MORE OF AURORAL MAGNIFICENCE. 



153 



movements as quick as the eye could follow. It seemed as if 

 there was a struggle with these heavenly lights to reach and occu- 

 py the dome above our heads. Then the whole arch above be- 

 came crowded. Down, down it came ; nearer and nearer it ap- 

 proached us. Sheets of golden flame, coruscating while leaping 

 from the auroral belt, seemed as if met in their course by some 

 mighty agency that turned them into the colors of the rainbow, 

 each of the seven primary, 3° in width, sheeted out to 21° ; the 

 prismatic bows at right angles with the belt. 



" While the auroral fires seemed to be descending upon us, one 

 of our number could not help exclaiming, 



" 1 Hark ! hark ! such a display ! almost as if a warfare was go- 

 ing on among the beauteous lights above — so palpable — so near 

 — seems impossible without noise.' 



"But no noise accompanied this wondrous display. All was 

 silence. 



" After we had again descended into our cabin, so strong was 

 the impression of awe left upon us that the captain said to me, 



"'Well, during the last eleven years I have spent mostly in 

 these northern regions, I never have seen any thing of the aurora 

 to approach the glorious vivid display just witnessed. And, to 

 tell you the truth, Friend Hall, / do not care to see the like ever 

 again? " 



That this display was more than ordinarily grand was evi- 

 denced by the testimony of the Innuits, particularly Tookooli- 

 to, who, when she came on board a few days afterward, stated 

 that she had been much struck by its remarkable brilliancy, and 

 that "it had exceeded in beauty and magnificence all displays 

 ever before witnessed by her." I would here make the remark 

 that the finest displays of the aurora only last a few moments. 

 Though it may be playing all night, yet it is only now and then 

 that its grandest displays are made. As if marshaling forces, 

 gathering strength, compounding material, it continues on in its 

 silent workings. At length it begins its trembling throes ; beau- 

 ty anon shoots out here and there, when all at once the aurora 

 flashes into living hosts of powdered coruscating rainbows, belting 

 the heavenly dome with such gorgeous grandeur sometimes that 

 mortals tremble to behold ! 



On October 13th we had an unexpected arrival. A steamer 

 and a sailing vessel were observed coming up from sea, and in 

 the evening both vessels anchored on the opposite side of Field 



