Aurora

“ With the appearance of the sun above the horizon the clouds gradually disappeared, the wind dropped, the surface of the ocean became like heaving oil; and the Aurora, losing steerage-way, rolled almost gunwale-to, with her canvas flapping loudly and monotonously against her masts. ”

“ But when its own sun began to rise on this pure world, I found myself a dweller in the dazzling halls of Aurora, into which poets have had but a partial glance over the eastern hills, drifting amid the saffron-colored clouds, and playing with the rosy fingers of the Dawn, in the very path of the Sun’s chariot, and sprinkled with its dewy dust, enjoying the benignant smile, and near at hand the far-darting glances of the god. The inhabitants of earth behold commonly but the dark and shadowy under-side of heaven’s pavement ”

“ Often, when the sunrise over the roofs is certainly the coming of Aurora, as though then the first illumination of the sky heralded the veritable dayspring for which we look, and the gods were nearly here, I have watched for that crust beneath, which seals the sleepers under, to heave and roll, to burst, and for released humanity to pour through fractures, from the lower dark, to be renewed in the fires of the morning. ”

“ Whether contemplated as the long low quiescent arc of silver light illuminating the landscape with a tender radiance, as broken clouds and columns of glowing ruddy light, or as sheaves of golden rays, aptly compared by old writers to aerial spears, such a spectacle cannot fail at all times to be a subject of admiration, in some cases even of awe.
Hence it is no wonder that the Aurora has always received a considerable amount of attention at the hands of scientific men. ”

“ And onward and onward rolls the cloud athwart the sky, blotting out the starlight—blotting out the beautiful Aurora—till the sea of ice for leagues around is canopied in darkness. But behold, over the mountain-top the cloud gets lighter in colour, for immense volumes of steam, solid sheets of water, and pieces of ice tons in weight, are being belched forth, or hurtled into the air with a continued noise that drowns the awful rhythm of the thunder itself. ”

“ If it shines there at all, it is but as the Northern Aurora with a little crackling noise, lending a feeble and uncertain light, not enough to walk with, and no warmth at all; a light which disturbs the dip and alters the variation of the old historical compass, bewilders the eye, hides the stars, and yet is not bright enough to walk by without stumbling. ”

“ It is she who throws open the gates of the sky for Phœbus Apollo to start upon his daily journey, just as it is Thetis who shuts them, and brings the twilight, when his journey is done.
Aurora is always glad and beautiful and young; always full of hope, because she closes her splendid wings and goes to sleep before the troubles of the day begin ”

“ And yet there is in the Arctic night much that is attractive to the lover of Nature. There is in the flashing Aurora, in the play of the moonlight upon the hills and icebergs, in the wonderful clearness of the starlight, in the broad expanse of the ice-fields, in the lofty grandeur of the mountains and the glaciers, in the naked fierceness of the storms, much that is both sublime and beautiful. ”

“ The earliest beams of Aurora light the humble apartment where this philosophic sage sleeps in undisturbed repose, and awake him to new enjoyments every day. As he rises from his bed, the cooing of the turtle-doves, and the morning songs of various kinds of birds, who make their nightly nests in an adjoining aviary, salute his ears, and welcome his approach. The first hour of the morning, and the last at night, are sacred to himself; but he devotes all the intermediate hours of every day to a sick and afflicted multitude, who daily attend him for advice and assistance. ”

“ At about half-past one on the 2nd of last September the rare phenomenon of the Aurora Australis manifested itself in a most magnificent manner. Our ship was off Cape Horn, in a violent gale, plunging furiously into a heavy sea, flooding her decks, and sometimes burying her whole bows beneath the waves. The heavens were as black as death, not a star was to be seen, when the brilliant spectacle first appeared. ”

“ In the midst of it floated the moon at the full, ablaze with abundant light, spilling it down in wasteful abundance mixed with the Aurora, coming to the silent earth to change it to a glistening, white fairy-land of unrivalled beauty. Far, far beyond in the clear depths of the cloudless sky a thousand, thousand stars sparkled intensely like well-set jewels. ”

“ In some countries the twilights are very long, and Aurora seems to linger on the hilltops. She sprinkles refreshing dew upon the thirsty flowers, who have bravely raised their heads to the sun all day. ”

“ On the opposite side shall be Night, and as Aurora rises, so must Night descend; as the one shows her face must the other turn her back; let the first rise from a tranquil sea, while the other must sink into a cloudy and troubled deep. The horses of Aurora must advance; those of Night must be departing. At a word, the whole presentment of the latter must differ from that of Aurora. ”

“ Oh, how bright and beautiful the Aurora, with its ever-changing tints of crimson, green, and blue; and the stars, how near they seem; and the silence, how deep, how awful! But see, a storm is coming across the pack, and clouds are banking up and hiding the glorious Aurora; now it is on us, and higher than the stars rise the clouds of whirling, drifting snow. Hark! how the wind howls! There is danger on its wings; there is—”
“Stop, boy, stop?” cried Lady Alwyn, laying her hand on his arm. “Speak not thus; you frighten me.”
There were tears in her eyes. Claude made haste to soothe her. ”

“ She remembered the vital necessity of getting back to the house before Aurora, and of avoiding the shower. Her wet garments would betray her if she did not succeed in escaping the coming storm. She was of a spare, wizen figure, encumbered with no superfluous flesh, and she ran rapidly along the narrow sheltered pathway leading to the iron gate through which she had followed Aurora.
The heavy rain-drops fell at long intervals upon the leaves. A second and a third peal of thunder rattled along the earth, like the horrible roar of some hungry animal creeping nearer and nearer to its prey. ”

“ When the eye rests on some far-away sand, dun and sombre in the distance, what vividness of flaming red and glorious orange comes out in the middle ground, while nearer the blues and greens are mingled with a shimmering silver! The atmosphere itself seems tinted by reflections from Aurora's garlands, and the strangely luminous blue sky smiles over all. ”

“ In the darkness of earliest morning, while the stars are all glowing, and Aurora is still asleep, we discern figures in cloaks, sitting over the rippling sea, on the wall of Santa Lucia, and waiting to show us antiques by moonlight!—and then comes the barrière. ”

“ Seven daughters, beauteous as the rising morn,
As when Aurora fills the ravished sight,
And decks the orient realms with rosy light,
From their bright eyes the living splendors play,
Nor can beholders bear the flashing ray. ”

“ There is no more beautiful illustration of Roman superstition than that shown in Guido's familiar fresco of "Aurora." Why this picture is called Aurora and not Apollo is difficult to explain. The noble sun god is the most important figure of the picture, and he dominates all the rest. He is surrounded by the light tripping Hours, each a very queen of loveliness. Aurora, the goddess of the dawn, leads the throng. ”

“ No sound breaks upon the stillness of the scene, except the gentle murmur of the winding stream or the roar of some far off waterfall, softened and subdued by distance, till it mingles in harmony with the clear shrill notes of the whippowils, who never close their waking eyes, but serenade the moon till morning light, while every object upon which we turn our eyes reminds us of the fancy sketch of some fairy land.
We gaze upon the grand array, when Aurora Borealis plays her antic freaks, fights her mimic battles, waves her flaming banner along the northern skies. ”

“ Sometimes the Aurora is stationary and the smooth surface of the sea reflects the steady light; in the next moment it is moving rapidly all over the heavens. The swifter the motion the more brilliant the red or pink or green, which at times fringes the lower edge of the broad white bands of light. ”

“ The sun scarcely sets in the west until it rises in the east. At Summit lake, which is at the top of the mountains, there is no night at all, it being in latitude sixty north and longitude one hundred and sixty west.
The display of the aurora borealis each night is a scene never to be forgotten. Night after night the whole northern sky is aflame with a light akin to sunlight tempered by moonlight and enriched by the splendor of the rainbow’s glorious hues. The Tlingit Indians believe the aurora to be the ghost-dance of dead warriors who live on the plains of the sky. ”

“ Aurora, the Dawn-goddess, up bright and early to open the sun gates for Apollo, saw the handsome hunter on the sky slope decked with red and white and yellow lights of stars. Like Diana, she loved him immediately, but, in the words of the poets, he pales before her colorful radiance as she reaches upward to announce the coming of the sun. Because dawn takes away the stars, Orion is said to have been carried away by this goddess and even yet this story may be seen enacted when watching the glory of Orion captured by Aurora as she flashes rosy-tinted in the east. ”

“ But the Aurora is not the only phenomenon which indicates the existence of a power in the matter of our globe to emit light. One fact, that must have been often noticed, forcibly impresses me with the conviction, that here, through what seems common, truths of much import will yet be reached. In the dead of night, when the sky is clear, and one is admiring the brilliancy of the stars, hanging over a perfectly obscured earth, a cloud, well known to observing astronomers, will at times begin to form, and it then spreads with astonishing rapidity over the whole heavens. ”

“ Blagden (Phil. Trans. vol. lxxiv. p. 228) , [15] the Aurora is described to begin with single bright pillars, rising in the north, and almost at the same time in the north-east, which, gradually increasing, comprehend a large space of the heavens, rush about from place to place with incredible velocity, and finally almost cover the whole sky up to the zenith, and produce an appearance as if a vast tent were expanded in the heavens, glittering with gold, rubies, and sapphires. A more beautiful spectacle cannot be painted ”

“ There are rarely more than two on the same night, and many of the Auroras are attended with no crown at all.
Disappearance of Aurora.
“The corona becomes gradually faint, the whole phenomenon being to the south of the zenith, forming bows gradually paler and generally disappearing before they reach the southern horizon. All this most commonly takes place [11] in the first half of the night, after which the Aurora appears to have lost its intensity; the pencils of rays, the bands, and the fragments of bows appear and disappear at intervals. ”

“ Once the call of the lookout drew all eyes to a dark object which, at that distance, looked as if it might be a yawl, and every heart beat faster with the hope that at last the mystery of the Aurora might be solved. But, alas, it was found to be only a piece of broken mast, discarded from some ship. ”

“ He then continues:—“But the Aurora does not always make its first appearance as an arch. It sometimes rises from a confused mass of light in the east or west, and crosses the sky towards the opposite point, exhibiting wreaths of beams or coronæ boreales on its way. An arch also, which is pale and uniform at the horizon, passes the zenith without displaying any irregularity or additional brilliancy.” Sir John Franklin then mentions seeing three arches together, very near the northern horizon, one of which exhibited beams and even colours, but the other two were faint and uniform. ”

“ The heat was intense, and the men, notwithstanding their refreshing bath, went about their work languidly, perspiring at every pore. It was a positive relief to them to see the sun at last go down behind the gleaming horizon, and a greater relief still when, an hour later, a faint breeze from the eastward came creeping over the water, and, barely filling the Aurora’s light upper sails, gave her just sufficient way through the water to allow of her head being kept in the right direction. ”

“ As it took them between four and five hours to reach their destination, and as Aurora chattered all the time, with little intervals of talk by Gerald, to report their conversation is unfeasible. Aurora, wanting in all that varied knowledge which those who are fond of reading get from books, had yet a lot to say that some unprejudiced ears found worth while. The dwellers upon earth and their ways had for her an immense and piercing interest. ”

“ The Aurora again afforded us considerable light at night, in the absence of the moon, but did not break through the clouds which obscured the sky, and from which very fine snow was constantly falling until nearly 8 p.m., when it appeared from E.N.E. to N.W. of a yellow colour, forming an arch twenty degrees high, and at times exhibiting vivid flashes of a bright pink colour: it dispersed in a quarter of an hour. We continued to make good progress to the north-west during the two following days. ”