AURORA 



scription. There are five banks and three hos- 

 Ivent College, the Jennings Sem- 

 inary, three business colleges, two mu 

 colleges, two high schools and a Carnegie Li- 

 brary serve the educational interests, and thirty- 

 nine churches are distributed throughout the 

 city. Phillips Park (twenty acres), Fox River 

 Park (fifteen acres), Lincoln Park and Mc- 

 Kinley Park are the recreation and beauty 

 spots of the city, and Sylvandell. an immense 

 dance hall, is a popular amusenlfent resort. The 

 extensive car shops of the Chicago, Burlington 

 A Quincy Railroad, with 1,600 employees, 

 are located here. Machine shops, flour and 

 woolen mills, stove and iron works, smelting 

 and refining works and cotton factories are 

 among the industrial establishments. J.M.P. 



AURORA, ONT., a town in York County, 

 twenty miles north of Toronto, with which it 

 is connected by electric lines and by the 

 Grand Trunk and the Canadian Northern rail- 

 ways. It receives hydro-electric power from 

 Niagara Falls and claims to have the cheap- 

 est power and lighting rate of any city of its 

 size in the province. It has a number of im- 

 portant industrial establishments, including 

 flour mill, tannery, planing mill and agricul- 

 tural implement, furniture and boot and shoe 

 factories. The $30,000 Dominion post office, 

 completed in 1915, is a conspicuous building. 

 Aurora was settled in 1857 and was incor- 

 porated as a town in 1885.. Population in 

 1911,1,901; in 1916, estimated, 2,500. W.J.B. 



AURORA BOREALIS, awro'ra boreay'lis, 

 or NORTHERN LIGHTS, the northern Polar 

 lights, a peculiar stream of light of great 

 beauty, seen a short time after sunset and 

 continuing sometimes through the night. The 

 Aurora Australia is the corresponding light 

 seen in the southern hemisphere. The path 

 of light usually forms a fiery arch across the 

 northern sky, with its ends on the east and 

 west horizons and its streams of light ascend- 

 ing from a line of haze or cloud sometimes 

 to a point almost directly overhead. Its rays 

 are transient and constantly in motion, vary- 

 in color from a greenish hue or a pale 

 yi How to a deep, blood red, and its shapes 

 are infinite in number. The zone wherein the 

 aurora is seen most frequently in the northern 

 hemisphere has its center near the southern 

 part of Hudson Bay. As one travels south 

 of that point, the aurora is observed less fre- 

 quently ; near the equator it is rarely seen. 



These auroras are caused by the passage of 

 electricity through the rarified upper atmos- 



480 AUSTEN 



anil in adjacent regions are accom- 

 panied by loud noises which nx-inhle electrical 

 Hashes and the crackling of fire crackers. A 

 similar effect is produced by passing electrical 

 currents through rarified air or puses. During 



MM 



=i=: 



AURORA BOREALIS 



Characteristic appearance in the Polar re- 

 gions, where the display is most brilliant. 



the appearance of an aurora the magnetic 

 needle is subject to disturbances, showing a 

 close connection between the aurora and mag- 

 netism. See ELECTRICITY; MAGNETISM. 



AUSABLE CHASM, awsa'b'l kaz'm, a pic- 

 turesque gorge on the Ausable River in New 

 York, one of the most attractive spots in the 

 state. Hundreds of tourists visit it each year, 

 either on foot or in the small boats which ply 

 the river. It is about two miles long, and 

 in some places its vertical walls are 175 feet 

 high. On both sides steep ravines, overgrown 

 with dusky cedars and pines, lead into it, 

 and a walk along the edge of the precipices 

 and over the bridges which arch these fissures 

 well repays the visitor. Geologists also find 

 there formations which are of interest and 

 importance. Ausable Chasm is twelve miles 

 from Plattsburg and one mile from Keese- 

 ville. 



AUSTEN, JANE (1775-1817), an English 

 writer who has had no superior among novel- 

 ists in ability to fashion an interesting story 

 from the everyday happenings of life in a 

 small village. She was born in Steventon, 

 a village of Hampshire, the daughter of a 

 clergyman. Her mother was a niece of Theoph- 



