SCIENCE 



NEW YORK, DECEMBER 9, 1893. 



BRILLIANT AURORA OF 1893. 



BY LEWIS SWIFT, EOCHESTEK, N. T. 



The months of June and July of the current year will long be 

 remembered as having afforded three interesting auroral displays, 

 one of them being of unrivalled splendor and intensity. Of all 

 the newspaper descriptions of them which I have read, not one 



portrays them as seen from the flat roof of the Warner Observa- 

 tory with an unobstructed horizon. Two of these exhibitions I 

 consider unique if not unexampled. 



On the evening of June 16, just before midnight, turning my 

 eye from the telescope, a bright narrow beam of light was seen 

 extending from the western horizon to an elevation of some 50°, 

 at right angles to the magnetic meridian, and, of course, parallel 

 with its equator. Here it divided into six parallel bands or 

 branches, like six gigantic fingers of an outstretched hand, which 

 continued to 5" beyond Alpha Cygni, or to a length of more than 

 60°, when they all sharply ended (Fig. 1). After a visibility of 

 about twenty minutes it slowly disappeared, and was the only 

 sign of aurora observed during that entire night. 



Again, at early twilight on the evening of July 16, a portion of 

 a faint auroral band some 15° in length was observed just south 

 of Alpha Aquilla, having on the south side two, and on the north, 



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one short, narrow band close to. though not touching, the princi- 

 pal one. This, being so far south, was of itself an uncommon 

 occurrence, and, as twilight deepened into night, a slender stem 

 not exceeding 15° in width issued from the western end and 

 gradually lengthened, curving to the south-west and south until, 

 like a mighty sickle, the band serving for a handle and the curved 

 ray for its cutting blade, it reached nearly to the south-western 

 horizon fFig. 3). It lasted about a half- hour, growing brighter 

 and longer as twilight increased, when it quite suddenly disap- 

 peared. Immediately after, a rosy cloud and tinted streamers 



appeared in the north we^t, and the grandest auroral display of 

 the century commenced. 



During thirty five years of out-door night work I have never 

 seen any auroral phenomena at all resembling these two instances, 

 and would much like to know if these appearances were wit- 

 nessed by other observers elsewhere 



A perfect auroral exhibition consists of at least ten distinct 

 phenomena. It is very seldom, however, that all or even a ma- 

 jority of the requisites are present at any one display. They are 

 here namerl in the order of their most usual appearance: 1, evenly 

 diffused light in the north; 2, a dark arch whose apex is in the 

 magnetic meridian; 3, streamers; 4, luminous patches, especially 

 in the north-west, sometimes of a red color, often for a long time 

 stationary; 5, colored pHtches and streamers; 6, merry dancers ; 

 7, corona in the magnetic meridian and equator, the point 

 where the streamers seem by perspective to converge ; 8, streamers 

 issuing south from the corona, occasionally extending to near 

 the southern horizon ; 9, curtains, with frilled, wavy edges, appar- 

 ently suspended from the sky; 10, narrow luminous bands, often 

 reaching from the eastern to the western horizon, always at a 

 right angle to the magnetic meridian, but seldom, if ever, coin- 

 cident with its equator. 



As seen from this station by myself, my assistant, and a friend, 

 all of the above features, save the hanging curtains, were simul- 

 taneously visible. 



That there is a connection between the aurora and sun-spots is 

 quite generally conceded, though denied by some eminent authori- 

 ties. We know that auroras frequently occur when no spots are 

 visible on the sun, and that sun-spots are often seen when auroral 

 exhibitions, either boreal or austral, are entirely absent, but to 

 this the advocates of the theory make answer to the former that 

 sun-spots may have been on the other side of the sun, and, to 

 the latter objection, that there may have been aurorse visible only 

 in the Arctic or the Antarctic regions, or in both. But there is 

 need of further confirmatory evidence by the general co-operation 

 of astronomers in the collection of enlarged data for the estab- 

 lishment, modification, or complete rejection of the prevailing 

 theory that sun-spots, aui'orse, and terrestrial magnetism are in- 

 timately connected. 



Intelligence has just reached me that the famous display of 

 July 16 was also witnessed from the southern hemisphere on a 

 scale of grandeur comparable to our own. This simultaneity of 

 the phenomena at both terrestrial poles suggests the question 

 whether this is always the case. 



When the writer was a lad, in perhaps the year 1834 or 5, the 

 sky being densely cloudy and the ground covered with snow, he 

 saw at eight o'clock one evening every visible object, especially 

 the snow and sky, suddenly assume a bright crimson red. He 

 wonders if any reader of Science recalls that memorable spectacle 

 which appalled so many people. He does not remember to have 

 ever seen an explanation of the ghastly phenomenon from any 

 country where the sky was cloudless, but it was, doubtless, 

 caused by an extraordinarily tinted aurora. 



BIOLOGICAL NOTES FROM NEW ZEALAND. 



BY GEO, 51. THOMSON, DUNEDIN, N.Z. 



A VERY interesting feature in connection with the flora of New 

 Zealand is the rarity of those plant structures which are correlated 

 with the presence of mammalia. If we except the spiny Aciphyl- 

 las, there is not a single species of plant peculiar to these islands 

 which shows any contrivance either for distribution by. or pro- 

 tection against, mammals, even where other species of the same 

 genus are so modified in other parts of the world. Aciphylla is a 



