THE LANGUAGE OF METEOROLOGY 275 



In a publication which, I regret to say, bears the official imprimatur 

 of the Weather Bureau, 1 I find a definition of the " solar aureole, 

 corona, or glory." These names are stated to belong to the familiar 

 phenomenon of diffraction rings around the sun; and the question 

 arises — Why three names for one thing? Etymologically one is as 

 good as another ; but the single term " corona " was long ago appropri- 

 ated to the phenomenon in question. If we consult Pertner's 

 " Meteorologische Optik," we shall find that, according to this authority 

 at least, the aureole is not identical with the corona. A separate name 

 was desired for that inner portion of the complete corona which is, as 

 a rule, the only part visible ; extending from the blue-white zone around 

 the luminary to the reddish brown circle adjacent, but not including 

 either indigo or violet. Pernter was, I believe, the first person to dis- 

 tinguish this part of the corona under the name " aureole." The glory, 

 again, is something quite different. This is not seen around a heavenly 

 body, but surrounds the shadow of the observer's head — strictly speak- 

 ing, of the observer's eye — cast upon a cloud or fog-bank. In the phe- 

 nomenon of the Brocken specter the glory constitutes the " Brocken 

 bow " — though the specter and the bow are persistently confused in the 

 dictionaries and in the literature of meteorology. 



This leads us to a further hopelessly confused statement in connec- 

 tion with the definition above quoted, reading as follows : " A smaller 

 circle surrounding the shadow of the observer's head is called an 

 anthelion, aureole, glory, or fog shadow." The word " anthelion " has, 

 indeed, been used persistently in this sense in English literature; 

 though such a use has never been countenanced in French or German. 

 Bravais and his successors applied the name " anthelion " to what is 

 sometimes called in English the " countersun " ; viz., a white image of 

 the sun seen at the same altitude as that luminary, but opposite it in 

 azimuth — one of the rarer phenomena of the great halo family. 

 Although this, the preferable, use of the name is absolutely ignored in 

 the English dictionaries — which uniformly confuse the anthelion with 

 the glory — it is not quite unknown to English writers. I find the 

 "anthelion," in this sense of the term (as observed in the year 1762), 

 described and figured in the "Philosophical Transactions" (abridged), 

 Vol. 11, p. 532. A similar use of the term occurs in Howard's 

 " Climate of London," 2d ed. (1833), Vol. 1, p. 222. As to " aureole," 

 we have already seen how Pernter has desynonymized this term. " Fog 

 shadow " is obviously a most inappropriate name for a ring of light. 

 In short, the sentence above quoted, revised in accordance with the 

 requirements of accurate terminology, would read : " A smaller circle 

 surrounding the shadow of the observer's head is called a glory." The 

 three other names are untenable. 



1 Monthly Weather Review, Vol. 33, p. 527. This is, however, substantially 

 a quotation from the Smithsonian Meteorological Tables. 



