seen in London, September2by 1B27. 421 



the attendant colouring; there can be little risk in the asser- 

 tion that, vast, and splendid, and beautiful, and rich, and gor- 

 geous, as, when seen in the most favourable situation, and 

 under the most favourable circumstances, the Aurora may be, 

 it is, at last, but insignificant, when compared, for those fea- 

 tures, to the vastness, the splendour, the beauty, the richness, 

 and the gorgeousness, more or less, from day to day, displayed 

 in the rising or the setting of the Sun ; and, that for chaster 

 beauty, and even for amount of light diffused, it is not even to 

 be likened to the silver Moon ! As a substitute, too, for either, 

 or for both, the Aurora, in the regions of cold and night, may 

 justly demand the admiration and the blessing of mankind; 

 and, in regions cold and inclement, its rarity, not unaccom- 

 panied by beauty, by grandeur, and sometimes even by the 

 terrible in appearance, may well invite the gaze and fix the 

 attention of beholders ; but, considered along with the light of 

 the luminaries of heaven, its claims reduce themselves in 

 quality, though certainly not in degree, to a level with those of 

 an artificial lustre ; and we almost repeat, in reference to the 

 light of the Aurora, as compared with that of the Sun, or even 

 of the Moon, what the poet has said in reference to the lights 

 of our chambers : — 



" Who but rather turns 

 To heaven's broad beam his unconstrained eye, 

 Than to the glimmering of a waxen flame ?" 



The Moon, in the meantime, inferior as she is to the Sun^ 

 has been ♦' blessed," from age to age, for her *^ useful light ;'* 

 and the " useful light" of the Aurora, also, has its claims to 

 ** blessing." It co-operates with the Sun, the Moon, and with 

 other agents of nature, to make, not merely the Polar regions 

 of the earth, but the entire globe of the earth, fruitful, at once, 

 and habitable * ! 



* The author has an opinion, that among the " agents of nature,'* for equalise 

 ing the temperature of the surface of the globe, is to be reckoned, not only 

 the Northern and Southern Lights, but the entire Ocean ; and that this agency 

 ia the immediate object aimed at in the existence of this last, as one body of 

 iirater surrounding the entire globe. Flis evidence consists in geographical, 

 hydrographical, meteorological, and physiological facts, as also in the apparent 

 reason of the case. lie supposes, in consequence, a perpetual circulation of 

 the waters of the sea, longitudinally round the globe, or from North to 

 South, and from South to North again j and the result of Captain Parry's late 

 attempt to reach the Arctic Pole, as also some of the facts which have trans- 

 pired respecting Captain Franklia's late land expedition, appear to confim;! 



