420 Description of the Aurora Borealis 



steady. There remains, then, but to compare the phenomenon 

 of the Aurora with the rising or the setting Sun. In both of 

 these latter, as in the Aurora, the light is in the horizon, and 

 that light is shot upward, perpendicularly, or obliquely, 

 toward the zenith or toward the right and left; and both of 

 these, like the Aurora, are more or less constantly attended with 

 a variety of colouring, similar in hue if not in depth, and 

 always beautiful, and often gorgeous. With the Sun, and 

 with the beams of the Sun, ancient description, in point of 

 fact, has confounded the Aurora Borealis, to the degree, per- 

 haps, of giving origin to some of the ancient and poetical 

 descriptions of the Sun, utterly inappropriate and inexplicable 

 as understood of that day-star, but easily recognised in the Au- 

 rora ; yet the dissimilitudes, at last, are numerous and great ! 

 Of the essential difference of figure, both as to the beams of the 

 Sun, and the beams of the Aurora, in severalty, and of the in- 

 evitable difference of indication of which, as to their nature, 

 mention has been already made ; and also as to the general or 

 collective figure of the beams of the Aurora, as contrasted with 

 that of the rising, or of the setting Sun. The next point is the 

 homogeneity of colour in the beams of the Sun, however the 

 apparent colour may vary, as it is seen to do, from horizontal 

 stratum to horizontal stratum, from the horizon to the zenitli, 

 according to the varied density of ithe medium between the 

 light and the eye of the spectator. The light, upon the 

 other hand, of the beams of the Aurora is heterogeneously 

 coloured in itself, and is so displayed ; and not, therefore, 

 varied as the beams ascend from horizontal stratum to hori- 

 zontal stratum, or as crossing all the beams together, but 

 found in each particular beam itself, and attending its 

 direction, whether vertical or inclined, and whether recti- 

 linear or curved. Waiving, then, any comparison in detail, 

 between the phenomena of the Aurora, and the phenomena of 

 the rising or of the setting Sun, but admitting that, to a certain 

 degree, all are alike vast in dimensions, splendid in light, rich 

 in colour, and durable upon the eye ; there is ^till nothing else 

 to be subjoined, than that, at least with reference to vastness of 

 dimension and magnitude of the volume of light ; to the quan- 

 tity of light diffused ; and to the richness and gorgeousness of 



