make. During our journey from York Factory to Fort Enterprise, we seldom
had an opportunity of ascending out of the valley of the river through which
our route lay, and any blocks of stone observed in such a situation may as
readily be supposed to have been transported by the river as by a more
general cause. On the Barren Grounds, where we adopted a different style of
travelling, the loose stones which were very numerous, even in the most elevated
situations, were, as far as we observed, similar to the rocks on which
they rested, and may be supposed to be the more durable remains of the
covering strata, which have been destroyed by long-continued action of
the atmosphere. Their angular forms and their resting-places, often upon
the very summit of the hills, militate against their having travelled from a
distance.
The very general, though rude, resemblance these' blocks bore to large
crystals is a remarkable circumstance, and seems to indicate a crystallization
in the great of the red granite, of which they were very frequently composed,
and of whose beds or strata they are perhaps the remains.
We may conclude with observing, that the preceding details shew that in
the regions we traversed, the rocks of the primitive, transition, secondary, and
alluvial classes have the same general composition, structure, position, and
distribution, as in other parts of America which have been examined; and as
these agree in all respects with the rock formations in Europe and Asia, they
may with propriety be considered as universal formations, parts of a grand
and harmonious whole, the production of infinite wisdom.
No. II.
AUEOHA BOREALIS.
GENERAL REMARKS.
SO few observations of the Aurora Borealis in high northern latitudes have
been recorded, that I trust a minute account of the various appearances it exhibits,
will not be thought superfluous or uninteresting.. The remarks of the
late Lieutenant Hood are copied verbatim from his journal. They speak sufficiently
for themselves, to render any eulogium of mine unnecessary. To this
excellent and lamented young-officer the merit is due, of having been, I believe,
the first who ascertained by his observations at Basquiau-Hill, (combined
with those of Dr. Richardson at Cumberland-House,) that the altitude of the
Aurora upon these occasions was far inferior to that which had been assigned
to it by any former observer. He also, by his skilful adaptation of a vernier to
the graduated circle of a Kater’s Compass, was enabled to read off small
deviations of the needle, and was the first who satisfactorily proved, by his
observations at Cumberland-House, the important fact of the action of the
Aurora upon the compass-needle. By his ingenious Electrometer invented at
Fort Enterprise, he seems also to have proved the Aurora to be an electrical
phenomenon, or at least that it induces a certain unusual state of electricity in
the atmosphere.
The observations of Dr. Richardson, independent of their merit in other
respects, point peculiarly to the Aurora being formed at no great elevation,
and that it is dependent upon certain other atmospheric phenomena, such as
the formation of one or other of the various modifications of cirro-stratus.
With respect to my own observations, they were principally directed to the
effects of the Aurora upon the magnetic needle, and the connexion of the
amount, &c., of this effect, with the position and appearance so zf t2he Aurora.