The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1884-02-22

49, o>ASNs "a.EL |
And what did he see? Why, the lover had
won
A widow with wealth galore;
While the maiden had welded, that very
morn,
The clerk of a dry goods store.
Atmospheric Phenomena.
From the London Times.
Mr.. Mormon Lockyer brings the light
of science this morning to bear on the
atmospheric phenomena which have
lately beck surprising and delighting
Europe. Sunrises and sunsets are the
most exquisite spectacles which nature
affords. The colors which accompany
them are enchanting every where. They
are no less glorious in Hyde Park than
on the crest Of q Swiss mountain. But
commonly they have been left to poets
to dil.te Oh and glorify. Imagination
is captivated by them, and lends them
hues of its own Nothing seems
more feeting and visionary and
immaterial. When they embody any
substance it has been regarded as pecu.
liarly local. Against London smoke is
set the lrrid splendor it adds to the tints
OF a London sunset. Mr.. Lockyer
teaches that science has as close concern
with these prismatiG marvels as fancy.
He bids the lovely apparitions render
an account of their births and composi-
ton. Though they remain as brilliant
and beautiful as yer they are seen by
his analysis to want food lika other
crInryIl orn,{,ra, .. NJ,
which are az delicate rs a rose, require
10 be n%ourished on raw meat. The
ethereal pomps of the last fortnight or
more are reported to have derive | 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
of us. In return science invests them
with g dignity of s%trangeness 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 o sci forth the
ems which Turner himself wonld not
have dared to portray were assisting at
a celebration of the obsequies of the Ts'
of Krakatoa. Aloft in the ski"- ~
ashes. The u was ~ we're lts
a.. 'ii7--sson OF The most be sitchine
11neiaL torches to their tiual resting.
place in the northern ocean
1. an amusing story which DR.. Mel
drum, watcn.'"o Elnsets in the Inuian
seas, sketched in oG.'line and Mr.. Lock-
yer has elaborated, on thiis basis. An
atmosphere at least forty Mas deep
clothes the earth. An aqueous vaIor
In great part composes it. and forms the
set tints are due to that aqueous vapor
which vibrates under the suns rays.
According to the density Of the vapor,
as 1t absorbs or intercepts one color or
another. the lighJ it reflects is white,
blue, violet, or red. Ordinarily it would
have been inferred from the surprising
lustre of the sunrises and sunsets during
the last two or three weeks that for
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
s~pectros:ope. 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
nave ~traversed an extra length of dry
instead Of aqueous vapos. Had meteor
illogical science and the spectroscope ex-
listed in old days, when thare was Meth
er steam nor the telegraph, inquirers
mnst have paused in utter perplexity
n the presence of these contradictory
conclusions. Now the accelerated facil-
ties 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. M~eteorologists have
been enabled to track Krakatao in 30.
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, 10 Brazil, Ven-
zuela and Trinidad. Over Java there
was q pail of black night on that terrible
2sth OF August. Madras wal COMPOUNDED
by a bright green sun at sunrise and
sunset from the 9Th to the l4th of Sep
TENDER. In the Seychelles and Brazil
at h m Of August and beginning Of
September the sun had been as pale aa
about the period at which, with the pre-.
vailing currents of the upper air, and in
the anticipated direction matter floating
! the atmosphere would be due in
Europe, European skies have been Wis.
Tied with q succession of gorgeous sun
rises and sunsets. DIR. 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 |
is said that the exploded fragments OF
krakatoa and its volcanic roots have
been dyeing European skies as they
shronded Java. Gradually the veil has |
become thinner and teebler. 1t has
ceased to have power to hide the sun. or |
turn its face pale and silver. No
longer do the sunbeams reach the earth !
blue and green and red as in the Ceylon
and Trinidad. Yet the dust of the dead
= ountains ana crater has ever been |
here as real as the instant of its fiery
election, if less solid and deep. (
though 1T could not s~ubjngate the sun
in its strength, it has had to determine 1
the tone of the after-glow.
Poetry will scarcely complain Of
science for its habit of weighing the sun
and dissecting the rainbow when it in /
PRODUCES the mind thus to the secret
workings of the laboratory of nature. I
Nature has often been drawn smiling /
as she overthrow human hopes and
hurries mortais to premature death.
Never mas her supposed combination |
OF serene remorselessness and artistic
senslbiilty been exhibited by a morals
zing poet or novel; 4 more graphically |
Than escene in which science shows |
her ing islands and painting the
skies imperial puppies with pigments /
concocted from the awful ruin. The
actual moral which science would de-