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state; but the matter floating at Toy's Hill, being more fixed, one has reason to expect it would be still slower, as we find it was, to wit, imperceptible. There was a

declivity in both cases, and in both much rain had fallen to facilitate the defluxion; for as to the cause of the motion at Pillingmoss, it is entirely attributed to the abundance of rain and snow that had fallen, and had softened it, upon which it was very natural for the liquified matter to descend and slide, upon the clay underneath, from a higher to a lower place; I see no difference in the two cases, only that here the sliding matter was liquid, whereas at Toy's Hill it is fixed; but this will make no alteration in any other respect, but in the beginning of the motion; the moss would slide in its own nature, as a fluid, but the field at Toy's Hill would require a first mover, and this, as was mentioned, I take to have been the earthquake.

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IT is a vulgar opinion, that the Aurora Borealis, or the northern lights, were never seen in England till the 6th of March, 1715. Indeed the lights that appeared then were very extraordinary, and happened at a very critical time, which occasioned their being much taken notice of, as also their being mentioned by our historians, to which I may well add, that none so copious or remarkable had probably happened for many years before. It is not my present business to inquire into the cause of this phenomenon, which may be learned from other authors;† but for the rectifying this mistaken notion of their first appearance, which can tend to nothing but superstition, as generally all philosophical

*Salmon's Chronolog. Historian. Whiston's Memoirs, p. 608. &c. Dr. Halley, in Phil. Trans. Dr. Gawin Knight, on Attraction and Repul sion.

errors do, I shall recite a few examples of their being observed in this nation long before the date abovementioned, even before the Norman Conquest, to which period I shall at this time confine myself.

The first example I meet with is A. D. 555, when as Matth. of Westminster relates it, quasi species lancearum in aëre visæ sunt a Septentrione usque ad Occidentem,' that is, certain appearances of lances were seen in the air from the north to the west.* Whereupon you will please to observe, that these coruscations were in the northern parts of the world, I presume, chiefly in the north-west, and that the people called the streamers lances, as they did in the year 1715.

The same author tells us, that in 567, 'Hastæ igneæ in aëre visæ sunt, portendentes irruptionem Longobardorum in Italiam,' that is, that fiery spears were seen in the air, portending the incursion of the Lombards into Italy. The notion of arms still prevails, the radiations being here called spears, and moreover they are supposed to be predictive of a grand future event, as on other occasions these lights are generally supposed to be; which calls to my mind that line in the first Georgic of Virgil, which I have chosen for the motto of this paper, where the poet, enumerating the seve ral prodigies that preceded and betokened the death of Julius Cæsar, mentions a sound of arms in the sky,

Armorum sonitum toto Germania cælo

Audiit.

which noise or clashing of arms was heard, you observe, not in Italy, but in the more northern regions of Europe.

Matth. of Westm. remarks again on the year 743, 'Visi sunt in aëre ictus ignei, quales nunquam mortales illius ævi viderunt, Kal. Jan.' that on the first of January, certain fiery streamers were seen in the air, such as the men then living had never beheld before:† and then he immediately subjoins, that the same year Wilfred, Archbishop of York, died, as if he intended it to be understood, that these lights then portended his death.

In the year 776, Matthew writes, "Visa sunt in cœlo rubra signa, post occasum solis, et horrenda,' that in the evening red signs, and horrible to behold, were seen in the

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heavens; and it is well known, that these lights are often so strong as to be of a deep red.

In the 10th year of the reign of Brightrick, King of Wesses, which corresponds with the year of our Lord 794, another appearance of this kind was seen, of which I shall here exhibit Mr. Speed's account: In the daies of this Brightrick many prodigies appeared, and more perhaps than will be believed, for it is reported, that in his 3d yeare a shower of bloud rained from heaven, and bloudy crosses fell on men's garments as they walked abroad. And in his tenth yeare were seen fiery dragons flying in the ayre; which wonders some took to be presages of the miseries following, both by the invasion of the Pagan Danes, that in these times were first seene to arrive in this island, and the extreme famine that afterwards happened.'t They were reckoned, you see, among the prodigies of the times, as anciently they always were, and also to be predictive, as all prodigies were then thought to be, of some disastrous event. The like conception the common people now have of the lights in 1715.

Florence of Worcester informs us, that A. D. 926, Ignei per totam Angliam visi sunt radii in Septentrionali plaga cæli, nec multo post Northanhinbrorum rex Sihtricus vita decessit;' fiery streamers in the north were seen all over England, soon after which Sihtric, king of Northumberland, dieds. These evidently were streamers, and in the common quarter, and in this author's opinion they presaged the death of the then king of Northumberland.

Matthew of Westminster and Florence of Worcester, both testify of the lights A. D. 979; the former relates, that soon after the prophecy of St. Dunstan, (who at the coronation of Ethelred the 2nd, had foretold the grievous evils that should befal this land from the Danes, on account of the murther of his brother, St. Edward) Nubes per totam Angliam, nunc sanguinea, nunc ignea, visa est, dehinc in radios diversos, et varios mutata colores, circa auroram disparuit;" that a cloud, sometimes red, and sometimes of the colour of fire, was seen all over England, which afterwards being parted into several rays of various colours, disappeared towards morning. The account Florence gives is verbatim

*Matth. West. p. 141.

+ Speed's History, p. 3000.

Mariana's History of Spain, p. 21, 22, and the passage above cited from the Georgic of Virgil.

§ Flor. Vig. p. 602.

An Hemistich.

Matth. West. p. 194.

the same, only that the cloud was seen at midnight. These lights, it seems, were seen all over England, and lasted till very late in the night; that at first it was one body of light, nubes, but changed its colour from red to white, or rather fire-colour, afterwards was disparted into rays or streamers of various colours, just as the aurora borealis is known very often to do.

Mr. Whiston would insinuate, in his Memoirs, p. 608, that the northern lights are much more frequent since 1715, than they were before, and are intended to foreshew the grand event of the restoration of the Jews, and the commencement of the millenium. But all I can allow is, that since those very remarkable lights in 1715, the generation then living, and still going on, have observed them the more; that before, a brightness more than common in the north was disregarded, unless when now and then it arose to any great degree; and that otherwise in reality and truth of fact, they have not been more frequent since the date he mentions than before, it. That so far north as Greenland, it is known they happen almost every night, are copious, and very useful to the inhabitants; (see Egede's account of Greenland, p. 56, 162,) and I have been informed they are not much less frequent in the remoter parts of Scotland. From all which I must infer, against Mr. Whiston, that there is nothing of a predictive nature in these appearances, since they have at all times been seen, and that the occasion of their being taking notice of more at one time than another, is entirely owing to men's greater or less attention to them, on account of some interesting conjuncture in human affairs, in concurrence with natural causes, such as a peculiar constitution of the air at such times when they are most glaringly conspicuous; for it is well known how very different the disposition of the air is, in these respects, at one time, from what it is at another. These lights are seen all over the north, and in some countries almost perpetually, how then can it be known to what state or kingdom they predict the impending evil? or when the said evil is to happen? Are those nations where they are so constant, to be visited as constantly? Are they always visited when these signs appear? The fact is quite otherwise, and that not only now, but even at such times as the lights have been so extraordinary as to merit the regard of our historians, for nothing tragical followed them in the years 555 and 776, at least, historians are silent therein, and

Flor. Vig. p. 698.

consequently could find no public calamity whereunto to apply them. In short, there are few of those arguments which Monsieur Bayle has urged against the predictive nature of comets, in his elaborate treatise on that subject, but what will bear as hard, and even much harder, against any such interpretation, which so many of the vulgar incline to put upon these northern lights. No longer then let us be misled by men of warm heads and enthusiastic minds, to imagine, that these appearances are signs from heaven, (Luke xxi. 11.) or any certain tokens of the divine displeasure; but regard them as, what they really are, the ordinary and unmeaning phenomena of nature, to be ranked with comets, meteors, and mock suns,

et

Sic veteres avias tibi de pulmone revellas.

1756, April.

Pers. Sat. v. 92.

PAUL GEMSEGE.

XXII. Curious Discoveries in making new Roads in Northampton

MR. URBAN,

shire.

Northamptonshire, Sep. 10, 1756.

As many things of great antiquity have been lately discovered in making the turnpike roads in this county, it will, we presume, be an agreeable entertainment to the curious, if a still more particular account be given of them, than that which we venture to relate upon credible testimony.

The ancient custom of burning human bodies after their decease, before Christianity was planted in this island, is visible to the eye of every traveller, on each side of the turnpike road, betwixt the north end of Higham Ferrers, and the windmill, where the earth appears to have been dug in several places for the reception of the ashes of human bodies, which had been burned there, wherein bits of coals are yet to be seen, mixed with ashes and common mould, which, by length of time, differ very little in colour from the natural ground. On the west side of the said road, there is only one of these places of interment at present discernable, wherein some stones at the depth of about one foot appear discoloured by fire; it was from this place we took a sinall fragment of a Roman urn, wherein the heathens commonly

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