town along the Kaiwara Road, and had got to a spot about half-way between the railway bridge and the brewery, when suddenly I was startled by a most brilliant electric light being thrown in front of me. Quickly turning, I saw a sight which I shall never forget—a meteor, whose centre was as brilliantly red-hot as the summer sun at noonday, surrounded by a star-like sheath of electric blue light, the luminous track of the meteor forming a tail of intensely white light,—if my recollection serves me rightly, edged with electric blue. The height at which the meteor was when I first saw it I should estimate at about 40°—certainly not more; and the time it took in making its passage across the sky I should judge to have been somewhere about three seconds. The position at starting was, roughly speaking, over the north end of Somes Island, and at the finish a little to the northward of the starting-point. So near did it seem that I listened for the splash, which the eye led me to expect would occur off Ngauranga, between there and the island. A moment's reflection, however, convinced me that the actual distance away of this beautiful and wonderful object was infinitely greater, and perhaps I heaved a sigh of relief at the thought. To show the effect of its intensity and brilliance, I may say that a person who was near the top of Hill Street said afterwards with some assurance that he at first thought it would strike the Parliament Houses, but that it proved to be further off, and he judged it to have buried itself in the Manawatu Company's reclaimed land. Perhaps he went to look for the hole this morning! The person who told this to me was somewhat astonished at hearing that its effect on me was as related above. I have omitted to say that the apparent size of the star was quite half that of the full moon. I hope that my commonplace observations will draw the meteorologists.”

Art. XII.—Shadow-pictures. By Taylor White. [Read before the Hawke's Bay Philosophical Institute, 8th July, 1889.] Plate III. Shadow No. 1. During the last total eclipse of the sun visible in New Zealand I was standing outside the house, in company with my brother, the late Colonel White, viewing the progress of the eclipse, when, happening, in the partial darkness, to take notice of the shadow thrown on the wall under the verandah after the