de l'Acad.', t. viii., 1730, p 276. Mairan, 'Trait??Phys de l'Aurore
Bor??ale', 1754, 0. 16.) In this remarkable work by Childrey there are to
be found (p. 91) very clear accounts of the epochs of maxima and minima
diurnal and annual temperatures, and of the retardation of the extremes of
the effects in meteorological processes. It is, however, to be regretted
that our Baconian-philosophy-loving author, who was Lord Henry Somerset's
chaplain, fell into the same error as Bernardin de St. Pierre, and regarded
the Earth as elongated at the poles (see p. 148). At the first he believes
that the Earth was spherical, but supposes that the uninterrupted and
increasing addition of layers of ice at both poles has changed its figure;
and that as the ice is formed from water, the quantity of that liquid is
every where diminishing.
The first observation of the phenomenon may have been made two or three
years prior to this period; but, notwithstanding, the merit of having (in
the spring of 1683) been the first to investigate the phenomenon in all its
relations in space is incontestably due to Dominicus Cassini. The light
which he saw at Bologna in 1668, and which was observed at the same time in
Persia by the celebrated traveler Chardin (the court astrologers of Ispahan
called this light, which had never before been observed, 'nyzek', a small
lance), was not the zodiacal light, as has often been asserted,* but the
p 140
enormous tail of a comet, whose head was concealed in the vapory mist of the
horizon, and which, from its length and appearance, presented much
similarity to the great comet of 1843.
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