No: 



1879] 



NATURE 



39 



Nordenskjold, of which it was known beforehand that it 

 would be a minimum aurora year. Just this circumstance 

 has, however, allowed me to study, in a specially suitable 

 region, this natural phenomenon under uncommonly favour- 

 able circumstances. For here the luminous arches, which 

 also in Scandinavia generally form the starting-points of 

 the ray-auroras, have shown themselves undimmed by the 

 more splendid forms of the aurora, and one could thus 

 devote one's self to collect observations towards a clearing- 

 up of the right nature of these arches undisturbed by 

 accidental accompaniments. Referring for details to a 

 paper he has sent home for publication in the Transac- 

 tions of the Swedish Academy of Sciences, he goes on to 

 -say that the aurora, during the winter 1878-79 never 

 appeared with the splendid bands or draperies of rays so 

 common in Scandinavia, but aljvays in the form of faint 

 luminous arches, which remained unaltered in position hour 

 after hour and day after day. They were constantly visible 

 when the sky was not clouded nor their feeble light 

 ■dimmed by the rays of the sun or the full moon. The 

 conclusions Nordenskjold draws from numerous measure- 

 ments of the height, extent, and position of these arches 

 are, that our globe, even during a minimum aurora 

 year, is ornamented with a nearly constant corona or circle 

 of light, single, double, or multiple, whose inner edge 

 •during the winter of 1878-79, had a height above the 

 surface of the earth of about yg^ of the earth's radius, 

 whose centre, the "aurora pole," was situated on the 

 radius of the earth which touches the surface about 8i°N. 

 lat. and 80° W. lat. (Greenwich), and which, with a dia- 

 meter of o - 3 of the earth's radius, extended itself in a 

 plane at right angles to the radius of the earth which 

 touches the centre of the circle. This circle of light 

 stands in the same relation to the ray- and drapery- 

 auroras of Scandinavia as the trade-winds and monsoons 

 in the south to the irregular winds and storms of the 

 north. Its light is never distributed into rays, but 

 resembles that which passes through obscured glass. 

 When the aurora becomes stronger the extent of the 

 circle of light is altered, double or multiple arches are 

 visible, generally l)ing in the same plane and with a 

 common centre, and rays are thrown out between the 

 different bows. Arches are seldom seen lying irregularly 

 to or crossing one another. The area within which the 

 common arch is visible (on the supposition that it can no 

 longer be distinguished when its altitude is only 4 above 

 the horizon) is bounded by two circles drawn upon theearth's 

 surface with the aurora pole as the centre, by radii revolving 

 round it at angles measured on the earth's circumference 

 of 8° and 28 . It touches only to an inconsiderable extent 

 lands inhabited by peoples of European origin (the 

 ■northernmost part of Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland, 

 and Danish Greenland), and even in the middle of this 

 area there is a belt passing over the middle of Greenland, 

 the south of Spitzbergen, and Franz Joseph's Land, where 

 the common bow commonly forms only a faint "veil" of 

 light in the zenith. This belt separates the regions 

 where the luminous arches are seen mostly on the southern 

 from those where they are seen mostly on the northern 

 horizon. In the area nearest the aurora pole only 

 the smaller, in the middle of Scandinavia only the 

 iarger and less regularly formed coronas are visible. 

 But in the last-mentioned region, as in Southern British 

 America, the aurora-storms and the ray- and drapery- 

 auroras become common. The region where the aurora 

 occurs in its most developed state is to be sought for 

 near the circle which, with the aurora pole as a centre, 

 is drawn on the surface of the earth with a radius at an 

 angle measured at the earth's circumference of about 24°. 

 The tidal observations, when compared with other 

 series made in the Arctic seas, give important indications 

 •regarding the distribution of land and sea in the Polar 

 basin. The greatest range at the Vega's winter-quarters 

 was only eighteen centimetres, which shows that the sea 



north of Behring's Straits forms a marine basin of limited 

 extent, connected with the ocean only by sounds. The 

 variations in the height of the water, produced by winds, 

 were much greater. They amounted nearly to two metres. 

 Still greater irregular changes in the position of land and 

 sea appear to have occurred within the memory of man. 

 For the Tchuktches were at one time afraid that the 

 Swedes would cause inundations along the coast. This 

 appears to show that the sudden changes in the position 

 of the earth which are well known in the volcanic regions 

 farther south had extended so far noth. As most of the 

 Tchuktch villages are situated close to the sea, one of 

 the mighty waves which earthquakes gire rise to would 

 completely destroy an immense number of them. 



The magnetical observations made during the winter- 

 ing, in an observatory built of ice and snow, which, being 

 necessarily on land, was at a very inconvenient distance 

 from the vessel, consisted of (1) absolute determinations 

 whenever opportunity offered ; (2) observations of the 

 changes in the strength and direction of the magnetic 

 forces made along with necessary absolute determinations 

 every hour between November 27 and April 1 ; (3) five- 

 minute observations on the 1st and 15th of every month 

 from and including January 15. 



With reference to the natural history of the region in 

 which the Vega wintered, Prof. Nordenskjold states that 

 it is very poor in the higher plants and fungi, but lichens 

 are abundant. The number of insects and other inverte- 

 brate land animals was very small. Land- and fresh- 

 water mollusca were completely wanting. Of coleoptera 

 only twenty species were found, belonging principally to 

 the families Carabi and Staphylini, with two Curculioncs 

 and Chrysomela, and the other orders appeared to be 

 equally poor, with the exception, perhaps, of the Diptera 

 vaAPodurida. On the other hand the sea-bottom, though 

 covered with a stratum of water always about 2° C. below the 

 freezing-point, swarmed with a large number and a great 

 variety of the lower animal types, of which the dredging- 

 boat almost daily made a rich collection in the channel, 

 which opened early in summer in the neighbourhood of 

 the vessel. Prof. Nordenskjold expected that the same 

 avifauna would be found with little variation in all the 

 Polar lands. Experience has, however, shown that this 

 is bv no means the case, the Tchuktch peninsula being 

 quite an exception. Birds here occur in much fewer 

 number, but in a much greater abundance of types than 

 in Novaya Zemlya, Spitzbergen, and Greenland, and the 

 bird- world in its entirety has thus quite a different stamp. 

 The birds common on Greenland, Spitzbergen, Novaya 

 Zemlya, and the coast of North-west Siberia, Lams 

 glaucus, ebumeus, and tridactylus, Harelda glacialis, 

 Somatcria spectabilis, Plectrophanes nivalis, Phalaropus 

 fulicarius, and Tringa maritima, the common raven 

 and several other species, are found here. But in 

 addition to these the following uncommon birds are 

 met with : — The American eider, the common 

 eider, Somateria mollissima, being absent ; a greyish- 

 brown goose with bushy yellowish-white feathers round 

 the neck ; a swan-like goose, white with black wing- 

 feathers, a species of Fuli^ula marked in white and 

 green with a fine black-velvet head, the beautifully- 

 marked, uncommon Larits Rossi; a little brown snipe 

 with a bill widened spoon-like at the point ; several 

 beautiful singers, among them Sylvia Eversmanni, which 

 for some days visited the coast in great flocks, probably 

 on their way to breeding-places farther north, or waiting 

 till the bushes in the interior should be free of snow. A 

 portion of the purely Scandinavian species here exhibit 

 some variations in colour-marking and size. 



The mammalia are also more numerous than in other 

 places visited by the Swedish expeditions. According 

 to Lieut. Nordquist the most common mammal is the 

 hare It differs from the common Scandinavian moun- 

 tain hare by its greater size (its weight often rising to 



