The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1896-11-21
WHAT NANsEN DID FIND.
The North Pole wa a Little Too ia
aWny for Him.

The North Pole Was n Little Too Far
Away for HiIn.
Although DR.. Nansen lacked almost
exactly 400 miles Of reaching the place
which the g~eographers speak of as 1.-The
northern pivotal spot of our planet" the
Investigations he made are said to be of
the greatest scientific value.
Among other things the aurora, the
"rosy-hued phantom of the northern
skies" was made the subject of particu-
lar inquiry by Il corps of ain meteor
ologists who accompanied the expedi-
ton for that especial purpose.
For more Than a quarter of a century
we nave boosted of living in an age of
widespread intelligence and general ell
-lightenment; but if there is or has been
any subject in the whole range of science
upon which we rave been very vaguely
and Enthusiastically informed, it has
been on that of the aurora borealis.
So-caIled scientific writers have gone
so far as to refer to the wonderful
/ golden glow that occasionally lights the
northern skies as being caused by the
sun shining on the ~icebergsl" Many
other attempted explanations, some of
them equally ridiculous, were made by
the speculative Investigators before
some one finally hit on the idea that cleo
tricity was in some way responsible for
that most marvellous and impressive
spectacle.
The electrical character of the aurora
borealis was suspected many years ago
by the more advanced students OF the
subject, bu: was never proven until a
| short time before Nansen's departure
for the far north. In some of their eX-
periments Profs. Lemstrom and Branais
were using the s~pectroscope, when it oc-
CURED to them that they might, with
u little patience, analyZe the aurora's
light. This unique experiment clearly
established the fact that auroras are
simply electrical discharges among the
fine particles of meteoric iron dust
which appear to be especially plentiful
in the atmosphere in the region of the
poles.
With the Lemstrom-Branais expert
ment as a basis for future operations
along the line of auroral investigation,
the Nansen meteorologists fitted them
selves out with the most complicated set
of instruments ever manufactured.
Among the rest they took along with
I1tJn StNGTdl ulilt u copper dld 2
wire, the avowed purpose being to make
artificial auroras and investigate them
at leisure.
In carrying out the details of manu-
featuring an aurora borealis the expert
mentors first coiled n mile or more of
copper wire around n conical granite
peak that was only a few hundred feet
in height. This wire they pointed every
few yards with steel ''nibs," each three
inches in length. When these details
had been satisfactorily completed n
strong current Of electricity was dis
charged into the wire, whereupon a
brilliant, crown-shaped aurora almost
instantly appeared and hung like a halo,
apparently only n few yards above the
point of the grarite peak.
In later experiments peaks situated
on the opposite sides of n deep valley
were used. In this instance, when the
electric discharge into the wire was full
and complete, an arched aurora with all
the accomplishments of "streamers"
and changing colors hung like a great,
feecy rainbow over the valley.
Information on this most important
subject is necessarily very meager; how
ever, when the different reports have
been officially made TO h various Scan
dinavian scientific bodies which aided
the Nansen enterprise, we expect to be
able to give some more interesting points
on the subject of manufactured auroras.
st. Louis Republic.