sfien in London, September 25,. 1827. 3§5 



breaking d^y, together with the vertical projection of rays of 

 Jight, beneath and above the arch, removed every doubt ^s to 

 the cause of the appearance, by demonstrating its connexion 

 with an Aurora BoreaUs. . :,? -, , 



i It wa^ Dpw about a quarter past eleven o'clock. The sky, 

 beneath the lower or inner edge of the arch, was clear and 

 star-light, and, throqgh the contrast created by the ruddy 

 colour placed against it, appeared of a lively blue. The upper 

 edge of the arch, in the meantime, was relieved only by thq 

 dark gray of the clouds, which, with more or less continuity^ 

 averhung the upper part of the heavens. But these latter 

 were now dispersing ; the cloudless zenith, which presently 

 afterwards disclosed itself, was now progressively and swiftly 

 preparing ; and, as the clouds moved and fled, the outline^ 

 of the arch lost their sharpness, the colour changed, from 

 that of fire or of copper, to something more or less of purple 

 or of the rose ; it spread itself in the vapour, and with the 

 yapour vanished. 



«imj Yv. ;■-■ ' 



,.,iL .But this was only the curtain of the stage, behind the 

 folds of which the tri;e scene had it^ existence. This latter, 

 still concealed, to a certain and uniform height, by a parapet, 

 as it were, . of dark and unbroken clouds, consisted, first, in 

 the ground of white light, already described as resembUng thai; 

 of a sky in the midst of which clouds shut out the disk of the 

 moon, or rather that in which the rising sun is just about to 

 appear ; and, secondly, ip a range of columns, or fountains, or 

 jets of light, more coloured than the ground, which, rising from 

 behind the ridge or parapet of clouds, and from and in the 

 midst of the white light, formed, together, not the figure which 

 would have been produced by their uniform convergence 

 toward the zenith, but one which bore some resemblance to 

 tliat assumed by the sticks of a fan, or still more to the appear- 

 ance of stalks in a flower-basket, or in a, sheaf of corn. For, 

 in this manner, the column, which, in general terms, may be 

 called the central one, and which arose in the due north, wa^ 

 vertical, and therefore projected toward the zenith ; while those 

 which extended from it upon either side, tliat is, toward the 

 ^^sj^ or towfurd the east, gradually inclined more and more 



