156 
VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 
1820. 
March. 
Thurs. 9 
of a horizontal circle of pale white light passed through the sun’s disk, and 
across the two lower parhelia, being much more bright without than within 
them. By looking at the sun through a coloured glass, a column of light was 
seen under it, as often observed before. The brightness of the whole phe- 
nomenon varied every instant, on account of the snow-drift. 
c 
I 
When this phenomenon had continued about an hour and a half, we per- 
ceived a segment of another circle above the first, and inverted with regard to 
it, as at c, its centre being somewhere near the zenith. The distance from the 
sun to c was about 54°, as nearly as the indistinctness of the latter would 
allow of its being measured. The whole disappeared in two hours and a half 
from its commencement, during which time, the thermometer was from — 16° 
to — 20°, and the weather fine and clear over head. From nine P.M., till 
midnight, the Aurora Borealis appeared faintly in the horizon to the south, 
occasionally streaming towards the zenith in coruscations of pale white light. 
On the 9th, it blew a hard gale from the northward and westward, raising 
a snow-drift which made the day almost as inclement as in the midst of winter. 
The wind very suddenly ceased in the evening, and while the atmosphere 
