Abstract
AMONG the numerous varieties of the aurora borealis or northern light, there is one of particular interest as regards the determination of the origin of this phenomenon. This variety, which was observed and reported upon in 1868 by the members of the Swedish Polar Expedition, takes the form of tiny flames or a phosphorescent luminosity, appearing during the winter months in the Polar regions, around projecting objects, viz. mountain cones and ridges. This phenomenon is so prominent that one need not be a scientist to discover it, and it was observed by our well-known philologist, Herr M. A. Castrén, during his journeys in Siberia. Herr Castrén's descriptions of the phenomenon are very minute, and exactly in accordance with its usual appearances, but his observations were, however, not known to me in 1868, and it was only on the return of the expedition that I heard of them. The observations made by the Swedish expedition at Spitzbergen led the Finnish Society of Science in 1871 to despatch an expedition, of which I was a member, to Lapland to ascertain if such a phenomenon could not be called forth, or at all events magnified, by mere mechanical appliances. And assuming that the aurora borealis in general, and the variety of the same just mentioned in particular, is caused by electric currents in the atmosphere, an apparatus of the following nature was erected on Luosmavaara, a mountain-top about 520 feet above the surface of the Lake Enare, in Lapland. It consisted of a number of fine points of copper wire laid out in the shape of a wreath two square metres in area, and connected by a circular wire of the same metal. This wreath was attached to a long pole, from the top of which a single copper wire (0-4 mm. in diameter) led to a galvanometer fixed in a room in the Enare vicarage, some two miles distant east, and from the galvanometer another copper wire led to a disk of platina in the earth.
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LEMSTRÖM, S. The Aurora Borealis . Nature 28, 60–63 (1883). https://doi.org/10.1038/028060a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/028060a0