“Between four and eight o’clock P.M. a light fog, rising to the altitude of six degrees, became coloured on its upper edge, being fringed with the light of the meteor rising behind it. This border, becoming gradually more regular, took the form of an arch, of a pale yellow colour, the edges of which were diffuse, the extremities resting on the horizon. This bow swelled slowly upwards, its vertex being constantly on the magnetic meridian. Blackish streaks divided regularly the luminous arc, and resolved it into a system of rays. These rays were alternately extended and contracted, sometimes slowly, sometimes instantaneously, sometimes they would dart out, increasing and diminishing suddenly in splendour. The inferior parts, or the feet of the rays, presented always the most vivid light, and formed an arc more or less regular. The length of these rays was very various, but they all converged to that point of the heavens indicated by the direction of the southern pole of the dipping-needle. Sometimes they were prolonged to the point where their directions intersected, and formed the summit of an enormous dome of light. [Sidenote: It ascends to the zenith. Reaches the zenith.] “The bow then would continue to ascend toward the zenith. It would suffer an undulatory motion in its light—that is to say, that from one extremity to the other the brightness of the rays would increase successively in intensity. This luminous current would appear several times in quick succession, and it would pass much more frequently from west to east than in the opposite direction. Sometimes, but rarely, a retrograde motion would take place immediately afterward; and as soon as this wave of light had run successively over all the rays of the Aurora from west to east, it would return in the contrary direction to the point of its departure, producing such an effect that it was impossible to say whether the rays themselves were actually affected by a motion of translation in a direction nearly horizontal, or if this more vivid light was transferred from ray to ray, the system of rays themselves suffering no change of position. The bow, thus presenting the appearance of an alternate motion in a direction nearly horizontal, had usually the appearance of the undulations or folds of a ribbon or flag agitated by the wind. Sometimes one, and sometimes both of its extremities would desert the horizon, and then its folds would become more numerous and marked, the bow would change its character and assume the form of a long sheet of rays returning into itself, and consisting of several parts forming graceful curves. The brightness of the rays would vary suddenly, sometimes surpassing in splendour stars of the first magnitude; these rays would rapidly dart out, and curves would be formed and developed like the folds of a serpent; then the rays would affect various colours, the base would be red, the middle green, and the remainder would preserve its clear yellow hue.