The Winter Night. 275 



" Later in the evening Hansen came down to give 

 notice of what really was a remarkable appearance of 

 aurora borealis. The deck was brightly illuminated by 

 it, and reflections of its light played all over the ice. 

 The whole sky was ablaze with it, but it was brightest 

 in the south ; high up in that direction glowed waving 

 masses of fire. Later still Hansen came again to say that 

 now it was quite extraordinary. No words can depict the 

 glory that met our eyes. The glowing fire-masses had 

 divided into glistening, many-coloured bands, which were 

 writhing and twisting across the sky both in the south 

 and north. The rays sparkled with the purest, most 

 crystalline rainbow colours, chiefly violet-red or carmine 

 and the clearest green. Most frequently the rays of 

 the arch were red at the ends, and changed hio-her 



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up into sparkling green, which quite at the top turned 

 darker, and went over into blue or violet before dis- 

 appearing in the blue of the sky ; or the rays in one and 

 the same arch might change from clear red to clear green, 

 coming and going as if driven by a storm. It was an 

 endless phantasmagoria of sparkling colour, surpassing 

 anything that one can dream. Sometimes the spectacle 

 reached such a climax that one's breath was taken away ; 

 one felt that now something extraordinary must happen 

 at the very least the sky must fall. But as one stands 

 in breathless expectation, down the whole thing trips, as 

 if in a few quick, light scale-runs, into bare nothingness. 

 There is something most undramatic about such a 



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