102 



AURORA BOREALIS. 



been observed, that this phenomenon is not 

 vivid in very high latitudes, and that its seat 

 appears to be about the latitude of 60°. 



Many of the Indians have a pleasing and 

 romantic idea of this meteor. They believe the 

 northern lights to be the spirits of their departed 

 friends dancing in the clouds, and when they 

 are remarkably bright, at which time they vary 

 most in form and situation, they say that their 

 deceased friends are making merry. 



The northern Indians call the Aurora Borealis 

 " Edthin, i. e. Deer, from having found that 

 when a hairy deer-skin is briskly stroked with 

 the hand in a dark night, it will emit many 

 sparks of electrical fire as the back of a cat 

 will." 



On the 5th of October we reached the en- 

 campment of Pigewis, the chief of the .Red 

 River Indians ; and on pitching our tents for the 

 night a little way farther up on the banks of 

 the river, he came with his eldest son and 

 another Indian and drank tea with me in the 

 evening. It was the first time that I had met 

 with him, since I received the encouraging 

 information from the Church Missionary So- 

 ciety, relative to the Mission School at the 

 Colony, and I was glad of the opportunity of 

 assuring him, through the aid of an interpreter. 



