June 1873, Mt. Lyell Studies, Glacier Cañon Erosion Image 27

• Main Author: Muir, John
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Scholarly Commons 1873
• Subjects: John Muir; journals; drawings; writings; travel; journaling; naturalist; Bellows; Northern lights
• Online Access: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmj-all/585; https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/context/jmj-all/article/1584/type/native/viewcontent/fullsize.jpg

corona, wh [which] shone like a halo….it kept smounderling & shifting just as if a gale in the upper strata of the atmosphere were [playing] the bellows to it. Presently fresh streamers shot out of the darkness outside the inner halo, followed by other bright shafts of light in a still wider circle, & meanwhile the dark space in the middle was clearly visible; at other times it was covered with masses of light Then it appeared as if the storm abated, & the whole turned pale & glowed with a faint whitish hue for a little while, only to shoot wildly up once more & to begin the same dance over again. Then the whole mass of light around the corona began to rock to & fro in large waves over the Zen [zenith] & the dark central point, where upon the gale seemed to increase & whirl the streamers into an inextricable tangle till they merged into a luminous vapor that enveloped the corona & drowned it in a deluge of light, so that neither it nor the streamers nor the dark centre could be seen, nothing in fact but a chaos of shining mist. Again it became paler & I went below At midnight there was hardly anything of the Ar [aurora] to be seen” Nov. 11 The N.rn [northern] lights with their eternally shifting loveliness flame over the heavens each day & each night wreathe the whole vault of heaven with their glittering fleeting light surpassing all else in their wild loveliness. https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmj-all/1584/thumbnail.jpg