THE OPTICAL PHENOMENA OP THE ATMOSPHERE. 221 
attended with hazy weather and small rain : I think I am war- 
ranted, from experience, to say, constantly ; for, in twenty-three 
instances that hare occurred since I first made the observation, 
it has invariably obtained. 
“Sailing down the English Channel, in 1769, a few days 
before the autumnal equinox, we had a remarkably bright and 
vivid Aurora the whole night. In-shore, the wind was fluc- 
tuating between N.N.W. and N.W. ; and farther out, "VV.N.W. 
Desirous of benefiting by the land wind, and also of taking 
advantage of an earlier ebb tide, I dispensed with the good old 
marine adage, never to approach too near a weather- shore, 
lest it should prove a lee-shore ; and by short tacks clung close 
along the English coast. Next day the wind veered to the S.W., 
and soon after S.S.W., and sometimes S. We were then in 
that dangerous bay between Portland and the Start Point, and 
carried a pressing sail, with hopes of reaching Torbay before 
dark ; but night fell upon us with thick haze and small rain, 
insomuch that we could not have seen the land the distance of 
a ship’s length. The gale now increased to a storm ; nothing 
remained but to endeavour to keep off the shore till the wind 
should change. Luckily our ship was a stout one, and well 
rigged. 
“ Since I have made this observation, I have got out of the 
Channel, when other men as alert and in faster ships, but unap- 
prised of this circumstance, have not only been driven back, 
but with difficulty escaped shipwreck.”* 
Colonel Capper remarks : — 
“ As it appears that on all such occasions the current of air 
comes in a direction diametrically opposite to that where the 
meteor appears, it seems probable that the Aurora Borealis is 
caused by the ascent of a considerable quantity of electric fluid in 
the superior regions of the atmosphere to the N. and N.E., where, 
consequently, it causes a body of air near the earth to ascend, 
when another current of air will rush from the opposite point 
to fill up the vacuum, and thus may produce the southerly gales 
which succeed to the Aurora Borealis, &c.” 
The earliest notice we possess of the Aurora is to be found in 
the writings of Aristotle. Other classical writers also allude to 
it. In 1574, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, there was a fine 
display seen in this country, which Stow thus describes : — • 
“ The fourteenth of Non ember being Sunday, about midnight following, 
diners strange impressions of fire and smoake were seene in the ayre, to 
proceede foorth of a black cloude in the North towards the South, which 
so continued til the next morning that it was daylight. The next night 
following, the lieauens from all parts did seeme to burne marueilous 
* Phil. Trans, vol, lxiv. p. 128. 1774- 
