Finally, if the phenomena took place beyond our planet and its
atmosphere, why should they take place at the polar regions only, as
they often do?
J. S. Winn, in a letter to Dr. Franklin, dated Spithead, August 12th,
1772, says: "The observation is new, I believe, that the aurora
borealis is constantly succeeded by hard southerly or southwest winds,
attended with hazy weather and small rain. I think I am warranted from
experience in saying _constantly_, for in twenty-three instances that
have occurred since I first made the observation it has invariably
obtained; and the knowledge has been of vast service to me, as I have
got out of the Channel when other men as alert, and in faster ships,
but unapprised of this circumstance, have not only been driven back,
but with difficulty escaped shipwreck."
Colonel James Capper, the discoverer of the circular nature of storms,
remarks: "As it appears, that, on all such occasions, the current of
air comes in a direction diametrically opposite to that where the
meteor appears, it seems probable that the aurora borealis is caused by
the ascent of a considerable quantity of electric fluid in the superior
regions of the atmosphere to the north and northeast, where,
consequently, it causes a body of air near the earth to ascend, when
another current of air will rush from the the opposite point to fill up
the vacuum, and thus may produce the southerly gales which succeed the
aurora borealis.
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