56 SPECIAL RESULTS IN THE URANOLOGICAL 



fluctuating movement. Luminous points rose upwards, 

 moved sideways, and fell back to their former places. The 

 phenomenon lasted only seven or eight minutes, and ceased 

 long before the edge of the sun appeared above the sea ho- 

 rizon : it was seen equally through a telescope, and there 

 was no doubt that the apparent movement was that of the 

 stars themselves. ( 113 ) Did this change of place belong to 

 the much contested question of the lateral refraction of rays? 

 Does the undulation of the rising solar disk, small as it is 

 found by measurement, present, in the lateral alteration and 

 motion of the sun's limb, any analogy to what has been de- 

 scribed ? We know, apart from this question, that the dis- 

 turbance of the sun's disk would appear larger from being 

 near the horizon. Almost half a century later this same 

 phsenomenon has been observed, both with the naked eye 

 and through a telescope, in exactly the same spot in the 

 Malpays, and similarly before sunrise, by a well-informed 

 and very attentive observer, Prince Adalbert of Prussia. I 

 found the observation entered in his manuscript journal 

 without his having been aware, before his return from the 

 River Amazon, that an entirely similar appearance had been 

 seen by me. ( 114 ) Neither on the ridges of the Andes, nor 

 in the frequent mirage of the hot plains (Llanos) of South 

 America, notwithstanding the excessive variety of admixture 

 of unequally heated strata of air, could T ever find any trace 

 of lateral refraction. As the Peak of Teneriffe is so near to 

 us, and is often visited before sunrise by scientific travellers 

 provided with instruments, I may hope that my renewed 

 request for the observation of the lateral fluctuation of stars 

 may not be without effect. 



I have already drawn attention to the fact, that long 

 before the great epoch of the invention of telescopes and 



