Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/257

 at Upernavik, and he says also that the phenomena are there much more brilliant and of greater frequency than here.

The display of the morning was much finer than that of the evening. Indeed, I have rarely witnessed a more sublime or imposing spectacle. By the way, how strange it seems to be speaking of events happening in the morning and in the evening, when, to save your life, you could not tell without the clock by what name to call the divisions of time! We say eleven o'clock in the morning and eleven o'clock in the evening from habit; but if, by any mischance, we should lose our reckoning for twelve hours, we would then go on calling the evening morning and the morning evening, without being able to detect the error by any difference in the amount of light at these two periods of the day. But this is a digression.

To come back to the Aurora of this morning. When it first appeared I was walking out among the icebergs at the mouth of the harbor; and, although the time was so near noon, yet I was groping through a darkness that was exceedingly embarrassing to my movements among the rough ice. Suddenly a bright ray darted up from behind the black cloud which lay low down on the horizon before me. It lasted but an instant, and, having filled the air with a strange illumination, it died away, leaving the darkness even more profound than before. Presently the arch which I have before mentioned sprang across the sky, and the Aurora became gradually more fixed. The space inclosed by the arch was very dark, and was filled with the cloud. The play of the rays which rose from its steadily brightening border was for some time very