Auroræ: Their Characters and SpectraCapron, J. Rand
History
Auroræ: Their Characters and Spectra
Capron, J. Rand
Auroras
[Sidenote: Herr Carl Bock’s Lapland Aurora, 3rd Oct. 1877. Lapland Auroræ
generally of the yellow type.]
In January 1878 I had the pleasure to meet, at the Westminster Aquarium,
Herr Carl Bock, the Norwegian naturalist, who accompanied four
Laplanders, two men and two women, with sledges, tents, &c., on their
visit to this country. The Laplanders (as mentioned elsewhere) did not
confirm the accounts of noises said to have been observed by Greenlanders
and others during the Aurora. Carl Bock mentioned to me that the displays
he saw in Lapland were most brilliant, but generally of the yellow type
(the Laplanders called the Aurora “yellow lights”). He saw only one red
Aurora. He kindly lent me a picture (probably in its way unique), an
oil-painting of an Aurora Borealis, entirely sketched by the light of the
Aurora itself.
[Sidenote: A picture painted by light of the Aurora. Movement of the
rays. Inner edge of arc fringed with rays.]
The painting is remarkable for the tender green of the sky, an effect
probably due to a mixture of the ordinary sky colour with the yellow
light of the Aurora. This picture was taken at Porsanger Fjord, in lat.
71° 50´, on 3rd October, 1877. It lasted from 9 P.M. till about 11
P.M. The rays kept continually moving, and certain of them seemed in
perspective and behind the others. It will be noticed that the _inner_
edge of the arc is fringed with rays, contrary to the sharp and definite
margin which is usually presented. Probably two Auroræ or auroral forms
were seen—a quiescent arc in front, and a set of moving streamers beyond.
Two larger and brighter patches of light are seen at each extremity of
the arc, as in the case of the Aurora seen by me at Guildown, February
4th, 1874, which, indeed, the display much resembles. A reduced facsimile
of Herr Bock’s excellent picture is given on Plate VIII.
[Sidenote: Aurora of longitudinal rays.]
Herr Bock also acquainted me that on the following day he saw an
Aurora in which the lines of light, instead of being vertical, were
longitudinal, and were continually swept along in several currents. They
were not so strong as in the former case.
_Rev. T. W. Webb’s Aurora._
[Sidenote: Rev. T. W. Webb’s Aurora. Arc resolved into sets of streamers
moving in opposite directions.]
The Rev. T. W. Webb has described to me in a letter an Aurora very like
that seen by Carl Bock in Lapland, and apparently the prevailing type
in those regions. An arc similar to that figured by Carl Bock appeared
in the N.W., and seemed to resolve itself into two sets of streamers
moving in opposite directions (or the one set might be fixed and the
other moving), like the edges of two great revolving toothed wheels. This
lasted but for a few seconds; but during that interval the tints were
varied and brilliant, including blue and green.
_The English Arctic Expedition 1875-76, under Capt. Sir George Nares._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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