394 ^Description of the Aurora JSorealis 



^eet of thin, gauzy, white, or yellowish-white, and nebulous; 

 or cloudy matter. T6 the writer, this superior portion of the 

 Aurora, though not the most lustrous, and, therefore, not the 

 most striking of the whole, was yet by no means the least 

 interesting and inviting to attention ; for, here, as it appeared 

 to him, the material and the manner of operation of ths 

 meteor were brought nearer to the eye, and exhibited with such 

 a back-ground (the starry heavens) as gave a transparent view 

 of the same matter as that, which, (as he thought,) seen ver-f 

 tically, and in the horizon, appeared comparatively, at least, 

 opaque. The transparent medium, however, above, through 

 which, even when shook or vibrating, and even when whitened 

 ^vith light, the stars were always seen in more or less bright-* 

 hess, was now in continual motion; or, ineteoric light or mattef 

 was continually, though irregularly, and as it were, playfully 

 shot through it. The illuminated substance (whether the 

 atmospherical fluid, reflecting the light of the meteor, or the 

 luminous body of the meteor itself, but probably the latter) 

 was incessantly discovering itself in different places ; now here^ 

 now there, now bright, now dim ; but far less in a manner, dr 

 with an appearance, to be compared with lightning, than witH 

 such as resembled the changes of ripple upon the bosom of a 

 wide-spread water, when a variable breeze blows over it ; first 

 in one part, and then in another ; and now in one direction, 

 and the next moment in a second. Or, the canopy of heaven^ 

 at this time, might be said to be composed of d Ikce or gauze 

 bearing a figured pattern, of which the fluttering motion 

 continually changed the places, or hid or re-displayed the 

 figures represented ; or the picture, perhaps, will be more 

 easily imagined, if conveyed in the very appropriate language 

 of an older hand, which, referring to the appearances dis- 

 played in the zenith, remarks, ** They break out in pkceS 

 where none were seen before, skimming briskly along the 

 heavens ; are suddenly extinguished, and leave behind a uni- 

 form dusky track. This, again, is brilliantly illuminated in 

 the stlme manner, and as suddenly left a dull blank." It 

 should be understood, however, that, at least as seen by the 

 present writer, iii this mixture of white and blue, the blue 

 iv^ds always the- preponderating colour; or, in other words^ 



