared 
suddenly to rise and expand like a huge billow, or rather like one of those huge 
masses of foam at the bottom of the cataract of Niagara, until suddenly bursting; 
it threw a vast volume of white spray to the zenith, where it changed to a fier 
red, giving rise to an alarm of fire. Instantly after streamers of red, white anf 
brown shot up from the broken arch that stil] formed the basis or ground work, 
and which at the same time changed from its white color to at first a pale green, 
and then to almost an’ emerald green. Soon after the streamers ceased, and 
waves of parti-colored light rushed across the heavens from west to east, as if in 
rapid pursuit of one another. This was soon succeeded by masses of light shoot- 
ing up from the arch, which was again formed, to the zenith. Some of those 
masses presented a remarkably livid appearance, and the whole formed a picture 
which it is not in the power of language fairly to describe. During the time 
when the auroral changes were so brilliant, the electrical state of the atmosphere 
was in a most singularly disturbed conditioa. The telegraph wires were so 
highly charged and conducted so great a quantity, that there were divers and 
sundry rather unreadable communications written down at the various stations 
PROCEED. ACAD. NAT SCIe OF PHILADELPHIA.—VOL. VI. NO. II. 8 
