The Aurora Borealis

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 18, 1873

The Aurora Borealis.

A WRITER in the magazine entitled, American Homes, thus speaks of the Northern Lights which are undoubtedly a part of those wonders in heaven above, given by the prophet, as signs of the end. Joel 2:30; Acts 2:19.

Nothing can be more beautiful and grand than this wild and mysterious Polar phenomenon, and the mind is filled with admiration at its varied forms of color, sometimes covering with inconceivable magnificence the whole concave above us.

Usually a brilliant arch appears in the north, a dark cloud dividing it from the horizon, and bringing into relief the clear white or brilliant red arch, which diffuses its rays far above, often appearing like a large fan, covering the whole sky and gradually ascending to the zenith, there to unite or form a crown, with blue, green, crimson and yellow playing in its palpitating rays.

This beautiful spectacle lasts but a moment, may be, and anon immense columns of light appear, varying in shape and hue with astonishing rapidity and endless caprice; now suddenly vanishing for a moment, leaving the heavens clothed in sombre blackness; then as suddenly returning with increased splendor, and shedding a matchless glory over the whole sky. Now may be seen simple gleams of brightness, now quivering rays of brilliant white—seeming as though drawn across the spacious firmament by an unseen pencil. Again, long, golden draperies appear, floating and undulating like garments shaken by the wind; and so near do they seem that one almost wonders at not hearing the rustling of their folds as they brush against each other.

Sometimes the heavens assume a blood-red color. The first aurora seen in this country (in the winter of 1719), was of this kind, and it is said “the bright light which spread from east to west over the northern sky, shone like a great fire shooting up its deadly flames. Sometimes it was of a blood-red color, and was very terrible to look at, filling the minds of the beholders with terror.”

Maupertuis, an eminent French astronomer speaks of one seen by him in Lapland, in the year 1736, as having appeared tinged with so lively a red that “the whole constellation of Orion seemed as if dyed in blood.”

In November, 1835, at New Haven, Connecticut, “an aurora of so intense a color appeared that the houses, and indeed the whole atmosphere, the snow, the trees, tops of houses, and indeed the whole face of nature appeared as red as blood.” The heavens seemed wrapped in flames, and an alarm of fire was given. The firemen turned out and paraded the streets. “Fears of some awful impending event pervaded the whole country.”

An account of a remarkable one in London, on the night of September 3, 1839, is on record, during which the whole heavens seemed as one sheet of fire, and at times the appearance of great volumes of smoke were mingled with it, which convinced every beholder that a terrible conflagration was raging. Every fire engine in the city was horsed, and thousands of people rushed in the direction of the supposed awful fire. At two o’clock the scene increased in grandeur, and the auroral splendor was so gorgeous that “the whole of London was as bright as at noonday.”

Passing over the many wonderful and brilliant displays in 1836, ’37, ’46, ’47, ’48, ’51, ’52 and ’60, we will notice for a moment the grandest of auroral storms, which occurred in 1859, and which continued with ever changing splendor for about a week, being visible over the whole of the globe.

Perhaps many of you gazed upon that magnificent spectacle with feelings of inexpressible wonder and admiration. But let those who were not so fortunate—and, indeed, those who were—go back with me a few years and behold the beautiful and gorgeous scene, as it again passes before us.

On Sunday evening, of August 28, the sun has set, and the shadows are slowly falling. See! far away in the north, pale streamers which mark every appearance of the aurora begin to shoot up. Slowly the twilight deepens into shade, and the “merry dancers” (as the “North men” call them), tripping lightly forth from their hiding-places, sweep back and forth, and flash and vanish like fiery spirits, in the Polar sky. Soon the whole northern heavens are brilliant with streamers, shooting up from all points of the horizon, and concentrating in mid-heaven, in a large globe of white light, suspended in the air, and lighting up the whole country for many miles, so that people rush out of their houses, certain that a great fire is raging.

Now appears a bright arch of light, stretching across the sky, from which flash up three floating, quivering sheets of fire. The luminous globe changes into the form of a coronet, gemmed and fringed with sparkling red and white stars, and suddenly changes into a deep blood-red color, and afterwards to a gorgeous purple. From this ruby crown, reach out, in all directions, long rays of red light, like a beautiful “glory.” The radiant coronet retains its place in the zenith, and from it, downward, on all sides, fall in graceful curves to the horizon, wide, tremulous streams of light, until the whole assumes the shape of a great shining umbrella. For about half an hour we watch this intense light, shooting its rays far up to the zenith, suffusing the whole northern sky with a bright crimson color, and shining with intense magnificence, until they slowly fade and the wondrous crown vanishes away.

Flashes of white light now shoot up, following each other so rapidly that the whole heavens seem like a great undulating sea of fire, making them appear almost as light as the day. Look! how the great auroral cloud of brightness continually changes its place and shape assuming the most singular forms, now looking like a great eagle, and again like a huge tortoise. We watch these transformations go on for full half an hour, until the whole sky seems alive with streams of flame and radiant forms of light, flashing and flitting back and forth, up and down, mingling and intermingling, appearing and disappearing, like confused processions of restless phantoms or spectres clad in ghastly shrouds, the stars all the time peeping out from among them as they move to and fro.

See the crowds of people everywhere gathered together in the streets, at the doors and windows, and on the house-tops, gazing with awe and admiration upon the glorious and terrible scene. But slowly the splendor fades and vanishes, and we can now see only with the eye of memory this sublime and surpassingly beautiful scene, the like of which is nowhere recorded.

The aurora was seen occasionally in former ages (though some have said that it was an entirely modern phenomenon), but never so frequently as since the eighteenth century, and never before had it assumed colors and hues which are now so common.

The prophet Joel (2: 30, 31), gives the best description of modern displays of northern lights that can be given in so few words:—

“And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth; BLOOD and FIRE, and PILLARS OF SMOKE.”

Notwithstanding the investigation of modern science, the cause of this wonderful phenomenon is still unknown, though its electro-magnetic character has been proved almost beyond a doubt.