468 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



for years Mr. Yoiimans was entitled to no small commendation for 

 his capable work; but, more than all, to greater credit for the 

 good he has accomplished in this series than has ever been ten- 

 dered him. 



In the present work we have one of these inimitable special 

 hrochures, which appeals to a small circle of readers, but it proves 

 none the less interesting for the general reader. The author begins 

 with the history of the aurora borealis — so called in contradistinction 

 to the aurora australis of the south pole — and cites mentions of it by 

 Aristotle, Cicero, Pliny the naturalist, Seneca, and Gregory of Tours. 

 It is shown by these writers to have been an object of superstitious 



Fig. 1. — Wintering of the "Vega." Elliptical Arcs. 



dread and terror, even down to the seventeenth century, no one 

 being capable of understanding the nocturnal miracle then. For 

 that matter, only the educated few understand it now. But it is no 

 longer a dragon, a harbinger of woe, a pet terror for homilists and 

 prophets, the Valkyrie of the ISTorse Eddas, nor a reflection of fire 

 that surrounds the north pole or emanates from a polar cavity or 

 from the interior of the earth at that point — which !N'ansen possibly 

 just escaped, and Andree is probably now experiencing! One Dan- 

 ish writer, Avho called it " the King's Mirror," and wrote a work with 

 that title in 1250, thought the aurora was "produced by the ice 

 which radiates at night the light which it has absorbed by day." 

 Since 1621 it has been called aurora borealis by scientists, or in 

 popular parlance " the northern lights " or '' streamers." It is 



