176 Prof. Wartmann on two Extraordinary Meteors. 



ner's principles therefore require that a quantity, however 

 small— even zero itself — is equivalent to another infinitely 

 great ; and " in this " — to use Mr. Warner's own words — " in 

 this consists his error." 



I am, Gentlemen, 



Your obedient Servant, 

 Belfast, August 10, 1846. J. R. YoUNG. 



XXXI. On two Extraordinary Meteors. 

 By Prof. Elie Wartmann *. 

 [ OBSERVED a few months ago two meteorological phae- 

 -*■ nomena which I consider to be of very unfrequent occur- 

 rence. The first is an extraordinary rainbow, which was seen 

 on the 25th of last April during a partial eclipse of the sun. 

 I was at Paudex, a little village on the shore of the Lake of 

 Geneva, nearly two miles east of Lausanne. The sky, which 

 was cloudy in the morning, cleared up in the afternoon. A 

 single band of cumulo-strati, at a slight elevation, rested on 

 the ridge of the Jura, in the west, where, half concealing 

 the sun, it received from it a golden light scarcely supportable 

 by the eye, and which prevented the observation of that lumi- 

 nary. Towards 5 o'clock a double iris was perceived, pre- 

 senting the usual interior and exterior arcs ; the first accom- 

 panied by six exterior supernumerary bands, red, green, red, 

 green, reddish, pale green. At this moment there was no 

 rain between the sun and my eye, and the surface of the lake 

 was smooth as a mirror; but a hard shower fell upon the 

 rocks of Meillerie, situated on the opposite shore, and veiled 

 their summits. By degrees the nimbus or rain-cloud went off 

 to the S.S.W. I returned home in the direction of the sun; 

 then, after a few minutes, wishing to examine again the rain- 

 bow, I no longer observed any secondary bands, nor the two 

 concentric arcs above mentioned. A brilliant column of the 

 brightest colours was formed over the lake, which appeared to 

 penetrate to its bottom. This column was violet on the side of 

 the sun, and was double the width of the ordinary interior arc. 

 It rose, dome-shaped, to nearly nine to ten degrees, then it 

 branched out into two distinct arcs, which left between them 

 a dark space similar to a spherical angle of about six degrees 

 aperture. [I had no instrument with me, and I only give 

 these as approximate estimations.] The inferior arc was the 

 ordinary interior one ; it was more brilliant and more deve- 

 loped than the upper one which merged gradually in the ge- 

 neral light, and had also the red outwards. At the limit of 

 the wide band, in which the two partial arcs originated, the 

 * Communicated by the Author. 



