4lG Description of the Aurora Borealis 



which, in the South, is seen only at long intervals, while it is a 

 " constant attendant" in the North ; and another thing to 

 speak of that which, whether in the South or in the North, is 

 equally rare, and equally out of the '* constant" course of na- 

 ture. If we are to write the history of nature, it is one thing 

 to relate, that such phenomena, or rather others, infinitely more 

 splendid, more terrific, or more marvellous, than that which 

 was witnessed in London, in the month of September in this 

 year, or in the same month some three-and-twenty years ago, 

 or else some six-and-thirty, and, to judge by experience, is 

 not to be looked for, in the same city, during twenty or thirty 

 years again ; — it is one thing to relate that, in the Shetland 

 Islands, such a spectacle is a *' constant attendant of clear 

 evenings," and another thing to relate, that though, perhaps, 

 on clear evenings, in the Shetland Islands, some small dis- 

 plays of the Aurora are not unfrequently perceived, yet, that 

 such an exhibition as has recently been witnessed in London, 

 Q,nd still more, such as, more effulgent, and more extended, 

 and more vigorous, and even coloured by the atmosphere 

 into the terrific ; — that those exhibitions, in short, of which 

 our naturalists and men of science would persuade us, that, 

 while beheld nightly by those of the North, they are known 

 to us by very faint examples alone ; — those exhibitions, — that 

 those extraordinary examples of the brightness and vigour of the 

 Aurora — are as rare, or almost as rare, not only in the Shet- 

 land Islands, but in Iceland, and on the shores of the Icy Sea, 

 as in the streets of London themselves ! It is obvious, too, 

 that if we are to speak of this phenomenon philosophically, 

 if we are to attempt to explain its origin and use, — its source 

 in the natural elements, and its office in the natural economy ; 

 here, too, the solving of this question of the frequency or infre- 

 quency, the constancy or the inconstancy, of these mighty 

 exhibitions, even in the North, and under the Pole itself, is 

 matter of foremost importance. And what is the testimony, 

 upon these heads, which is borne by the accounts collected by 

 (jmelin ? Is the Northern Light of the German naturalist, 

 the apparently constant attendant of clear evenings, even in the 

 countries between the Lena and the Yenesei ? Is the spectacle, 

 ?ind the atmospherical hurley, which seems to rush over the 



