There is an account given by Captain Hall of one of these marvellous exhibitions:—“I had gone on deck several times to look at the beauteous scene, and at nine o’clock was below in my cabin, when the captain hailed me with these words, ‘Come above, Hall, come at once! The world is on fire.’
“I knew his meaning, and quick as thought I re-dressed myself, scrambled over several sleeping Innuits close to my berth, and rushed to the companion stairs. In another moment I reached the deck, and as the cabin door swung open, a dazzling and overpowering light, as if the world were really ablaze under the agency of some gorgeously colored fires, burst upon my startled senses. How can I describe it? Again I say, No mortal hand can truthfully do so. Let me however, in feeble, broken words, put down my thoughts at the time, and try to give some faint idea of what I saw.
“My first thought was, ‘Among the gods there is none like unto Thee, O Lord; neither are any works like unto Thy works!’ Then I tried to picture the scene before me. Piles of golden light and rainbow light, scattered along the azure vault, extended from behind the western horizon to the zenith; thence down to the eastern, within a belt of space, 20° in width, were the fountains of beams, like fire-threads, that shot with the rapidity of lightning hither and thither, upward and athwart the great pathway indicated. No sun, no moon, yet the heavens were a glorious sight, flooded with light. Even ordinary print could easily have been read on deck.
“Flooded with rivers of light! Yes, flooded with light; and such light! Light all but inconceivable. The golden hues predominated, but in rapid succession prismatic colors leaped forth. We looked, we saw, and trembled; for as we gazed, the whole belt of aurora began to be alive with flashes. Then each pile or bank of light became myriads; some were dropping down the great pathway or belt; others springing up, others leaping with lightning flash from one side, while more as quickly passed into the vacated space; some twisting themselves into folds, entwining with others like enormous serpents, and all these movements as quick as the eye could follow.
“It seemed as if there were a struggle with these blazing lights to reach and occupy the dome above our heads. Then the whole arch above became crowded. Down, down it came; nearer and nearer it approached 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 colors 3° in width, sheeted out to 21°.
“While the auroral fires seemed to be descending upon us, one of our number could not help exclaiming,—
“‘Hark! hark! such a display! almost as if a warfare were going on among the beauteous lights above—so palpable—so near—it seems impossible without noise.’
“But no noise accompanied this wondrous display. All was silence....
“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 marshalling forces, gaining strength, compounding material, it continues on its silent workings. At length it begins its trembling throes; beauty anon shoots out here and there, when all at once the aurora flashes into living hosts of powdered coruscating rainbows, belting to the heavenly dome with such gorgeous grandeur that mortals sometimes tremble to behold.”
These wonderful aërial phenomena are characteristic of the Arctic regions. One of the most extraordinary appearances in the sky is called the Parhelion, or Mock Sun. It assumes various and most astounding forms, the sun appearing in the middle, and being surrounded with dimmer imitations of itself, round which run circular bands of light. There seems, indeed, to be no end to the extraordinary modifications of aërial effects which take place in these regions. Captain Hall described many of them, among which may be mentioned a moon distorted beyond all recognition, its lower limb all crushed and shapeless, and the whole appearance of the planet like that of a man under the influence of liquor.