1824.) > 
from Cambray, at about eight o’clock 
in the evening of the 7th of October ; 
and was “as vivid and distinct in: its 
colours, and as perfect in the segment 
of the circle which it formed, as any 
solar rainbow which the writer had ever 
seen. There was also a second one 
fainter, as if it were the shadow or. re- 
flection of the other.” This splendid 
meteor was produced, we are told, as 
indeed might be naturally inferred, on 
a thick rain cloud, which passed over 
the travellers as they entered the town; 
the moon, to the best of the writer’s 
recollection, being at an elevation of 
forty-five degrees from the horizon. 
But notwithstanding the reappear- 
ance of this beautiful phenomenon, 
twice in the course of six days, I 
am perfectly satisfied that it must be 
a phenomenon of such rare occur- 
rence as to be worthy of particular re- 
cord: since, though for many years of 
my life, and at several different periods, 
I have been in the habit of indulging a 
meditative mood in nocturnal rambles, 
‘and sometimes for whole nights to- 
gether, it never but once presented it- 
self to my observation. The instance 
in which it did occur was at the begin- 
ning of the autumn of 1797, between 
the hours, I should suppose, of ten and 
eleven; and the moon, then at full, 
being, apparently, in about the same 
oint of elevation as in the instance of 
its appearance in the neighbourhood of 
Arras. The point from which I ob- 
served it was the middle of Durdham 
Down, in the neighbourhood of Bristol. 
The arch, though of smaller span than 
usually described by the solar bow, was 
very complete, and apparently very near 
to the full extent of a semi-circle. The 
prismatic colours, though by no means 
so vivid, were as perfectly discriminated 
and as finely graduated as those of the 
customary rainbow; and it was accom- 
panied, as the solar bow pretty gene- 
rally is, by an interior duplication of 
arch, more faintly reflected, and at the 
usual comparative distance. As I am 
not in the habit of recording meteoro- 
logical phenomena, I took no particu- 
lar note of the duration of this appear- 
ance; but it was certainly by no means 
so transient as those are described to 
have been in the notices to which J 
haye alluded. 
In speaking of these phenomena, my 
recollection naturally recurs to another, 
and, as it appears, to me, still more 
extraordinary variety of the rainbow, 
which occurred during the latter part of 
Remarkable Phenomena of Lunar and Solar Rainbows. 
405 
the summer, or beginning of the autumn 
of the last year, and of which I am not 
aware that any public notice has. been 
taken: neither did I myself make any 
memorandum of it at the time. The 
object was, however, too extraordinary, 
and too beautifully sublime, for the 
remembrance ever to be obliterated from 
the tablet of the imagination. It was: 
at the hour when, after a day of mist 
and rain, the sun was verging within a 
few degrees of the western horizon, and 
when the sky in the opposite direction 
was heavy with dun and dusky rolling 
clouds, while the vapours in the southern 
and south-western direction were deeply 
tinged with varied gradations of tawny 
and orange—that my attention was drawn. 
to the phenomenon to which IJ allude = 
shamely, a beautiful expanse of rainbow, 
forming as complete a segment of a 
circle as ever in any other instance I 
had witnessed; and of wider span than 
I ever remember to have seen in one so 
high above the horizon, and describing 
so large a portion of a circle: while, at 
the same time, the breadth of the stripe, 
if I may so describe it, of this meteoric 
arch appeared to be considerably beyond 
what is usual in ordinary occurrence. 
But. it was in the colouring of this 
beautiful meteor that its awful singu- 
larity principally consisted. Diversities 
of tint were indeed as conspicuous as in 
ordinary instances, and the places where 
the usual colours would be looked for, 
seemed to be as clearly marked; but 
instead of the’ prismatic varieties of 
contrasting hues melting and harmo- 
nizing into each other with evanescent 
gradation, the varieties exhibited in 
the bow I am describing consisted 
only of different shades of orange, tawny 
and red: without the slightest tendency 
to violet. Within the expanse of this 
burning arch (for such it appeared to be) 
was another of more faint reflection,— 
the shadow, as it may be called, of the 
one described: while the portion of aérial 
hemisphere included within this double 
span, from the fainter hue of the dun- 
nish yellow with which the vapours were 
uniformly tinted, presented the idea of 
perspective distance; as though this 
duplicated arch were but the external 
and interior portal or gateway of the 
proximate wall of vapours, opening to a 
more remote horizon. The duration of 
this phenomenon was considerable : how 
many minutes, I will not venture to sug- 
gest; but it was long enough for me, 
after having gazed at it myself for some 
time with a thrilling and awful delight, 
to 
