Lesley.! 62 [September. 



light with a wide fringe or flounce, of maximum brilliancy along its 

 bottom edge, the light fading upwards along the curtain, but trace- 

 able to the very zenith ; and the curtain stretching from the eastern 

 horizon out at sea to the western horizon on the low hill tops. The 

 perspective was perfect. The curtain was evidently vertical, thin, 

 straight, long enough to reach from one limit of the vision to the 

 other, and floating broadside before the south wind towards the 

 north. No reasoning could convince us that these were not elements 

 of the phenomenon, and moreover that the lower edge of the bright 

 fringe was more than one or two hundred yards away, at its nearest 

 point, when we first saw it: Its rate of departure from us was evi- 

 dently that of the fog-bank, or that of t^ie gentle south wind then 

 blowing. The perspective of the whole curtain changed in con- 

 formity with that supposition. We had both spent our lives in topo- 

 graphical work, and no record of triangulations made upon this 

 aurora would alter my convictions of the posture and movements of 

 the beautiful object, derived from the natural triangulations of the 

 unassisted eye. 



But this was not all. The two most important features of the ex- 

 hibition remain to be described. 



In the first place the curtain hung not in a perfectly straight plane, 

 but was magnificently waved or folded in recurrent plaits, like the 

 gophered edge of an Elizabethan collar ; and these folds were con- 

 fined chiefly to the lower part of the curtain, or to the flounce of 

 maximum brilliancy, although they sometimes went up high into 

 the thinner body of the curtain. They were sufficiently recurved 

 in some instances for us to see through three thicknesses of the 

 flounce, the fold thus almost tripling its own light. But the per- 

 spective of each fold was unmistakable; and the impression on 

 the mind was that of the unequal advance of the line of fog-bank, 

 some sections pushing forward and swinging in front of intermediate 

 sections which lagged behind. We saw no material break in the con- 

 tinuity of the light curtain ; nor did there seem to be any fixed 

 order of curve, the plaits sometimes lying one way and sometimes 

 another; and therefore no impression of a vortical system was made, 

 but rather of an irregular advance of the fog-bank. The plates of 

 the French Expedition to Norway (" Lottin's Aurora Borealis,'' 8° 

 and royal 4°), will give a better idea of the structure of the curtain 

 than any description. 



The most imposing part of the scene now followed. We had 

 been watching the receding curtain perhaps five or ten minutes, and 



