THE AURORA BOREALIS. 195 



wind blew over tlie mountains accompanied by 

 fine sleet that it was impossible to face. In 

 the evenings it often cleared up, and during 

 the early part of the night the sky would 

 sometimes become clear and starlit, and we 

 made sure the weather was going to be fine on 

 the following day, but morning after morning 

 we were disappointed. 



One night about the middle of September we 

 beheld a magnificent display of the Aurora 

 Borealis. Across the inky blackness of the 

 northern sky a great arc of pure white light 

 was suddenly stretched, which lit up the snow- 

 covered mountains around our camp like a 

 gigantic searchlight, and from the main body 

 of this glorious sheet of flame great darts and' 

 streamers constantly shot shivering and shim- 

 mering through the sky, now opening out into 

 broad white lanes of light, and again narrowing 

 until swallowed up once more by the envious 

 darkness of the surrounding sky. 



These wondrous polar lights were never still 

 for a moment, but constantly spread and 

 contracted, in ever-varying waves and tongues 



