We shall see too, by-and-by, that these Auroræ Australes as to spectrum extend more into the violet than the Aurora Borealis. The yellow, as complementary to violet, is likely thus to make (in the absence of the red) its appearance.
It is, however, somewhat singular that Carl Bock found almost exclusively yellow Auroræ in Lapland.
In Proctor’s ‘Borderland of Science,’ article “The Antarctic Regions,” we find quoted a passage from a letter by Capt. Howes, of the ‘Southern Cross,’ in which a graphic description is given of a Southern Aurora:—
Capt. Howes’s description of a Southern Aurora.
“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.
Balls of electric fire resting on mast-heads &c.
“I cannot describe the awful grandeur of the scene; the heavens gradually changed from murky blackness till they became like vivid fire, reflecting a lurid glowing brilliancy over every thing. The ocean appeared like a sea of vermilion lashed into fury by the storm, the waves dashing furiously over our side, ever and anon rushed to leeward in crimson torrents. Our whole ship—sails, spars, and all—seemed to partake of the same ruddy hues. They were as if lighted up by some terrible conflagration. Taking all together—the howling, shrieking storm, the noble ship plunging fearlessly beneath the crimson-crested ways, the furious squalls of hail, snow, and sleet, drifting over the vessel, and falling to leeward in ruddy showers, the mysterious balls of electric fire resting on our mast-heads, yard-arms, &c., and, above all, the awful sublimity of the heavens, through which coruscations of auroral light would shoot in spiral streaks, and with meteoric brilliancy,—there was presented a scene of grandeur surpassing the wildest dreams of fancy.”
The foregoing picture presents a singular contrast to the yellow-white Auroræ described as seen in high southern latitudes by Capt. Maclear, and is interesting as a southern Aurora of a red or ruddy tint. Looking, however, at the extreme rarity of red Auroræ in those latitudes, and the description of “mysterious balls of electric fire resting on our mast-heads, yard-arms, &c.” (a phenomenon not often noticed in connexion with the Aurora), it suggests itself that the case in question may have been an instance not of a true Aurora, but of an electric display, with conditions approaching those experienced by travellers who have found themselves in mountainous districts surrounded by storm-clouds charged with electricity[6].