6o 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



In illustration of this theory, we have the testimony of Captain Sir 

 C. Fleming Stenhouse, who named the island, that after " Graham's 

 Island " appeared in the Mediterranean in 1831, similar red sunsets to 

 those the world has just been admiring were seen at Malta. A more 

 striking record of a similar phenomenon is given in White's "Natural 

 History of Selborne," Bonn's edition, page 300, where we read : " The 

 summer of the year 1783 was an amazing and portentous one, and 

 full of horrible phenomena ; for besides the alarming meteors and tre- 

 mendous thunder-storms that affrighted and distressed the different 

 counties of this kingdom, the peculiar haze, or smoky fog, that pre- 

 vailed for many weeks in this island, and in every part of Europe, and 

 even beyond its limits, was a most extraordinary appearance, unlike 

 anything known within the memory of man. By my journal I find 

 that I had noticed this strange occurrence from June 23d to July 20th, 

 inclusive, during which period the wind varied to every quarter, with- 

 out making any alteration in the air. The sun, at noon, looked as 

 black as a clouded moon, and shed a rust-colored ferruginous light on 

 the ground and floors of rooms, but was particularly lurid and blood- 

 colored at rising and setting. . . . The country people began to look 

 with a superstitious awe at the red, lowering aspect of the sun ; and, 

 indeed, there was reason for the most enlightened person to be appre- 

 hensive, for all the while Calabria, and part of the Isle of Sicily, were 

 torn and convulsed with earthquakes ; and, about that juncture, a vol- 

 cano sprang out of the sea on the coast of Norway." Cowper men- 

 tions the same phenomena in his " Task " ; and Mrs. Somerville, in her 

 " Physical Geography," traces their origin to the eruption of the vol- 

 cano Skaptar, in Iceland, " which broke out May 8th, and continued 

 to August, sending forth clouds of mingled dust and vapor, which 

 spread over the whole of Northern Europe." It is stated in the " An- 

 nals of Philosophy," vol. ii, that the sun appeared of a blue color in 

 England, in April, 1821 ; and it appears from other sources that a 

 violent volcanic eruption had taken place in the Island of Bourbon in 

 February of that year, and a destructive outbreak in Gunung Api in 

 June of the previous year. 



A curious counterpart to White's relation is given by Professor 

 James Main Dixon of what he witnessed in Japan at the time of the 

 eruption of Krakatoa. " During the two or three days at the end of 

 August," he says, " we enjoyed fine, dry weather, but the sun was cop- 

 per-colored and had no brightness. It was capital weather for travel- 

 ing, but rather inexplicable. When we got to Nikko, the people came 

 to us to inquire if some catastrophe were impending, for the appearance 

 of the sun foreboded evil. We laughed at their fears, and assured 

 them all was right. However, it seems that if the appearance of the 

 sun foreboded no evil, it was a wonderful sign of the greatest earth- 

 quake and volcanic catastrophe on record. The fearful explosion of 

 Krakatoa, in the Straits of Sunda, took place on August 26th; and 



