462 THE FRANKLIN SEAUCff— 184:8-51. 



to me to resemble the sound of a field of ice cracking, then it was like the 

 distant stroke of an axe, then like the sound of pile-driving, and at last like 

 the whirring of a cannon-shot, when heard- from a short distance. At one 

 time three sounds of this kind followed in rapid succession, and I thought 

 I could see the mass whence the noise proceeded, trembling and vibrating 

 far above me. The night was intensely cold ; the sky perfectly clear ; the 

 stars shining as brilliantly through the masses of luminous fluid, as in that 

 part of the heavens which was unoccupied by the aurora — the wind was 

 from north-north-west. I have read in other northern voyages that the 

 sound produced by the aurora resembles the cracking of a whip, but I heard 

 nothing like this to-night. In a few minutes the character of the pheno- 

 menon changed; the tremors and rays all disappeared, and nothing was 

 presented to the view but a long arch from east-south-east to south-west, 

 banking in a rising mass of clouds ; but I still heard occasionally the sounds 

 as before, much subdued indeed, and less frequent now." 



Thus the question of whether auroral displays are accompanied by sound 

 seems settled, and Wordsworth is justified — 



" In sleep I heard the northern gleams ; 

 The stars were mingled with my dreams : 

 In sleep did I behold the skies, 



I saw the crackling flashes drive 

 And yet they are upon my eyes." 



But it must be remembered that the description of the aurora given above, 

 from Hooper's manuscript journal, was written early in the winter season, 

 and before he was sufiiciently familiar with the sounds of the Arctic winter 

 to be able to attribute all of them to their true causes. In his unpublished 

 journal the following passage occurs, under the heading 12th December, or 

 three days after the great auroral display above described : " The wind was 

 from north-west. The aurora at night was very brilliant. I again heard 

 the cracking sounds proceeding from it ; and though our fisherman insisted 

 it was the cracking of the ice on Bear Lake, I retired to rest, perfectly con- 

 vinced I was in the right. [13th December] I found this day that the 

 fisherman was quite right, for I heard in broad daylight the sounds which 

 I had imagined to proceed from the aurora. I now am quite convinced 

 that they were caused by the ice cracking." Again, in the published narra- 

 tive of his sojourn at the Hudson's Bay Company's forts, which appears as 

 a pendant to the writer's <' Ten Months among the Tents of the Tuski," the 

 following passage, written after more extended experience and mature 

 reflection, occurs, in reference to the display of the 9th December : " On 

 this occasion I fancied that I heard the aurora, and so much was judgment 

 misled by imagmation, that I thought I saw the masses vibrating after con- 



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