38G WINTER-LIFE AT FORT SIMPSON. 



violet hues predominating ; the entire display was of a 

 bright greenish golden colour or light. To the north- 

 ward a few light and faint vertical patches were visible. 

 " At midnight a serpentine arch or band — composed 

 of series of vertical lines in continual motion through- 

 out its length — extended from E.S.E., considerably 

 to the southward of the zenith, to W., its vertex 

 sinking slowly towards the S.W. horizon ; in this 

 also colours were finely though transitorily displayed, 

 the main body being of the same hue as before. 



" Five minutes after midnight this arch suddenly 

 dispersed itself over all the sky to the northward, and 

 partly also to the southward, of the zenith in beams, 

 , rays, streamers, and every imaginable disposition 

 of lines, the most remarkable being innumerable 

 vertical patches, with which the sky was as it were 

 powdered, all bright and all in motion ; a narrow, 

 but brilliant serpentine band — a perfect fringe of 

 blazing light — rose at east, and ran at a small distance 

 above the horizon, through north to west. 



" The weather was clear and calm, but I am 

 disposed to conjecture that the instantaneous dis- 

 persion of one portion, which occurred with lightning- 

 like celerity, and the unceasing motion of the whole 

 display, were caused by conflicting currents of air in 

 the higher regions of the atmosphere." 



