Every clear night the sky was illuminated by the most beautiful displays of aurora it has ever been my fortune to witness; they always commenced in the northeast and northwest, and seemed to spring from a dark low bank of clouds. The lights were never stationary for a single second, neither did they ever take the form of bows or arches so often seen in other latitudes, but great curtains of light flashing with all the prismatic colors seemed to be drawn across the heavens, ever rising and changing and often culminating in a corona at the zenith, falling like a shower of meteoric lire. As the winter advanced these displays were more brilliant, and were always of a character that defies description, either by pen or pencil, as they were never for two seconds alike.
In 1881, he [Patrick Henry Ray] established a meteorological and magnetic observation station at Barrow, Alaska.
we sighted the point [Barrow] on the afternoon of September 8 [in 1881], and came to anchor about one mile to the northeast of Cape Smythe, thus successfully accomplishing the first and most important stage of our work.