Description

[004257] [Aurora Borealis] An Account of the Phoenomenon Which Appear’d at Elston, Near Newark, March the 7th, 1716. No Place: No Publisher, 1716. First Edition. 4to. Unbound. Broadside. Good. Single sided broadside, approximately 170mm x 280mm in size (laid down on a sheet of paper approximately 195mm x 300mm in size), no place but probably Nottingham

Lightly browned, a couple of small ink marks to right hand margin, otherwise clean. Ink stamp of Nottingham Public Library to reverse of paper

Broadside relating the appearance of the aurora borealis in Nottinghamshire, the viewer noting that “streams issued out of another cloud, near to the former, with a very unusual light, and with a variety of colours, black, blue, flame-colour, yellow etc. and so more and more, till all that part of the heavens was overspread … About nine at night, these meteors (if I may so call them) in a great measure disappear’d … and about ten of the clock they broke out again with a fresh violence in the same manner as before … About twelve, a bright globular body appeared, as big as, and like the sun at his rising, but not quite so clear … During this time, the light was such, that I myself (tho’ now almost sixty years of age) and another clergyman did read several titles of the books in the bible, without any use of art”

Uncommon, apparently unrecorded