"Aurora borealis" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have had along the Arctic," confessed Philip. "A steak from the cheek of a cow walrus is about the best thing you find up in the 'Big Icebox'—that is, at first. Later, when the aurora borealis has got into your marrow, you gorge on seal blubber and narwhal fat and call it good. As for me, I'd prefer pickles to anything else in the world, so with your permission I'll help myself. Just now I'd eat ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... be! No more shall the Wolves slink among our campfires. The time is come.' A great streamer of fire, the aurora borealis, purple, green, and yellow, shot across the zenith, bridging horizon to horizon. With head thrown back and arms extended, he swayed to ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... excitement of killing a bear, entrapping foxes, or shooting grouse, the men continued to pass the winter months. To the officers, higher and more intellectual enjoyments were afforded by making observations, studying astronomy, and witnessing the brilliant appearance of the Aurora Borealis. ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... the night, we had fair weather, and a clear serene sky; and, between midnight and three o'clock in the morning, lights were seen in the heavens, similar to those in the northern hemisphere, known by the name of Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights; but I never heard of the Aurora Australia been seen before. The officer of the watch observed that it sometimes broke out in spiral rays, and in a circular form; then its light was very strong, and its appearance beautiful. He could not ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... explorers go and get lost, but me and Jeff Peters,' says Andy, 'go after the come-ons forever. If you say so, we're the two illustrious guests you were expecting. And you'll find,' says Andy, 'that we'll give you the true local color of the title roles from the aurora borealis ...
— The Gentle Grafter • O. Henry
... attached (if the term may be used) to certain midnight apparitions. The Aurora Borealis is always a pleasant companion; a meteor seems to come like a messenger from departed spirits; and the blossoming of trees in the moonlight becomes a sight looked ...
— Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals • Maria Mitchell
... The Aurora Borealis is a group of boys playing football. Sometimes they use the skull of a walrus for the ball. The swaying movement of the lights shows that the players are struggling with each other and tugging back and forth. If the Aurora fades away and you utter ...
— A Treasury of Eskimo Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss
... Alan turned their backs to the sunset, and drove along the bleak high-road toward Sedgehill, where the reflection of the blast-furnaces—that weird aurora borealis of the Black Country—was already beginning to pulsate against the darkening sky. And here again Elisabeth realized that for her the old things had passed away, and all things had become new. She felt that her childish dream was true, and that the crimson light ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... physical suns and stars roam in space, so there are also countless astral solar and stellar systems. Their planets have astral suns and moons, more beautiful than the physical ones. The astral luminaries resemble the aurora borealis-the sunny astral aurora being more dazzling than the mild-rayed moon-aurora. The astral day and night are ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... book is admirably composed, if we can bring ourselves to admit that the genre is ever admirable. The writer's vocabulary has become opulent, his phrases flash and detonate, each page is full of unconnected sparks and electrical discharges. A sort of aurora borealis of wit streams and rustles across the dusky surface, amusing to the reader, but discontinuous, and insufficient to illuminate the matter in hand. It is extraordinary that a man can make so many picturesque, striking, and apparently apposite remarks, and yet leave us so frequently in ...
— The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack Wilton - With An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse • Thomas Nash
... the Aurora Borealis was found by Wolf to follow the same period. In fact, it is closely allied in its cause to terrestrial magnetism. Wolf also collected old observations tracing the periodicity of sun-spots back to about ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes
... and before the ingenious seaman had finished two new traps the short twilight had gradually deepened into night. Still there was plenty of light, for the sky was clear, and studded with a host of stars. In addition to this the Aurora Borealis was sending its beautiful flashes of pale-green light ...
— Fast in the Ice - Adventures in the Polar Regions • R.M. Ballantyne
... An aurora borealis was seen from North End, Hampstead, near London, from about seven o'clock until eleven, on the evening of Dec. 1. It generally appeared as a light resembling twilight, but shifting about both to the east and the west of north, and occasionally forming ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various
... from his severer work, Georges Spero resolved to go to Norway and study the wild and beautiful phenomena of the Aurora Borealis, and I went with him. One morning, as we were standing on a mountain looking at a magnificent sunrise, I saw a girl climbing a neighbouring peak. She did not perceive us; but when she reached the summit the image of Spero was thrown on ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... rounded hill slopes a hard glaze that is not so much light as snail-slime from the moon. Once or twice perhaps in the winter the Northern Lights come out between the moon and the sun, so that to the two unearthly lights is added the leap and flare of the Aurora Borealis. ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... discussing the delicacy referred to, and commenting in pitiable tones on their situation, when Ujarak returned, bade them resume their places, jumped on the sledge, and continued to advance. In half an hour the moon rose in a clear sky. The stars shone brightly, and to add to the beauty of the scene, the aurora borealis played and shot about vividly overhead, enabling them to resume ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... quite popular, particularly as he made no charge for them. He seems to have been something of a homoeopathist, for he recommends sulphur to cure infectious diseases "brought on by the sulphurous vapours of the Aurora Borealis"! ...
— Kepler • Walter W. Bryant
... of Northern Europe, the midnight sun, the flashing rays of the aurora borealis, the ocean continually lashing itself into fury against the great cliffs and icebergs of the Arctic Circle, could not but impress the people as vividly as the almost miraculous vegetation, the perpetual light, and the blue seas and skies of their brief summer ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... with fog and wind, preceded by a most remarkable Aurora Borealis, and some delay at night at Rimouska, we reached Quebec, and got alongside at Point Levi, on the afternoon of Saturday, the 11th September; and I had great pleasure in meeting my old friend Mr. Hickson, who came down to meet Mrs. Hickson and his ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... the song of priests, and saw the dances of the savages to the sound of drums and pipes of bone. The pyramids of Egypt reaching to the clouds, with fallen columns, and Sphynxes half buried in sand, next sailed past them. Then came the Aurora Borealis blazing over the peaks of the north; they were fireworks which could not be imitated. The Prince was so happy, and he saw a hundred times more than ...
— Stories from Hans Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... of the Universe has not forgotten the embellishment of the Pole. One of the most beautiful phenomena in nature is the Aurora Borealis, or northern lights. It generally assumes the form of an arch, darting flashes of lilac, yellow, or white light towards the heights of heaven. Some travellers state that the aurora are accompanied by a crackling or hissing noise; but Captain Lyon, who listened for hours, says that this is not the ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... minute and flares up the next? Doesn't it remind you of the night we got away from Carabobo, when Donna Isobel pointed out our way to us, with the moon coming up over the mountains as a guide? That isn't the moon. It's the aurora borealis. You can hear the wash of the Bay down there, and if you're keen you can catch the smell of icebergs. There's Fort Churchill—a rifle-shot beyond the ridge, asleep. There's nothing but Hudson's Bay Company's posts, Indian camps, and ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... which shimmers a phosphorescent light; at each side an aurora borealis rises, mountain like; ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... toast, 'The United States!'—bordered on the north by the aurora borealis; on the east by the rising sun; on the west by the procession of equinoxes; and on the south by ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... traveled round the poles of the earth in this imperishable vessel; he had seen the brilliant visitor of the long nights, the aurora borealis, mirror herself in the immense stalactites of eternal ice, rejoicing in the play of colors alternating with each other in the varying folds of her glowing scarf. He had visited the tropics, where the zodiacal triangle, with its celestial ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... considered quite a dainty by us poor wretches, greedy as we were after fresh meat. On the 4th of November, the sun was no longer visible, and a long and dreary night set in. All the light we had came from the moon, aurora borealis, and the lamps which we hung around our hut, and fed with bear's fat. The only consolation left us was that with the sun the bears had left us, and we could now leave the hut without danger of being devoured. The cold still continued to increase ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... 2. Aurora Borealis. The outer circle around the earth represents atmosphere. The sun current carries it far from the earth's surface. At the north, when the sun's reflection strikes the earth's crust in such a manner, its reflection will be seen in the atmosphere at a great height, called Northern Lights. This ...
— ABC's of Science • Charles Oliver
... had been supposed, but in the pores of the glass itself. After a vial was charged he removed the coating, and found that upon applying a new coating the shock might still be received. In the year 1749 he first suggested his idea of explaining the phenomena of thunder-gusts and of the aurora borealis upon electrical principles. He points out many particulars in which lightning and electricity agree, and he adduces many facts, and reasonings from facts, in support ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... Aurora Borealis I ever saw, the Northern or rather Northeast Sky appeared suffused by a dark blood-red colored vapour, without any variety of different colored rays. I have never since seen the like. This was about the year 1734. Northern lights were then a novelty, and excited great wonder ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 6: Literary Curiosities - Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts • Henry M. Brooks
... cloud-encircled, through the interstices of some clump of dark firs; and have observed him become suddenly silent, as, emerging from the moonlight woods, we looked into a rugged dell, and saw far beneath, the slim rippling streamlet gleaming in the light, like a narrow strip of the aurora borealis shot athwart a dark sky, when the steep rough sides of the ravine, on either hand, were enveloped in gloom. My friend's opportunities of general reading had not been equal to my own, but he was acquainted ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... emerged, Smoke drew off one mitten, lighted a match, and glanced at the thermometer that hung beside the door. He remittened his naked hand hastily as if the frost had burned him. Overhead arched the flaming aurora borealis, while from all Dawson arose the mournful ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... forest fires, did any of you fellows see the Northern Lights last night up back of Haystack Mountain? Father and I thought first it was a forest fire. The sky was all pink and white. But we concluded it must have been the reflection of the Aurora Borealis. You can see 'em this time of year, you know. Snow ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... photographic process of record renders so beautifully manifest. If such expectations be confirmed, and the influence of the atmosphere be found able to produce results like these, then we shall probably find a new relation between the aurora borealis and the magnetism of the earth, namely, a relation established, more or less, through the air itself in connection with the space above it; and even magnetic relations and variations, which are not as yet suspected, may be suggested and rendered manifest and measurable, ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall
... to Brighton there was one evening a brilliant aurora borealis. As I looked at it, I heard an Englishman say, to my great amazement, it was the first time he had ever seen one in his life! I once saw one in America of such extraordinary brilliancy and duration, that it prolonged the daylight for half an hour ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... thin gases exposed to the terrific cold of space can be so hot as to be luminous and can retain their heat and their luminosity indefinitely. A cold luminosity due to electrification, like that of the aurora borealis, would seem to ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... a new and startling beauty that night. A broad, fluctuating, semicircular arch of vivid white light spanned the northern quarter of the heavens, reaching from the horizon to the star Eta in the Greater Bear. It was the Aurora Borealis, just risen up for the winter season out of the freezing seas of the north, where every autumn vapour was now ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... thunderbolt is a substance may not be questioned. That the aurora borealis, or polaris, another form of vito-magnetic fluid, is a substance is not questioned. The so-called heat-lightning, though apparently intangible, must therefore be regarded as a substance. Yet further in the remove we find ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers
... however, was little like the pale, cold rays of the aurora borealis. It was a fiery red, which, shining to some height in the air, was covered in by a canopy ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... says the Diary, a very wonderful display of the Aurora borealis was witnessed. The sky was all over a bright red, with white streaks streaming up from the north. The sight was wonderfully grand. As to the cause of this sublimely beautiful phenomenon various opinions have been held, and various theories launched upon the ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... 1757) gave a variety of pleasing and extraordinary information to curious readers: Indians, "broods of French savages;" earthquakes, St. Helmo's fire, phosphorescence, aurora borealis, mermen and mermaids, sea-snakes, krakens, etc., were jostled together in ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... Within three minutes of his lighting his Roman candle a shower of golden rain went up in the south, some immense Catherine-wheels appeared in the east, and in the north a long line of rockets presented almost the appearance of an aurora borealis. Red fire, green fire, then rockets again. The whole of the plain was lit by more fireworks than Philip had ever seen, even at the Crystal Palace. By their light he saw a procession come out of the fort, cross to a pillar that stood solitary on the ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... The Laplanders are said to entertain the idea that the coruscations of the Aurora Borealis, are occasioned by the sports of the fishes in the ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... exchanged with Akin Hall Library a Young's Astronomy for a Newcomb's, in 1898. He accompanied the presentation of the later book, in which was the author's name inscribed with a note to Mr. Eagle, with a demonstration of a theory of the Aurora Borealis. ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... aurora borealis has faded out and I can see straight again, "if you're goin' to carom around that way in public, you ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford
... You should have seen the transformation scene! They had come in bowing and smiling and whispering softly until the church was a perfect sheet of sunshine, an absolute aurora borealis; but they went out like a northeast gale, with mutterings of thunder ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... pursue our journey, well assured that a few milestones will bring us to a humaner roof. Incivility and surliness have occasionally given us opportunities of beholding rare celestial phenomena—meteors—falling and shooting stars—the Aurora Borealis, in her shifting splendours—haloes round the moon, variously bright as the rainbow—electrical arches forming themselves on the sky in a manner so wondrously beautiful, that we should be sorry to hear them accounted for by philosophers—one-half of ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... Maggie, after reading the invitation, tossed it, together with a note from Dick, across to Barney without comment, the color of his entire world changed for that favorite son of Broadway. The surly gloom of the end of a profitless enterprise became magically an aurora borealis of superior hopes:—no, something infinitely more substantial than any heaven-painting flare ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... two made up their minds, and providing every necessary for the journey they could think of, they started for the far sunless North, through a white, frozen land, which grew whiter and more silent the further they went,—even as the brooding sky above them grew darker and darker. The aurora borealis flashed its brilliant shafts of color against the sable breast of heaven,—the tall pines, stripped bare, every branch thick with snow and dropping icicles, stood,—pale ghosts of the forest,—shedding ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... faint wind died away. The clouds that had hung in the sky during the day drifted eastward, and the moon shone brilliant and clear. For an hour the night continued to grow lighter. To the brilliance of the moon and the stars there was added now the pale fires of the aurora borealis, shivering ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... upon myself to elect Rebecca and ask no other reward than the privilege of dancing with her at the inaugural ball. She was my first, if not my only love; and although she threw me over for Pinkie Hill, by whose effulgent aurora borealis she was hypnotized, and took to wearing pantaloons in public despite my protest, she has since repented and given all her maidenly heart to me; hence it will be my duty and my pleasure to manage her campaign. Rebecca may safely consider herself elected and discount ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... sea suddenly resumed its usual hue, but behind us all the way to the horizon, the skies kept mirroring the whiteness of those waves and for a good while seemed imbued with the hazy glow of an aurora borealis. ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... is no doubt about that," was the reply. "But you have not yet seen the midnight sun nor the aurora borealis, both of which sights far exceed in beauty what we have looked upon to- night. But it grows chilly and an insidious fog is gathering round us; we must take measures for passing the night in safety, for, were we by chance to be caught between two icebergs of even ordinary size, not ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... this winter was the rare occurrence of the Aurora Borealis, and the extraordinary poorness of its display whenever it did make its appearance. It was almost invariably seen to the southward, between an E.S.E. and a W.S.W. bearing, generally low, the stationary patches of it having a tendency to form an irregular arch, and not unfrequently with coruscations ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... about the time of the Miller excitement, and also a very unusual illumination of sky and earth by the Aurora Borealis. This latter occurred in midwinter. The whole heavens were of a deep rose-color—almost crimson—reddest at the zenith, and paling as it radiated towards the horizon. The snow was fresh on the ground, and ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... hardly dare venture, even in the most hypothetical form, to ask whether the Aurora Borealis and Australia may not be the discharge of electricity, thus urged towards the poles of the earth, from whence it is endeavouring to return by natural and appointed means above the earth to the equatorial regions. The non-occurrence of it in very high latitudes is not ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... is a change. It thunders and lightens. Toward morning there is a brilliant display of aurora borealis. This is ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... things. Its striking events resembled merely the phenomena of a mid-winter storm in Greenland, where, over a frozen ocean, moveless in the hurricane as a floor of rock or of iron, the hail beats, and the thick whirling snows descend, and, high above head, the flashings of aurora borealis lend their many-coloured hues of mystery to the horrors of the tempest. Its transactions, picturesque rather than important, wholly failed to affect the framework of society. That floor of ice which sealed ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... four men who could work, each in his own heavily shielded cabin. In spite of the shielding that covered the actual work, there was an awesome display of multicolored light; it was like being in the middle of an aurora borealis. What was going on where that tiny rotating beam of cosmic rays was grinding at the collapsium ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... dreamed last night that I saw a great black ball moving in the heavens, and it obscured the moon. The stars were in motion, visibly, and for a time afforded the only light. Then a brilliant halo illuminated the zenith like the quick-shooting irradiations of the aurora borealis. And men ran in different directions, uttering cries of agony. These cries, I remember distinctly, came from men. As I gazed upon the fading and dissolving moon, I thought of the war brought upon us, and the end of the United States Government. My family were ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... it is invisible for a longer period, but at Hammerfest the streets, houses, and business places are lighted with electric lights, and similar plants are being introduced into other cities of the polar section. It is stated, also, that the aurora borealis is so brilliant night after night as to make it easy to read ordinary newspaper print without artificial light, and by long experience people are prepared for the peculiar conditions that exist there. The passengers on the steamers in these waters ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... As they drew near the fort their ammunition was almost spent and the game had almost disappeared. By Matonabbee's advice, Hearne, accompanied by four Indians, left the main party in order to hasten ahead as rapidly as possible. The daylight was now exceedingly short, but the moon and the aurora borealis {51} illuminated the brilliant waste of snow. The weather was intensely cold. One of Hearne's dogs was frozen to death. But in spite of hardship the advance party reached Fort Prince of Wales safe and sound on November 25, 1770. Matonabbee arrived ...
— Adventurers of the Far North - A Chronicle of the Frozen Seas • Stephen Leacock
... the sun, for some time after it has sunk below the horizon, continues to shine on the glistening ice of the glaciers and the snow of the mountain summits, thus producing a weird luminosity in the heavens, somewhat resembling the Aurora Borealis. ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... Little Cousin and the "Gnats." The Aurora Borealis. A Bumble-bee Scrape. Another Bee Scrape. Justification by Faith Alone. Readiness to Fight. Love ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... had been married in the autumn, and since then they had practically disappeared, surrounded by a glow of their own happiness. They had sunk below the horizon, but from the horizon there had, so to speak, come up a brilliant illumination like an aurora borealis. ...
— Daisy's Aunt • E. F. (Edward Frederic) Benson
... most dangerous components of the sea is the snowstorm. The snowstorm is above all things magnetic. The pole produces it as it produces the aurora borealis. It is in the fog of the one as in the light of the other; and in the flake of snow as in the streak of flame ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... Charles! She looked so warm and so flushed—just like a torch, herself!—and so lovely, kind, and happy, in the midst of her living roses. Above, serenely shone myriads of pale stars in the clear sky; around the horizon, heat-lightning flashed. The moon was rising in the east; and in the north, the aurora borealis bloomed like a vast lily. It was really a rare scene. We returned to Mrs. Harry Sedgwick's. There she stood, receiving the greetings of the members of the party; every gentleman bearing a torch, which lighted up a rosy face at his side. ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... lights are not fed, as in the old time, from electric dynamos, but the magnetism of the planet itself is harnessed for the use of man. That marvelous earth-force which the Indians called "the dance of the spirits," and civilized man designated "the aurora borealis," is now used to illuminate this great metropolis, with a clear, soft, white light, like that of the full moon, but many times brighter. And the force is so cunningly conserved that it is returned to the earth, without any loss of magnetic power to the planet. Man has simply made a ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... says (l. iii. c. 13) that the rays of the setting, and those of the rising sun, were scarcely separated by any interval; a problem which may be solved in the latitude of Moscow, (the 56th degree,) with the aid of the Aurora Borealis, and a long summer twilight. But a day of forty days (Khondemir apud D'Herbelot, p. 880) would rigorously confine ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... mists forming and then disappearing again, and these would be our clouds. From them he would see rain, hail and snow falling to the earth, and from time to time bright flashes would shoot across the air- ocean, which would be our lightning. Nay even the brilliant rainbow, the northern aurora borealis, and the falling stars, which seem to us so high up in space, would be seen by him near to our earth, and ...
— The Fairy-Land of Science • Arabella B. Buckley
... remarkable display of the aurora borealis in January, 1837, and this poem commemorates ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard
... for it was impossible to miss, firing into the midst of the pack as they did. With snarls of baffled rage the remainder of the fierce creatures withdrew to some distance, and, sitting down on their haunches, howled dismally, with their muzzles lifted in the air toward the flickering Aurora Borealis. The dogs howled back in answer, and then, after a few shots at long distance, the battle was ended. The wolves turned tail and trotted ...
— The Young Treasure Hunter - or, Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska • Frank V. Webster
... look out of the window, she called to the others to come quickly to see the northern lights; for out of the north there had come a gorgeous illumination, filling the heavens with a marvellous radiance such as only the aurora borealis ...
— Gerda in Sweden • Etta Blaisdell McDonald
... alien humanity, a man cannot feel any real attachment. With all his outward ardour, Rudin is cold as ice at the bottom of his heart. His is an enthusiasm which glows without warmth, like the aurora borealis of the Polar regions. A poor substitute for the bountiful sun. But what would have become of a God-forsaken land if the Arctic nights were deprived of that substitute? With all their weaknesses, Rudin and the men of his stamp—in other words, the men of the generation of 1840—have rendered ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... as many foolish virgins in the future state as in this. As I am a believer in the Bible and Christianity, I don't need these things as confirmations, and they are not likely to be a religion to me. I regard them simply as I do the phenomena of the Aurora Borealis, or Darwin's studies on natural selection, as curious studies into nature. Besides, I think some day we shall find a law by which all these facts will fall ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... perfectly well," answered the boatswain promptly. "If the stars and moon happened not to be shining, there was always the aurora borealis blazing up, like a great fire, right ahead of me. You have seen the northern lights on a winter's night, but they are a very different affair up there to what they appear so far south. If it wasn't for them, ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... 17th of February, between twelve and three o'clock, the crew witnessed a magnificent spectacle, then first seen by European eyes. It was an aurora borealis. "The officer of the watch," says the narrative, "noticed that from time to time rays left it in spiral and circular forms, and that then its brilliancy increased, which gave it an extremely beautiful appearance. ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... has observed the most singular sounds produced from a telephone in connection with a telegraph wire during the aurora borealis, and I have just heard of a curious phenomenon lately observed by Dr. Channing. In the city of Providence, Rhode Island, there is an over-house wire about one mile in extent with a telephone at either ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... devils! will you be quiet? The appeal was immediately answered by silence; but hearing them tuning up for a second concert, I threw some wood on the blazing fire and once more retired to my lair. For a few minutes I lay awake to admire a brilliant Aurora Borealis shooting out its streams of electric light. Then, turning over on my side, I never moved ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... shores of Lake Superior away to the ultima Thule that lies beyond the waters of Athabasca and Slave Lakes, where the Aurora Borealis holds high carnival; from the beautiful prairies of the Bow and Saskatchewan Rivers to the muskegs and sterile regions of Hudson's Bay; from the fair and fertile domains of Red and Assinaboia Rivers, to the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains, ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... strange light which far to the north gleams on the blackened sky? It was not the lightning's flash, for it was a steady brightening glow. It was not the weird flash of the aurora borealis, but a redder and more lurid sheen; nor was it the harbinger of the rising sun which lit that northern sky. From a tinge it brightens to a gleam, and deepened at last into a broad glare. That lonely heart was overwhelmed with the dreadful ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... to explain why the vegetable fossils of Baffin's Bay resemble the Equatorial plants. We suppose, in place of the sun, a great luminous source of heat which has now disappeared, and of which the Aurora Borealis is ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... 5th they were awaked by the man on guard, who called them to witness a peculiarly beautiful appearance of the aurora borealis, or northern lights. Along the sky, towards the north, a large space was occupied by a light of brilliant white colour, which rose from the horizon, and extended itself to nearly twenty degrees above it. After glittering for some time, its colours were occasionally overcast and ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... and a voice with a gurgle in it, like a dove's. A nervous, convulsive moment of her pursed-up little mouth made that organ an uncertain element in her physiognomy, shifting as it did from one side of her face to the other with the rapidity of an aurora borealis. "Don't mind them, dear. A woman can never do more than reflect 'broken lights' of her husband, when she has a good one. Don't you love that expression?—'broken lights'? 'We are but broken lights of Thee!' Dear Tennyson! And no word ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... the months of December and January it is true that the daylight in Arctic Canada (north of Lake Athapaska) became so short that the sun at its greatest altitude only appeared for two or three hours a short distance above the horizon. But there were compensations. The brilliancy of the Aurora Borealis, even without the assistance of the moon and the stars, made some amends for that deficiency, for it was frequently so light all night that travellers could see to read a very small print (Samuel Hearne). The importance of these "Northern lights" must not be overlooked ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... Derangements are still imperfectly understood. Any overheated motor may of course "seize" without warning; but so many complaints have reached us of accidents similar to yours while shooting the Aurora that we are inclined to believe with Lavalle that the upper strata of the Aurora Borealis are practically one big electric "leak," and that the paralysis of your engines was due to complete magnetization of all metallic parts. Low-flying planes often "glue up" when near the Magnetic Pole, and there is no reason in science why the ...
— With The Night Mail - A Story of 2000 A.D. (Together with extracts from the - comtemporary magazine in which it appeared) • Rudyard Kipling
... the chronicles of those who were blessed in being his contemporaries. One indiscreet remark of Josephus has been recognized as the interpolation of a later hand, well-intentioned perhaps, but misguided. Jesus glows in the Gospels. Yet they that awaited the day when, in a great aurora borealis, the Son of man should appear, had passed from earth before one of ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... the country were moving back from the coast into winter quarters. Great flocks of geese streamed southward, and with harsh cries gave warning of the icy terrors that had driven them from their Arctic nesting places. Night after night the wonderful beauties of the aurora borealis were flashed across the northern heavens with ever increasing brilliancy. Every one predicted a hard winter, and everything pointed ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... back. Baard was beautiful—and awful. You know how glisteningly blond he was. Oliver, have you ever watched the polar bears? He was cold as iron when it is so cold that it burns you. Coldness wasn't negative with him. It was positive—and awful beyond expression—like the aurora borealis. ...
— Touch and Go • D. H. Lawrence
... first time he had spoken that evening, and not even the half Cree, or Williams, or the factor's son guessed how the blood was racing through his veins. Outside he stood with the pale, cold glow of the Aurora Borealis shining upon him, and the limitless wilderness, heavy in its burden of snow, reaching out into the ghost-gray fabric of the night. The Englishman's laugh followed him, boisterous and grossly thick, and Jan moved on,—wondering ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood
... permitted to attempt an improvement on the toast given by his countryman, which request was granted. He then toasted the United States in this fashion: 'Here's to the United States, bounded on the north by the Aurora Borealis, on the east by infinite chaos, on the south by the procession of the Equinoxes, and on the west by the day of judgment.' This indeed is extravagant language, but that fellow possessed the American spirit which recognizes no limit to the possibilities ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... there are upwards of 60 New Facts. Among these is a valuable paper on Arsenic, by Dr. Christison, (from the Philosophical Magazine;) a method of ascertaining the vegeto-alkali in Bark; the influence of the Aurora Borealis on the Magnetic Needle; Lieut. Drummond's Plan for illuminating Light Houses by a ball of lime, (from the Philosophical Transactions); Laws of electrical accumulation, and the decomposition of water by atmospheric and ordinary electricity; the new Indigo; the spontaneous ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 488, May 7, 1831 • Various
... jacket on in place of the parkas[5] they had worn all day. Swiftly, almost on the instant they closed their eyes, they were asleep. The stars leaped and danced in the frosty air, and overhead the colored bars of the aurora borealis were ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London |
