ribed from journals written within a few hours, at
most, from the time of occurrence, and in the first case written so soon
as he went indoors.

This was on the 6th of October, 1904, at Fairbanks, a little removed
from the town itself. When first the heavens were noticed there was one
clear bow of milky light stretching from the northern to the southern
horizon, reflected in the broken surface of the river, and glistening on
the ice cakes that swirled down with the swift current. Then the
southern end of the bow began to twist on itself until it had produced a
queer elongated corkscrew appearance half-way up to the zenith, while
the northern end spread out and bellied from east to west. Then the
whole display moved rapidly across the sky until it lay low and faint on
the western horizon, and it seemed to be all over. But before one could
turn to go indoors a new point of light appeared suddenly high up in the
sky and burst like a pyrotechnic bomb into a thousand pear-shaped
globules with a molten centre flung far out to north and south. Then
began one of the most beautiful celestial exhibitions that the writer
has ever seen. These globules stretched into ribbon streamers, dividing
and subdividing until the whole sky was filled with them, and these
ribbon streamers of greenish opalescent light curved constantly inward
and outward upon themselves, with a quick jerking movement like the
cracking of a whip, and every time the ribbons curved, their lower edges
frayed out, and the fringe was prismatic. The pinks and mauves flashed
as the ribbon curved and frayed--and were gone. There was no other
colour in the whole heavens save the milky greenish-white light, but
every time the streamers thrashed back and forth their under edges
fringed into the glowing tints of mother-of-pearl. Presently, the whole
display faded out until it was gone. But, as we turned again to seek the
warmth of the house, all at once tiny fingers of light appeared all over
the upper sky, like the flashing of spicules of alum under a microscope
when a solution has dried to the point of crystallisation, and stretched
up and down, lengthening and lengthening to the horizon, and gathering
themselves together at the zenith into a crown. Three times this was
repeated; each time the light faded gradually but completely from the
sky and flashed out again instantaneously.

For a full hour, until it was impossible to stand gazing any longer for
the cold, the fasci