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Often it happens that such a dark line opening out upon the sea is enlarged into the form of a trumpet, forming a huge bay, similar to the estuaries of certain terrestrial streams. The Margaritifer Sinus, the Aonius Sinus, the Aurorae Sinus, and the two horns of the Sabæus Sinus are thus formed, at the mouths of one or more canals, opening into the Mare Erythraeum or into the Mare Australe.

After a brilliant aurora borealis, we have been able to recognize, on the following morning, trains of clouds, which, during the night, had appeared as so many luminous rays. The absolute height of aurorae boreales has been very variously estimated by different observers.

They were Martians monstrous creatures, huge-chested, humpbacked, with tremendously long, thin legs and arms, their big-eyed, big-eared heads mere excrescences in front of their humps. Trailing slowly through the desert toward Aurorae Sinus, they passed near the skeleton bodies. One of the Martians saw them.

Hence, almost all observers have arrived at the same conclusions; we will in particular cite MM. Lottin and Bravais, who have observed more than a hundred and forty aurorae boreales. It is therefore now clearly proved that the aurora borealis is not an extra-atmospheric phenomenon.

Gisler, who for a long time dwelt in the North of Sweden, remarks that the matter of the aurorae boreales sometimes descends so low that it touches the ground; at the summit of high mountains it produces upon the faces of travellers an effect analogous to that of the wind. Dr.

M. Liais, having had the opportunity of applying a method, which he had devised for measuring the height of aurorae boreales, to an aurora seen at Cherbourg Oct. 31, 1853, found that the arc of the aurora was about two and a half miles above the ground, at its lower edge.

The aurora borealia, or rather, the polar aurora, for there are aurorae australes as well as aurorae boreales, has been an object of wonder and admiration from time immemorial. Pliny and Aristotle record phenomena identical with those which later times have witnessed. The ancients ranked this with other celestial phenomena, as portending great events.

M. Necker, who has described a great number of aurorae which he observed at the end of 1839 and at the commencement of 1840, in the Isle of Skye, never himself heard the noise in question; but he remarks that this noise had been very frequently heard by persons charged with meteorological observations at the light-house of Swenburgh Head, at the southern extremity of Shetland.

I imagine it is equally abundant in winter, and more equable and better tempered. Who ever breasted a snowstorm without being excited and exhilarated, as if this meteor had come charged with latent aurorae of the North, as doubtless it has? It is like being pelted with sparks from a battery.

M. Necker is not the only observer who has not heard the noise; neither have MM. Lottier and Bravais, who have observed so great a number of aurorae, ever heard it; and a great many others are in this case.