Answer.—When the Creeks and Cherokees were being transferred to lands west of the Mississippi, under the command of General Jackson, this military road was constructed to facilitate the movement. The road terminates at Little Rock, Ark.
AURORA BOREALIS NOT A MODERN DISCOVERY.
Lowell, Mich.
I am informed, on what appears to be good authority, that the aurora borealis has been seen for only about two hundred years, and that we have no record of its previous appearance. Is such the case?
W. A. D.
Answer.—The aurora borealis is not a phenomenon peculiar to modern times. The ancients used to call it chasmata, bolides and trabes, names which expressed the different colors of the lights. The scarlet aurora was looked upon by the superstitious barbarians as an omen of direful slaughter; so it is not unusual for descriptions of bloody battles to contain allusions to northern lights. In the annuls of Cloon-mac-noise it is recorded that in 688 A. D., accompanying a terrible battle between Leinster and Munster, Ireland, a purple aurora lit the northern skies, foretelling the slaughter. To the Latins and Greeks of Southern Europe the phenomenon rarely appeared, and therefore their writings are almost, if not entirely, silent concerning it, yet it was not unknown to them.
WHERE WAS EDEN.
Virgil City, Mo.