Prof. Hansteen on the Fog of the Polar Regions. S37 
manner : A greater inclination of the needle proves a smaller 
distance from the magnetic poles, and, consequently, from the 
place from which the polar lights issue. But if this meteor 
has any influence on the temperature, the mean temperature in 
the same parallel must decrease as the inclination increases ; and, 
consequently, the isothermic lines have the same curvature as 
the lines of inclination. 
It is a matter of experience perfectly well known here in the 
north, which I have found confirmed by the observation of a 
good many years, that the aurora borealis is generally accom- 
panied by strong biting cold. When a sudden cold succeeds a 
milder day, it is often accompanied for the first two evenings by 
the aurora borealis, and likewise by a considerable increase of 
magnetic intensity. These three phenomena are for the most 
part contemporaneous ; but where they are not so, experience 
has taught me, with considerable certainty, to view the one as a 
near forerunner of the other. The magnetic powers seem thus 
to act a part in meteorology hitherto unknown. There are, per- 
haps, various other powers unseen by us, operating in the great 
chemical laboratory of this globe. The possibility of this ought 
to teach the prognosticators of the weather some diffidence, when 
they imagine that, from the situation of the heavenly bodies, or 
a few circumstances perhaps of little influence, they can foresee 
its approaching changes ; while these are the result of the general 
powers of the globe, acting from the centre to the surface, and 
from pole to pole, excited by the light of the sun and moon, and 
modified in countless ways, by local circumstances of the most 
different nature. 
Is it so, then, that the polar lights have a certain connexion with 
the magnetism of the earth, and the diminution of temperature 
with the polar lights and a higher magnetic intensity ? We are 
then, perhaps, prepared to explain the seemingly permanent 
changes of climate in certain northern regions of the globe, if these 
changes can be actually proved to have taken place. But the 
accurate observation of temperature by the thermometer, is still 
too recent a discovery, and the range of thermometrical observa- 
tions in the same place, too limited, to enable us to determine this 
point with absolute certainty. In the mean time, the surround- 
ing of the east coast of Greenland with ice, for a number of ages, 
