On the 20th of February, while we were all yet living together at Anadyrsk, there occurred one of the grandest displays of the arctic aurora which had been observed there for more than fifty years, and which exhibited such unusual and extraordinary brilliancy as to astonish and frighten even the natives.  It was a cold, dark, but clear winter’s night, and the sky in the earlier part of the evening showed no signs of the magnificent illumination which was already being prepared.  A few streamers wavered now and then in the north, and a faint radiance like that of the rising moon shone above the dark belt of shrubbery which bordered the river; but these were common occurrences, and excited no notice or remark.  Late in the evening, just as we were preparing to go to bed, Dodd happened to go outside for a moment to look after his dogs; but no sooner had he reached the outer door of the entry than he came rushing back, his face ablaze with excitement, shouting:  “Kennan!  Robinson!  Come out, quick!” With a vague impression that the village must be on fire, I sprang up, and without stopping to put on my furs, fan hastily out, followed closely by Robinson, Harder, and Smith.  As we emerged into the open air there burst suddenly upon our startled eyes the grandest exhibition of vivid dazzling light and colour of which the mind can conceive.  The whole universe seemed to be on fire.  A broad arch of brilliant prismatic colours spanned the heavens from east to west like a gigantic rainbow, with a long fringe of crimson and yellow streamers stretching up from its convex edge to the very zenith.  At intervals of one or two seconds, wide, luminous bands, parallel with the arch, rose suddenly out of the northern horizon and swept with a swift, steady majesty across the whole heavens, like long breakers of phosphorescent light rolling in from some limitless ocean of space.

Every portion of the vast arch was momentarily wavering, trembling, and changing colour, and the brilliant streamers which fringed its edge swept back and forth in great curves, like the fiery sword of the angel at the gate of Eden.  In a moment the great auroral rainbow, with all its wavering streamers, began to move slowly up toward the zenith, and a second arch of equal brilliancy formed directly under it, shooting up a long serried row of slender, coloured lances toward the North Star, like a battalion of the celestial host presenting arms to its commanding angel.  Every instant the display increased in unearthly grandeur.  The luminous bands revolved swiftly, like the spokes of a great wheel of light, across the heavens; the streamers hurried back and forth with swift, tremulous motion from the ends of the arches to the centre; and now and then a great wave of crimson would surge up from the north and fairly deluge the whole sky with colour, tingeing the white snowy earth far and wide with its rosy reflection.  But as the words of the prophecy, “And the heavens shall be turned