1826,] r Scientific Notices — Miscellaneous. 469 



Miscellaneous. 



8. Remarkable Rainbow, 



On the 18th May of this year (1826), at six o'clock, p.m. 

 lightning appeared in the eastern part of the heavens, and a 

 little rain fell. There, where it was darker, I, and many of the 

 inhabitants of Lengsfeldst, in Eisenach, observed a very remark- 

 able rainbow. We saw not only, as is commonly the case, the 

 feebly coloured interior rainbow, and the darker coloured exte- 

 rior rainbow, with all their transition of colours, but among 

 these also the following threefold repetition of them in the fol- 

 lowing order : Most exterior rainbow, violet, blue, green, yellow, 

 and red ; under a dark layer, and below those with diminished 

 intensity of colour, first the common interior bow, with red, 

 orange, yellow, green, blue, violet ; then the following three ; 

 purple, orange, green, violet ; purple, orange, green, violet ; 

 purple, orange, and finally, a dull green arched stripe. Karsten 

 Archiv, — (Edin. New Phil. Journ.) 



9. The Moon and its Inhabitants. r 



Olbers considers it as very probable that the moon is inha- 

 bited by rational creatures, and that its surface is more or less 

 covered with a vegetation not very dissimilar to that of our own 

 earth. Gruithuisen maintains that he has discovered, by means 

 of his telescope, great artificial works in the moon, erected by 

 the Lunarians ; and very lately another observer maintains, 

 from actual observation, that great edifices do exist in the moon. 

 Noggerath, the geologist, does not deny the accuracy of the 

 descriptions pubhshed by Gruithuisen, but maintains that all 

 these appearances are owing to vast whin dykes, or trap veins, 

 rising above the general lunar surface. 



Gruithuisen, in a conversation with the great astronomer 

 Gauss, after describing the regular figures he had discovered in 

 the moon, spoke of the possibility of a correspondence with the 

 inhabitants of the moon. He brought, he says, to Gauss*s 

 recollection the idea he had communicated many years ago to 

 Zimmerman. Gauss answered, that the plan of erecting a geo- 

 metrical figure on the plains of Siberia corresponded with his 

 opinion, because, according to his view, a correspondence with 

 the inhabitants of the moon could only be begun by means of 

 such mathematical contemplations and ideas, which we and they 

 must have in common. The vast circular hollows in the moon 

 have been by some considered as evidences of volcanic action, 

 but they differ so much in form and structure from volcanic 

 craters, that many are now of opinion, and with reason, that 

 they are vast circular valleys. — (Edin. New Phil, Journ.) 



Is the preceding extraordinary piece of Scientific Intelligenct 



