The green line (557.7 nm) of atomic oxygen and the Herzberg bands of molecular oxygen (measured between 250 and 280 nm) as observed from the Ogo 4 airglow photometer from August 1967 through January 1968 are discussed in terms of their spatial and temporal distributions and their relation to the atomic oxygen content in the lower thermosphere. Daily maps of the distribution of emissions show considerable structure (cells, patches, and bands) with appreciable changes from day to day. When data are averaged over periods of several days in length, the resulting patterns have only occasional tendencies to follow geomagnetic parallels. The seasonal variation is characterized by maxima in both the northern and the southern hemispheres in October, the northern hemisphere having substantially higher emission rates. These maxima tend to move toward the poles, leaving very low values of emission at low latitudes in December and January. Noting the similarity of the atomic oxygen profiles in the lower thermosphere to the profile of a Chapman distribution, formulae are derived relating the vertical column emission rates of the green line and the Herzberg bands to the atomic oxygen peak density. Global averages for the time period for these data (August 1967 to January 1968), when expressed in terms of maximum atomic oxygen densities near 100 km, have a range of 2.0¿1011 cm-3 to 2.7¿1011 cm-3. Their variation closely follows the phase of the semiannual variation in total density observed at higher altitudes from the analysis of satellite drag data.