may be the downward reflection of a flash darting aloft from the upper surface of a large cloud, and in all cases is a simple smile on the cheek of heaven, unattended by anything to frighten or chastise. Brilliant and beautiful electric meteors often occur, and comprise many varieties. One which plays as a brilliant light, or sometimes as a pale phosphorescent flame, on the tops of the masts of ships at sea, has been famous ever since the ancient classic times, and is now commonly called St Elmo's Fire. And many curious kinds, somewhat similar to this in certain states of the atmosphere and the clouds, are seen on the tops of spires, on the tips of whips and of bayonets, on the ears of horses, and on the fingers, whiskers, and hair of men. But by far the most gorgeous electric meteor is the aurora borealis. This is frequent in the arctic regions, and enlivens there the long absence of the sun; but occasionally occurs also, in all its glory, in lower latitudes. It flits and flickers, shoots and streams, shakes and corruscates, moves now slowly and now briskly, at one time majestically and at another fantastically; and it is never in complete repose, and always delights the eye as much by the variety of its motions as by the brilliance of its lights. It has likewise great diversity of colour and form. It varies from a silvery whiteness to a smoky black, from a deep yellow to a steel grey, from orange to violet, and from russet brown to fiery red; and in its grandest occurrences, it combines or alternates these and many intermediate tints in one long variegated ever-changing display. It sometimes looks like little else than the sweep of a comet's tail near the horizon; sometimes appears only as nebulous masses, or curdled light patches, or broad luminous bands, a short way up the sky; sometimes comprises streaks and beams and streamers, springing from transparent fogs or curious sky-banks, and mounting over a fourth or a third or a half of the heavens; sometimes almost an entire truncated cone of glory, filling most of the hemisphere from near the horizon to near the zenith,-but occasionally with a curious gloomy segment, affording a vista-view of the stars; and sometimes a perfect truncated cone, perfect at least in its middle and upper parts, terminating at the magnetic zenith either in a brilliant wreath like a crown, called the corona borealis, or in a dark oval opening, fringed all round with luminosity, and seeming to even the most unpoetic observer like the eye of Omniscience gazing on the world. It is commonly charming and inspiriting, but occasionally arousing and impressive, and in rare instances awfully solemnising. But always it gives light, and often is brightly illuminating; and never does it fail to strike both savan and savage as a brilliant wonder of nature. And many persons, when beholding it, are ready to exclaim with the Russian Lomonosov, "What fills with dazzling beams the illumined air? Is there some vast, some hidden magazine, Where the gross darkness flames of fire supplies! |