174 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



The northern h'ghts are very interesting. They are very bright, 

 often lighting the prairie as good as the full moon. I have seen two- 

 thirds of the sky covered with the fiery-green darting rays. I did 

 not think they would be visible to the south of us, but sometimes 

 they appear a long way south of us. The whole sky seems to be a 

 waving mass of green fire ; they are at their best at 9.30 p. m. 



One night I saw something a little out of the usual line, a lum- 

 inous spot appeared directly overhead, and faint rays ran out in all 

 directions from it. It gradually lightened till the whole thing was 

 blazing very brightly with a great variety of color, red being the most 

 prominent. The centre was a fiery cloud ; the rays seemed to point 

 down to the earth on all sides, forming a fiery canopy. It lasted 

 only a minute or two and then faded away. 



I have heard of a horse being killed by a flash of lightning from 

 a clear sky, but did not see how it could be possible. One Sunday 

 night, however, after we had had a storm the sky cleared up entirely, 

 and at sunset only a huge mountain of cloud was visible. It was 

 miles away in the south-east. All at once a loud report directly over 

 our heads made us look up just in time to see a white streak darting 

 across the dark blue sky. . It went straight north, but did not strike 

 at the earth. There was no cloud within fifty miles of us, except 

 the huge bank in the south-east, and it was at least 20 miles away. 

 That is the only time I have ever seen such a thing occur. I have 

 seen a few hail storms. One gave us hail stones as big as your fist. 

 They were slightly flattened, and one side hollow so they resembled 

 birds' nests. They fell at night, so no damage was done to people 

 or stock. I believe one of them would have killed a man. 



