144 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



a little more either to the north or to the south, as the case 

 may be,- — which is also so clearly shown by the bare, perpen- 

 dicular edge of the rock on the crest ; and I think that those 

 red, flame-like emissions are at these moments seen owing to 

 the intervening dark mass of the mountain-peak or -crag, which 

 occupies a similar though smaller position to that of the dark 

 body of the moon during a solar eclipse. Of course the whole 

 solar object is only that of the image of the sun correctly re- 

 flected in the clear atmosphere above, and lasting but a very 

 short time. I may mention that I had to pay a little for 

 my temerity in looking steadily at such a bright object without 

 usmg a coloured glass, for during some time after so observing 

 it whatever I looked at wore a greenish-yellow hue, some 

 objects, owing to their natural colours, being rendered dis- 

 agreeable. This, however, gradually wore off. I think I have 

 observed this pleasing natural phenomenon during four or five 

 years, but not consecutively, owing to the sky being some- 

 times clouded at sunset. I have often thought of writing a 

 short paper concerning it, and giving sketches of its appear- 

 ances ; one of them I now^ lay before you, made, however, 

 mainly from memory. Other persons, no doubt, in days to 

 come will also have the pleasure of observing this peculiar 

 spectacle from this spot on Napier Hill, 



And here I cannot refrain from expressing my belief — 

 notwithstanding the enormous and wonderful advances the 

 true knowledge of astronomy has made of late years, almost 

 (to use a well-known colonial phrase) " by leaps and bounds," 

 and, also, how very much of this superior knowledge is now 

 commonly and daily taught in our public schools — that many 

 — too many— of our rising generation are really no better off, 

 no farther advanced, for all this imparted and surely-grounded 

 scientific knowledge than the ancients were when they firmly 

 believed that the glorious starry heavens above them were 

 just as a fixed glass (or metal) dome over their heads, and the 

 stars placed there as twinkhng lights to give light by night 

 to the earth, which earth, moreover, with its contents, was 

 also the principal part, the chief, of all creation, or of the 

 universe. 



Without expatiating on the wonders of astronomy or the 

 knowledge of the stars — on the grand, far-reaching, and cap- 

 tivating subject of the immensity of space ; its gloriously 

 never-ending infinitude, and the hundreds, yea thousands, of 

 stars — other worlds, never yet seen by mortal eye, which even 

 our best telescopes do not — cannot — reveal, yet the more 

 modern science of photography has faithfully made known 

 and fixed — I would briefly and in plain words mention a few 

 of the more striking heads of this branch of science, which 

 perhaps are but little known or considered. 



