434 Foreign and Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



towards the real sun, and afterwards changed into an undulating 

 line ; the other appearances were those described above. 



On the 1st of December, 1828, at 2 o'clock 25 min. P.M., I ob- 

 served the phenomenon of which a sketch is given in Fig. 2. The 

 sun A was, at a distance of about 45, surrounded by the arches H M 

 and R N, the inner parts of which were red, and the outer blue ; at 

 22 from the sun there was another ring, and at its uppermost part an 

 arch K D T, both of a red colour at the side towards the sun ; be- 

 sides these appearances, there was a vertical and a horizontal column 

 of yellowish light, and of the apparent diameter of the sun. At 

 3 o'clock 35 min., when it began to snow, the phenomenon dis- 

 appeared. 



During one of the nights in August, 1828, I saw, at midnight, 

 very beautiful coloured halos round the moon, and as I happened to 

 pass over fields, some of which were covered with fog, and the others 

 clear, I was surprised to find that the halos ceased to be visible when- 

 ever I was on a field which was free from fog, but always reappeared 

 when I came on a field covered with fog. There were three, and some- 

 times four halos, at small distances from each other, and with very 

 vivid colours, red being always at the outer circumference ; oppo- 

 site to the moon there were segments of a white circle. The sky was 

 clear, and the atmosphere tranquil *. 



23. ON THE PRODUCE OP GOLD AND SILVER IN THE RUSSIAN 

 EMPIRE. {Alexander von Humboldt) 



The yearly produce of the Russian gold and silver mines has lately 

 been very variously stated ; and as I am afraid that some of these 

 statements may be attributed to me, I take an opportunity of giving 

 the following numerical exposition of the fact. 



According to official documents, the Russian mines yield an- 

 nually about 22,000 marks of gold, and 77,000 of silver. In 1828 

 the produce of gold was 22,256 marks (318 puds, of which 115 

 were obtained from imperial, and 203 from private mines) ; of silver 

 76,498 marks (1093 puds) ; and of platina 6570 marks (94 puds) ; 

 and the respective value was, of gold, 4,896,000 Russian dollars 

 (700,000/. sterling); and of silver, 1,07 1,000 dollars (153,000?. ster- 

 ling). The gold mines of the Ural yielded in 



1826 . . . 232 puds. 



1827 ... 282 



1828 291 



In the first six months of 1829 they gave 142 puds of gold (46 

 from imperial, and 96 from private mines), and 43 puds of platina. 



The total produce of the Ural mines, from 1814 to 1828, is 1551 

 puds, of the value of about 3,413,OOOZ. sterling ; the last five years 

 alone yielded 1247 puds. 



* Poggendorff's Annalen. 



