RECORD OF AURORAL PHEXOMEXA. 89 



cirrous clouds. The upper terminus of this column, unlike the parhelia which we had seen before, 

 assumed a curvilinear wedge shape, not unlike the section of a pear, from whose sides rose tan- 

 geutially a series of pencilled illuminations terminating in streaks of cloud strata. 



The feature about this phenomenon of greatest interest, was a distinct play of light, a series of 

 coruscating changes resembling the scintillations of the Aurora. The rays which shot out from 

 the three-curved summit sometimes extended twelve or fifteen degrees, with a sudden movement 

 of increased energy almost resembling ignition; then, again, they retired, until represented by 

 but a few feeble points. The cloud-like segments showed in a lesser degree the same move- 

 ments; and, at the periods of most active display, the vertical or fan-like shaft flashed up into 

 more intense illumination. The diameter of this shaft at its entering base could not have been 

 less than eighty degrees.' 



This singular exhibition recalled irresistibly the analogous phenomena of the Aurora, with those 

 anomalous displays of corona; which have been referred to diffraction of light by atmospheric 

 vesicles or icy spiculse. I give it from my notes as a simple detail of facts, without comment or 

 opinion. 



A daylight Aurora has been described by other observers. I witnessed several, one of them 

 interesting enough to be worth transcribing. 



'About ten o'clock, going out to exercise at foot-ball, I noticed that the usual cloud-bank of the 

 horizon had nearly cleared away at the south. One or two feathery cirri hung about the zenith, 

 and the northern horizon retained its usual deep obscurity. This was in the course of my 

 usual cursory examination for my weather record. Half an hour after, I observed one spot 

 where the banking remained, attracting attention by its nearness to the sun and its weji-defined 

 segmentary character. Its margin was distinctly and regularly arched; its tinting a peculiar 

 purple, slightly warmed or bronzed at its margins, but deepening into a heavy brown at the line 

 of the horizon. The centre of the segment bore south twenty degrees west (magnetic) ; its 

 altitude eight degrees nearly. Smoke and vapor from ship's fires purple tinted; distant objects 

 not very clearly visible; atmosphere filled with ice spiculffi. 



Soon from the circumference of this arch proceeded a fimbriated or fringy scries of purple cirri, deli- 

 cately tinted at their edges, increasing with wonderful regularity, and extending in long, ray-like 

 processes of cloud to an altitude of some twenty degrees above the horizon. Before eleven o'clock, 

 these processes had become long, stratiform, illuminated clouds, beautifully marked, of a breadth, 

 measured roughly by the eye, of four or five degrees, interrupted where they crossed the illumi- 

 nated region of the sun, but everywhere else extending over the heavens to the south and west 

 (true) ; and, although still diminishing in intensity, extending nearly to the eastern quarter of 

 the sky. By coalescing at their bases, these radiating processes augmented the size of the 

 central segment. The intervals between them appeared, by contrast, to be artificially illuminated. 



Till now there had been no movement; but, at llh. 20m., these cloud-like processes or radiations 

 strikingly resembled the rays or beams of a coruscating Auroral arch. Dr. Vreeland and 

 myself witnessed repeatedly interruptions of their continuity ; then suddenly shootings out, or 

 iucreasings of their length; and then a rapid and momentary formation, followed by a sudden 

 and complete disappearance. 



At this time, too, a strange wavy movement was seen about the shorter prolongations in the 

 neighborhood of the vertex of the mass. These resembled the rising wreaths of 'frost-smoke' 

 seen in the Wellington Channel, and had an appearance almost of combustion. 



During all these phases, the cloud-like character was singularly preserved; the rays appeared to 

 modify the processes as light would behind our ordinary clouds. The whole exhibition was a 

 daylight one, perfectly cloud-like, differing only in the elements of shape, movement, and radiated 

 illumination. It was a day Aurora. 



The appearance continued until twenty minutes of meridian. At llh. 10m., when it was at its 

 maximum, the rayed prolongations stretched nearly across the sky ; and the centre -of the mass 

 from which they emanated was fifteen degrees west from the south pole of the needle. At about 

 the same deviation — viz : N. by E. -i E — and at a rude altitude of about fifteen or twenty 

 degrees, was an irregular cirro-cumulated cloud of the same purple tint, but not so much illn- 

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