Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-01-03
RED SKIES AND BLUE MOONS.
The British Royal Society Investigates Some
Mysterious Phenomena.

Philadelphia Ledger.
The great duet laden air wave of 1888
following the tremendous Krakatoa vol
canic eruption and earthquake of August
in that year, has been carefully and meth
odically investigated for the Royal society
of Great Britain oy committee appoint
ed by the society. In orr country the
sunset afterg lows. with the red skies of
the evenings and mornings, in the autumn
of 1883, were soon attributed by Ameri-
can observers to tbs pumice dusE thrown
high into the upper air oy the mighty up
heaval at Krakatoa. Blush aspects Of
sun and moon also marked the beautiful
dis plays, anu other curious atm ospheric
TINS observed from time to time were
likewise referred to the same cause.
But now the report of the committee
reveals new wonders, unseen, but not I'M
felt, subsequent to the tremendous con-
vulsion At Kew and Greenwich, Eng
land; at Palermo, Berlin, and elsewhere
in Europe, delicate instruments of per-
cision chad noted the passage OF an air
wave, which passed and repassed, again
and again, leading TO the conclusion that
the atmosphere around the earth exper-
fenced seven distinct pulsations, that
were counted ana timed as waves of sound
were timed. 1t took, according to this
report eabout ten hours for the first at
mos pheric wave-believed to have been
started on its journey by the shock of
thu ex plosion-tO reach Greenwich OBJ
servatory, England, and after that the
wave was noted passing over at intervals
averaging about day ana half. The
speed of a sound wave, as Prof. Ball re-
minds us, is 1913 miles per hour at zero of
Fahrenheit aud 781 miles at 80 Fahren
heit; the aerial wave was estimated to have
sped per hour at rate ranging from 674
to 726 miles.
The sounds" from Krakatoa seem to
have been heard in a series of concus'
sions and reports, like the discharge Of
artillery or blasting, that were observed
from island to island, at distances begin
ing at Batavia, ninetyfour miles away,
or almost across the whole wide extent of
the Indian ocean, the 'noise" of the Kra-
katoa convulsion was transmitted.
1t will be noticed thBt the Royal society
committee calls some of these wonderful
occurrences the phenomena Subsequent"
to Krakatoa's eruption, without affirm g
that they were actually caused by it. Al
though Prof. Ball believes that with a
large body of scientists that the distur-
DdECSS WOIo uOb JILL puh
were consequent and resultant, he is care
ful to mpliment the reserve of state
statement by which this body of obser
vers put forth their magnificent conciu-
sions, conscious that there is still q
chance thai, while the phenomena were
"post hoc," they might also be mon
propter hoe"
"When KrakatOa exploded two centur-
les ago, blood-red skies appear to have
been shortly afterward as far away rs
Denmark" Everywhere in the world
certainly, where observers are heard
from, the remarkable skies of the autumn
aud winter of 18S3-84 were noticed. A
strange blue sun made its appearance,
and in the somewhat colloquial phrasing
of the royal astronomer, 'scampered
round the globe in thirteen days" Green
moons, as we'll as blue, were noted; the
dust-stream came into sight as lofty
voyager-"in an extensive clou 4 of circo-
strastus," and the sun had an occasional
corona that the earth's atmosphere, and
not it's own, had evidently bestowed.
"How small the world is, after all," is
Prof. Balls conclusion, seeing that 80
many of it's inhabitants were interested
spectators within brief intervals of time
of the ageartry that Krakatoa's volcan-
ic influence ENROLLED.