Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/256

 my cabin; and, as she listens to the scratching of my pen, she looks very much as if she would like to know what it is all about. I am trying hard to civilize her, and have had some success. She was very shy when brought in, but, being left to herself for a while, she has become somewhat reconciled to her new abode. She is about three fourths grown, weighs four and a quarter pounds, has a coat of long fine fur, resembling in color that of a Maltese cat, and is being instructed to answer to the name of Birdie.

January 6th.

I have often been struck with the singular circumstance that up to this time we have scarcely seen the Aurora Borealis; and until to-day there has been no display of any great brilliancy. We have been twice favored during the past twelve hours. The first was at eleven o'clock in the morning, and the second at nine o'clock in the evening. The arch was perfect in the last case; in the former it was less continuous, but more intense. In both instances, the direction of the centre from the observatory was west by south (true), and was 30° above the horizon. Twenty degrees above the arch in the evening there was another imperfect one, a phenomenon which I have not before witnessed. In the direction west-northwest a single ray shot down to the horizon, and there continued for almost an hour.

The infrequency of the Auroral light has been more marked here than at Van Rensselaer Harbor. We seem to have passed almost beyond it. The region of its greatest brilliancy appears to be from ten to twenty degrees further south. As at Van Rensselaer Harbor, its exhibition is almost invariably on the western sky; and Jensen tells me that this occurs