3 76 Miscellanies. 
MISCELLANIES. 
DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN. 
1. Aurora Borealis of September 3, 1839.—The following extracts 
from observations made at Middlebury, Vt., by Prof. A. C. Twining, 
(and published in the People’s Press, Sept. 10, 1839,) were intended 
for insertion among other accounts at p. 261, but they were unavoida- 
bly omitted. 
At 7h. 23m. P. M.—daylight being yet strong enough for ordinary 
purposes of vision—an irregular belt of thin whitish clouds was seen 
over head, lying east and west; its constituent strata manifesting a 
tendency to arrange themselves in lines directed towards the magnetic 
pole, through which the southern boundary of the belt passed, leav- 
ing the hemisphere south of the pole unclouded. By attentive obser- 
vation, some of the clouds were seen to vanish so suddenly as to 
make it evident that the belt was auroral in its nature. Rosy tints 
were also just discernible in the N. E. and N. W.; and soon after in the 
N., faint streamers of light. The belt might probably have been seen 
earlier if my attention had been directed to it. As daylight departed, 
the phenomena became more decided. At 7h. 33m. a corona was 
discernible at the magnetic pole. The belt moved south—rapidly at 
first—then, to appearance, more slowly, and at last almost impercep- 
tibly ; the streaks which composed it blending their light, as they 
became more distant, till at 7h. 43m. they formed a twilight in the 
south, having a southern or lower boundary in the form of an arch, 
whose crown was elevated 10°, and beneath which arch the sky was 
clear, and dark by contrast, as often seen in the north. 
Various evolutions of the aurora presented themselves from this 
until 9h. 5m. when the arrangement was beautifully symmetrical. 
A broad, fan-like sheet, having its vertex at the corona, and opening 
towa,_ the horizon, seemed to be let down over the southern quarter 
from E. to W., presenting an assemblage of white, yellow, and red 
streamers, indescribably grand. The corona also was perfect, and 
exhibited all around a fine striated and mottled appearance, like the 
most delicately figured fancy-work. From 9h. 21m. to 9h. 23m. the 
aspects were of such glory and beauty as to excite transports of ad- 
miration. I have witnessed all the remarkable auroras of the last 
five years, in the latitude of New Haven, Conn., but this, for the time 
just specified, as least doubled in splendor the finest of them all. * * * 
At 9h. 31m. the aurora was comparatively faint, but embraced the 
entire concave ;—streamers ascending from every side towards and 
up to the corona, like the rafters of adome. Just at this moment 
