The Mineral argus., 1884-02-21
Atmospheric Phenomena.
From the London Times.

From the London Times.
Nj. Mormon Lockyer brings the light
of science this morning to bear on the
atmospheric phenomena which have
lately been surprising and delighting
Europe. Sunrises and sunsets are the
most exquisite spectacles which nature
affords. The colors which accompany
chem are enchanting everywhere. They
are no less glorious in Hyde Park than
on the crest of a Swiss mountain. But
commonly they have been left to poets
to dilate on and glorify. Imagination
is captivated by them, and lends them
hues of its own. Nothing seems
more fleeting and visionary and
immaterial. When they embody any
substance it has been regarded as pecu-
liarly local. Against London smoke is
set the lurid splendor it adds to the tints
of a London sunset. Mr.. Lockyer
teaches that science has as close concern
with these prismatic marvels as fancy.
he bids the lovely apparitions render
an account of their births and compost
ton. Though they remain as brilliant
and beautiful as ever, they are seen by
his analysis. to want food lika other
splendid ere ltures. Marine anemones,
which are as delicate as q rose, require
to be no1rlshed on raw meat. The
ethereal pomps of the last fortnight or
more are reported to have derived their
wondrous complexion from a plentiful
diet of pumice-stone. By the hypoth-
esis they are brought down from their
height of impalpable purity to acknoWl-
edge that they are earthly like the rest
nF VNn IL -1kV~~1 ns-.. - IL
with q dignity of strangeness and dis.
lance to which they never before pre-
sumed to aspire. The foundations Of
the globe have been poured into the air
for the admiration of Londoners. Ac-
cording to the view now set forth the
crowds that gazed on a sight in the heav-
ems which Turner himself would not
have dared to portray were assisting at
a celebration of the obsequies of the Isle
of Krakatoa. Aloft in the skies were it's
ashes. The u was escorting them with
an illumination of the most bewitching
funeral torches to their final resting.
place in the northern ocean.
1t is an amusing story when DR.. Mel
drum, watching sunsets in the Indian
seas, sketched in outline and MIR. Lock
yer has elaborated, on this basis. An
atmosphere at least forty miles deep
clothes the earth, An aqueous vapor
In great part composes it, and forms the
rejecting medium. Generally the SUM-
set tints are due to that aqueous vapor
which vibrates under the SUMS rays,
According to the density of the vapor,
as 1t absorbs or ~intercepts one color or
another, the light it reflects is white,
blue, violet. or red. Ordinarily it would
have been inferred from the SURPRISING
lustre of the sunrises and sunsets during
tho lnDf fu-n ar Fhpoa wrvnala 49, =
some reason the band of aque-
Gus vapor had thickened. Had the facts
answered, they would have explained
the result. The atmosphere has been
submitted to the thumbscreW of the
spectros3ope, and negatives the theory
altogether. In the period in question
the dry-air band is pronounced to have
enlarged at the expense of the watery.
Recent vivid green's and crimsons must
have traversed an extra length of dry
instead of aqueous Yapor. Had meteor
illogical science and the spectroscope ex-
isted in old days, when there was neith-
or steam nor the telegraph, inquirers
mnst have paused in utter perplexity
in the presence of these contradictory
conclusions. Now the accelerated facil-
tiles Tor the transmission of
news have accumulated in
the briefest interval a mass of evidence
which indicates a way out of the scien-
tific dilemma. Meteorologists have
been enabled to track Krakatao in so.
luton from its original sites in the Straits
of Sunda to the skies of Java, and Mad
ras and other points in Southern India
to the Seychelles and Mauritius, to the
Cape and the Gold Coast, TO Brazil, Ven
zuela and Trinidad. Over Java there
was q pail of black night on that terrible
2Sth Of August. Madras was COMPOUNDED
by a bright green sun at sunrise and
sunset from the Sth to the 18th of Sep
TENDER. In the Seychelles and Brazil
at the end Of August and beginning of
September the sun had been as pale aa
the moon. Three months later.
alout the period at which, with the pre-.
vailing currents of the upper air, and in
the anticipated direction matter floating
in the atmosphere would be due in
Europe, European skies have been VS.
tied with a succession o. gorgeous sun
rises and sunsets. DR.. Meldrum's and
Mr.. Lockyer's view is at any rate in
agreement with the circumstances, and
has the merit of accounting for them. 1t