The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1885-10-31
Our Oliu.
THE NORTHERN LIGHTS.
Lieutenant Frederick Schaoatka's Vieaus on
the Phenomena Some Esquimaur Theories
on Many Subjects.
From the Ne,o York Times.

From the Ne,o York Times.
Like the icebergs borne southwark on the
polar currents from the frigid zone, which
stretch along the upper edge of the Gulf
Stream resembling row of dangerous
spectators watching the vessels of civiliza-
ton pass by, so the wonderful northern
lights shooting overhead form other and
more acceptable visitors from the arc
tic regions which occasionally wander
into our own ATTITUDES. How far into the
temperate or even the torrid zone they ex-
tend [ will write presently when the dis
cussion of such point is introduced by a
few simple preliminaries.
[ once heard polar explorer say, with
exaggerated emphasis, that there was a
theory regarding the aurora borealis for
every display it had made, and to come
down to the more sober realm of cold facts,
it may not be very great exaggeration to
say that there is nearly one for every ex-
pedition into its hyperborean home, the
more modest explorers who have advanced
none being compensated for by those which
have sprung up in the meditating minds
of the parlor polar explorers at home. A
few students have made careful studies of
auroral displays, seeking rather to obtain
more authentic data from the vast amount
of confusing statements already written,
than to building up further conjectures
therefrom as to what the northern lights
may be; or, more properly speaking, mar
rowing down the many theories by re-
doctio ad absurdunp reasoning, showing
what the aurora is not, than advancing
others to be heaped upon the old, showing
what it may be. Prominent among these
students are Fritz Lemstrom and Tromholt
1t is almost impossible to give all the
theories which have been offered and tried
to grasp the facts regarding these fireworks
of the frigid zones, and, even if known,
they would not be interesting matter. On
the insane theory usually called "Syms's
Hole, which represents the earth as a
hollow shell, with two huge 'fuze holes
at the arctic and antarctic poles, was at
tached an idiotic annex for the northern
lights, representing them to be caused by
great streams of light emanating from these
holes, like the glare from an open furnace
door, and lighting up the northern and
southern regions much the same way as the
open door illuminates surrounding scenes.
Of course there must be play of this light
ON something to be reflected backward to
US and allow us to see these auroras. The
highest clouds, the cirrus form, are esti-
mated to be about six miles above us, and
! o.laro -,
York city, might be visible, if everything
was favorable, in Philadelphia, or even be-
yond; but it would hardly account for the
aurora being visible in the latter city, as it
has been, unless Syms's Hole is in this
State or south of the Canadian border.
Even the sun, as it sets, requires only about
Is degrees in which to expand its twilight,
but the aurora has been seen in Southern
Mexico, and giving Syms's ''fuze hole"
the power of this luminary and the super
imposed 45 or 46 miles of air above us for
rejecting purposes, and this same mythical
hole would hardly be as far north as Texas.
But to drop this waste of words and space
on this idea, not worth even this superficial
reasoning to disprove it, we find many more,
which, having clear idea here and there
breaking through them, have captured more
or less adherents. Lyon or Parry [ be-
lieve it was who thought a satisfactory ex-
PLANTATION could be found in the reflection
of the suns rays from the vast fields of
polar ice, and that this peculiar illumina-
tion, vast ice-blink, if it could be called
such, thrown into the atmosphere, produced
the lights. Against such theory is the
fact that when the suns rays are pouring
into these ice-felds with their greatest
strength, or about the suns northern SOL
stice, the aurora is not necessarily the
brightest, even in the night, in lower lati-
tudes. In the arctic, of course, it would
be dimmed or lost in the ever-shining sum-
mer sun of that country, but it should be
visible at this season, if this theory was
correct, far enough south to have the nights
quite dark. Another theory that the re-
Election is from the waters of the Polar sea
also passed long ago into the list of gratui-
tous guesses. The reflection theory is not
done for with these illusions to terrestrial
refectors, and things have been sought for
high in the air as a more reasonable way to
explain matters, such as electrical clouds,
suspended crystals of ice floating in the at
mosphere, and everything that can float in
the air almost Even the atmosphere has
been passed with its supposed forty-fve to
fifty miles of air, and it is supposed that on
it rests thick layers of lighter gas, hydro
gen, or something akin, as the atmosphere
rests on the denser fluid, water, and that
within this gas probably another fifty miles
thick, occur all the phenomenaof the north
ern lights. Not exactly a display like
lightning in the atmosphere nor phosphor-
escence in the sea, but something of an
electrical display between them in this
theoretical strata above us.
Again, some persons have advanced a
theory that the display was not unlike that
of frictional electrical displays, the upper
surface of the atmosphere, whether this be
the air we breathe or a superimposed layer
of lighter gas, striking against the supposed
etheric vapor, or either, of space by the
earth's motion in its orbit. This display
results electrically from the friction pro-
duced This idea, of course, presupposes
that space is filled with medium having
some density or resisting power, however
attenuated- theory which does not conflict
with some astronomical ideas on the same
subject in explaining certain cometary phe-
nomena. As the rapid motion of the air,
blowing from fair wind to violent gale,
can produce waves upon the surface of the
denser water, so, it is argued, the impact
of the light ether may produce waves in
the extremely attenuated upper strata Of
air as the earth revolves, and this produces
the throbbing waves of light so often seen
running toward the magnetic zenith of the
observer. That is, fish on the bottom Of
the sea. and able to see its surface disturb
ed by a storm which had lashed it into a
froth of phosphorescence, would see these
running waves of light somewhat the same
way, although on a much reduced scale
OF course this ether in space must be quite
variable in density, or we should have a
steady aurora from steady friction, at
least in the Northern Hemisphere, while
that portion was foremost in the earth's
flight, and Uice Uersa. Again, this ether
would have to vary in density every eleven
years, reaching a maximum once in that
time, to correspond to well-known perio-
die variation of the northern lights, and
this certainly seems quite unlikely. A