2ci2 Auroras uf fhi' Eastern Hemisphere. 



extinct just as tlR'V came. * * * But, again, another form. Bands 

 of every i)0ssible form and intensity have been driving over the heavens. It is 

 now 8 o'clock at night, the hour of the greatest intensity of the northern lights. 

 For a moment some bundles of rays only are to be seen in the sky. In the south 

 a taint, scarcely-observable band lies close to the horizon. All at once it rises 

 rapidly and spreads east and vrest. The waves of light begin to dart and shoot; 

 some rays mount toward the zenith. For a short time it remains stationary, then 

 suddenly springs to life. The Avaves of light drive violently from east to west; 

 the edges assume a deep red and green color, and dance up and down. The rays, 

 shoot up more rapidly; they become shorter; all rise together and approach 

 nearer and nearer to the magnetic pole. It looks as if there were a race among 

 ill*' rays, and that each aspired to reach the pole first. And now the point is 

 reached, and They shoot out on every side, to the north and the south, to the 

 east and the west. Do the rays shoot from above downward or from below 

 upward f "\Mio can distinguish ? From the center issues a sea of flames ; is that 

 sea red, white, or green! Who can say — it is all three colors at the same 

 monu'iit ! The rays reach almost to the horizon; the whole sky is in flames. 

 I>ature displays before us such an exhibition of fire- works as transcends the 

 powers of imagination to conceive. Involuntarily we listen : such a spectacle we 

 think iiuist be accompanied with sound. But unbroken stillness prevails; not 

 the least sound strikes on the ear. Once more it becomes clear over the ice, and 

 the wliole phenomenon has disaj^peared with the same inconceivable rapidity 

 with which it came, and gloomy night has again stretched her dark veil over 

 everything. This was the aurora of the coming storm — the aurora in its fullest 

 siilend(»r. Xo pencil can draw it, no colors can i)aint it, and no words can describe 

 it in all its magnificence. And here below stand we poor men and speak of 

 knowledge and progress, and j)ride ourselves on the understanding with which 

 we extort from Nature her mysteries. We stand and gaze on the mystery which 

 Nature has written for us in llaming letters ou the dark vault of night, and ulti- 

 mately we can only wonder and confess that, in truth we know nothing of it. He 

 \\ ho lias seen its phenomenon in its full splendor, when in the vast silence the 

 entire vault of heaven seems to consume in flames of intense colors, when streams 

 of Wvi-. Iiiiious and liantic in wild eliase all ai'ound, rush u])ward to the zenith, 

 lie who lias observed the excitement which in such moments manifests itself in 

 the elements (tf 'I'errestrial magnetism — to him it must become a life task to aid 

 in i(inu\iiiL: the thick \cil which shrouds this mysterious exhibition of Natiu'e's 

 ))o\ser. Aitlmiii;|i in most intimate coinieet ion w itli the disturbances of Terres- 



