My copy (which has the autograph of Richard Claridge, the quaker) has written on the title in an old hand "By H. Hallywell." In the Biographia Britannica vol. iv., p. 546., 2d edit., it is said to be by Ralph Cudworth. If so, it has escaped Birch and the other editors of this celebrated writer.
JOHN J. DREDGE.
Death by Burning (Vol. ii., p. 6.).—In the Mendip mining district in Somersetshire, I am credibly informed that within seventy years a person has been burned alive for stealing ore from the pit mouth. There must be some old inhabitant who can attest this fact, and it would be desirable to obtain its confirmation.
J.W.H.
Irish Bull.—What is the exact definition of an Irish bull? When was the term first applied to the species of blunder which goes by that name?
GRIFFIN.
Farquharson's Observations on Auroræ.—A translation of the Course of Meteorology, by Professor Kaenitz, of Halle, by Mr. C.V. Walker, was published at London in 1845, in one volume 12mo. The work was written in German, and afterwards translated into French, and the English work is derived from the French translation. In p. 459. the following passage occurs:
"It is chiefly to the shepherd Farquharson, at Alford, in Aberdeenshire, that we are indebted for a long series of observations on auroræ; and he endeavoured to prove that their height is inconsiderable."
Lower down it is said:
"At the same time, another Protestant minister, Mr. James Paull, at Tullynessle, four kilometres from Alford, saw that the aurora possessed an unusual clearness in the zenith, so that its height did not perhaps exeed 1300 metres."