INTRODUCTION. 



character, that the impression they leave is similar to that of the above-mentioned auroral observation. 

 We shall return to this parallelism between aurora and magnetic disturbances later. 



Fig. 4. Sukkertop and Talviktop. 



2. The second aurora expedition, 



from September, 1899, to April, 1900, had 

 stations upon the top of two mountains 

 about 3000 feet in height, Sukkertop 

 and Talviktop, situated in the moun- 

 tain district of Haldde, on the west side 

 of the Alten Fjord, between Kaafjord 

 and Talvik. 



As long before as the autumn of 

 1897, after my unsuccessful first expedi- 

 tion, I had again been up in Finmark 

 to find a mountain that would do for 

 my auroral investigations. After ascend- 

 ing and examining six of the highest 

 mountains about Kaafjord, and the Lang 



Fjord, I decided on Sukkertop and Talviktop the latter situated at a distance of 3^4 kilometres to the 

 north of the first-named mountain as most suitable for my purpose. 



I then obtained a grant from the State in order to build two small mountain observatories on these 

 summits. They were built of stone and cement, and were finished in September, 1899; so upon those 

 Haldde mountains, right in the southern margin of the auroral zone, there now stand two of the best 



auroral observatories in the world. In 

 clear weather everything that takes place 

 in the sky can be observed, from the 

 point where it begins to that where it 

 leaves off. The view is uninterrupted, 

 and from both observatories, but espe- 

 cially the highest and northernmost, there 

 is a panorama stretching from the sharp, 

 blue peaks of the Kvaenang mountains 

 in the west, to the softer outlines of the 

 Porsanger mountains in the east, and 

 from the precipitous cliffs of Lang Fjord 

 and Stjerne Island in the north to the 

 mountain plateau in the south, stretching 

 inland in undulating lines as far as the 

 eye can see, in towards the winter home 

 Fig. 5. On the way to Snkkertop. of the mountain Lapps. And far below 



lies the fjord like a dark channel that 

 is continued in the Alten valley itself and its numerous branches. 



The expedition of 1899 1900 was furnished, inter alia, with self-registering barometers, thermo- 

 meters, and hygrometers, and also with apparatus for the photographic registration of the three com- 

 ponents of terrestrial magnetism, and of the electric condition of the atmosphere. On Sukkertop we 



