seen in London, September 25, 18^. 415 



unfurling of flags, there is nothing difficult, (knowing what we 

 do of the noise of winds and of thunder,) in admitting its pro- 

 bability, unless what may arise from the consideration, that 

 the noise might, or might not, be expected to be heard, where- 

 ever the phenomenon is to be seen. But the most striking 

 and important truth, communicated in the foregoing account, is 

 that which we cannot but rigorously infer from the collective 

 testimony of two very distinct descriptions, which is afforded 

 in two of the concluding sentences. It consists in that 

 real in/requency, as well in the Northern, as in the Southern 

 Hemisphere, of the appearance of the Aurora ; an infrequency 

 the knowledge of which is so essential to the true history of 

 the phenomenon, and therefore to its true philosophy, and 

 consequently to much of the history and philosophy of nature 

 at large ; — an infrequency which^ the present writer has given 

 notice of above, as a proposition for which, in dissent from all 

 received authorities, he will contend ; and upon the opposite 

 account of which matter, in the general account quoted, he 

 has already requested the reader to suspend his judgment. It 

 is obvious that, as a natural phenomenon, an Aurora Borealis, 

 which, though constantly experienced in the more Northerly 

 regions, is but rarely observed in the more Southern ; that is, 

 an Aurora Borealis which, though familiar to the Samoiede, 

 the Laplander, and even the Shetlander, is an extraordinary, 

 and a terrific, or at least a marvellous event, to the Italian, the 

 Frenchman, and even to the Englishman ; it is obvious, that 

 such an Aurora Borealis, constant in its occurrence a little 

 further to the Northward, and almost the solitary spectacle of a 

 generation a little further to the South, is, as a natural phe- 

 nomenon, a very different thing from an Aurora Borealis 

 which, though far enough to the South, sufficiently frequent in 

 comparatively trivial magnitudes and lustre, is seen, either in 

 the South or in the North, in its greatness, and in its splendour, 

 but yet rarely, and with, perhaps, almost equal rareness ; it is 

 obvious that, as natural phenomena, and not less so as sights 

 connected by mankind with their own fortunes, the two things 

 now described are exceedingly unlike as matter of history, and 

 equally so as matter of philosophy. If we are simply to record 

 the occurieace, it is pue thing to speak of a phenomenon 



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