356 SHOWERS OF ICE CRYSTALS. 



crystals. * The Aurora Borealis is another phenomenon 

 everywhere visible throughout the arctic regions, 

 which is seen in Newfoundland, according to the same 

 authority, " in exceptional brilliancy and finer even 

 than in the arctic regions." f 



Be this as it may, in fine weather the still glory 

 of an arctic night constitutes a spectacle of majestic 

 grandeur, which in its way is unexampled in other 

 lands. Even in the most northern regions yet visited 

 by man, according to Dr. Moss, 



" The weather during winter is as a rule so calm and 

 clear, that observations on the stars can be made almost at 

 any time. But it was not a little remarkable (he goes on to 

 say) that even at the clearest time, some icy dust, too fine 

 to be called snow, was always falling." 



These ice crystals sometimes seem to fall in consider- 

 able quantities; and the phenomenon is by no means 

 confined to the arctic zone only, for we have seen 

 showers of these minute crystals falling during the 

 brilliant sunshine of a cold day at home, glittering like 

 gems of the purest water, as they slowly descended 

 through the sunlit atmosphere, and as regards their 

 quantity in the Polar Regions, 



" On the 2yth December 1875, at the winter quarters of the 

 Alert, when it was so clear that a star of the 3rd magni- 

 tude less than three degrees from the horizon could be satis- 

 factorily observed," Dr. Moss says that "in 12 hours, a 

 glass plate exposed on the top of a neighbouring hill collected 

 a quantity of little crystals, equal to nine tons per square mile."** 



* See Description of Winter in Newfoundland in Colonial Year Book 

 for 1892, by A. J. R. Trendall, p. 76. 



y Ibid., p. 76. 



The Shores of the Polar Sea, illust folio by Dr. Edwd. L. Moss, 

 M.D., 1878, p. 44. 



** Ibid., p. 44. 



