As you must have seen them yourselves, I need only remind you of the glorious changes of colour by the alteration of the light at the different times of day. I hope none of you are so lazy as not often to have enjoyed the rosy mornings; then there is the grey twilight of evening, and the splendours of the setting sun in the west, round which the deep orange shades off into the most delicate yellow, which again glides imperceptibly into pale blue towards the east. Then the moon, when she has the heavens all to herself, and the stars, when they are shining out boldly in her absence, each make the sky so beautiful, and are so beautiful in themselves, that one cannot exceed the other.
I love to look at the moon when the winds rend the clouds asunder, and drive them tumultuously along, and you see her now and then in the dark blue depths between. But if I were to tell you all the ordinary appearances in the sky which I love, I should leave no room to describe its wonders; which will not do, because I meant this book to give you an account of things which most of you have not seen.
CHAPTER II.
THE AURORA BOREALIS.
During the winter months in the Polar Regions, the sun never rises above the horizon; and during summer it performs in appearance a little circle round the pole of the Heavens, and never goes out of sight. You may learn in what manner this is occasioned by the position of those countries on the surface of the earth, from the book called "The Wonders of the Telescope."
The year is thus in reality divided into one long day and one long night. While the night continues, the ground is covered with snow, and no vegetable life is to be seen, and the animals have much to do to support themselves on what fish they may chance to pick up on the sea shore, by preying on each other, or else by scraping away the snow to get at that scanty vegetation which exists underneath. The odd-looking Esquimaux and Greenlanders would indeed be very badly off, if it were not for the beautiful atmospheric phenomena which I am going to describe.
There are seldom intervals of many hours which are not illuminated by these beautiful meteors, called Auroræ Boreales, or Northern Lights, occurring in a never-ending variety of form, colour, and intensity. They generally have a tendency to form an irregular arch, and one side of them is always much better defined than the other. The more ragged side sends out brilliant corruscations, shooting out into the sharpest angles.