,s4 Noise from the Aurora {?). [October, isoj. 



Hall found liimself unable to decide whether any noise actually 

 proceeded from the aurora. On questioning the Innuits as to whether 

 they were accustomed to hear noises during its display, they answered 

 "Yes;" one of them endeavoring to imitate the sound by a puffing 

 noise from his mouth, which noise, Hall says, did remarkably accord 

 with what he thought he had heard himself during the time of tljo 

 most active displays.* Auroral action of equal interest occurred 

 repeatedly during the month. 



On the 21st, Hall endeavored to erect a magnetic observatory. 

 Armou cut out the snow-blocks and sledged them to the center of a 

 fresh-water pond about fifty yards from the igloo and covered with ice 

 several feet in thickness. Hall assisted in the building, passing the blocks 

 of snow, wliich on the back and on the north side of the building were 

 placed in two tiers half way up, making a double wall to shield from 



* Lieutenant Hooper, E. N., second in command of Lieutenant Pulleu's Boat-Expedition 

 from Icy Cape to Mackenzie River, spent the winter of 1849-'50 near Fort Franklin, on Bear 

 Lake. He wrote in liis journal : " I liave heard the aurora, not once, but many times ; not faintly 

 and indistinctly, but loiully and unmistakably ; now from this quarter, now from that, now from 

 one point on high, and at another lime from one low down. At tirst it seemed to resemble the 

 sound of iield-ice, then it was like the sound of a water-mill, and, at last, like the whirring of a 

 cann<ui-shot heard from a short distance." 



But at a later dale in his Arctic life Hooper says : " I fancied that I heard this iinroni, but 

 the noise was indulntably produced by the cracking of the ice on the lake." 



"There is uo satisfactory evidence," says Professor Loomis, " that the aurora ever emits au 

 audibh; sound. The sound sup])osed to have been heard has been doscril)ed as a rustling, hiss- 

 ing, crackling noise. But the most competent observers, who have spent several w^inters in tlio 

 Arctic liegions, where auroras arc seen in their greatest l)rilliancy, have been convinced th.-it this 

 sujtposed rustling is a mere illusion. It is, therefore, inferred tliat the sounds which have been 

 ascribed to the aurora must have been due to other causes, such as the motion of the wind, or the 

 crackling of the snow and ice in consequence of their low temperature. If the aurora emitted 

 any audibh; sound, this sound ought to follow the auroral movement after a considerable inter- 

 val. Sound requires four minutes to travel a distance of iiO miles. But the observers who report 

 noises succeeding auroral movements make no mention of any interval. It is, therefore, inferred 

 that the sounds which have been heard during auroral exhibitions are to lie ascribed to other 

 causes than the aurora." (Treati.se on Meteorology, p. 186.) 



Ilearne says that the Northern Indians call the aurora cd-thin, i. e., deer, from their hav- 

 ing seen hairy deer-skin, when l»riskly stroked, emit electric s]>arks. The Southern Indians 

 believe it to be tin; spirits of departed friends danciiiL;. When the .lurora v:iries in ccdor and 

 form, they say their deeensed friends are nrij mirrij. 



