Abstract
INFORMATION with regard to these beautiful phenomena and their cause is rapidly being collected, and at the same time the opinions of those who have given most attention to them are being stated, both here and on the Continent. Among the latter we may refer to a memoir presented by Prof. Forel to the Société Vaudoise des Sciences Naturelles, on the 19th of December. At the beginning of the displays in Switzerland, M. Forel ascribed them to those causes which produce the ordinary after-glow so beautifully visible in mountainous countries, and at first he considered that the meteorological conditions were such as to favour this view. Further irquiry, however, he now states has made this hypothesis absolutely untenable. One of his arguments is that the glows which first appeared in November and then decreased to 3rd December, regained a maximum on the 24th and 25th. Now from the 22nd to 26th December, Switzerland was the centre of a maximum of atmospheric pressure, the barometer being higher there than in any of the surrounding countries. Exactly the opposite held in November, and this confirms him in the idea that meteorological factors alone do not suffice to explain the glows. He also describes the dates and tracts of the chromatic phenoniena observed, and considers that their origination in Krakatoa is a simple and sufficient explanation. La Nature for the 29th ult. contains an interesting communication from M. Van Sandick, an Engineer des Ponts et Chaussés, at Pedang, who was an eye witness of the later stage of the eruption. He was on board the Governor-General Loudin, and was close to Krakatoa on August 26th. His communication is accompanied by a very detailed map, showing the changes which have supervened not only in the Straits themselves, but also on the neighbouring coasts of Java and Sumatra, but we shall return to this important letter.
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The Remarkable Sunsets . Nature 29, 222–225 (1884). https://doi.org/10.1038/029222a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/029222a0