METEOROLOGY. 



525 



of rich gun-metal. The surface takes a fine 

 polish, and tarnishes less than brass. The metal 

 when cast in sand has a breaking strain of from 

 21 to 22 tons per square inch. When rolled or 

 forged hot into rods, the breaking strain is 43 

 tons per square inch ; and when drawn into 

 wire of 22 B. W. G., it is of 67 tons per square 

 inch. 



Messrs. Cockshott and Jowett, of Bradford, 

 England, have produced an alloy of manganese 

 with phosphorus and tin and copper which 

 possesses superior qualities of tensile strength 

 and durability. The phosphor-manganese-tin 

 may be used in the same manner and in similar 

 proportions as phosphor-tin, though it should 

 oe cast at a little higher temperature, but with 

 more satisfactory results. It furnishes a very 

 convenient form of the combination of man- 

 ganese and phosphorus, which is valuable on 

 account of the facility it affords the brass- 

 founder, by adding a greater or less proportion 

 of copper, etc., to produce bronze of a quality 

 exactly suitable to the purpose for which it is 

 required. The bronze is made in two qualities, 

 both selling at the same price. The first qual- 

 ity is very tough, and suitable for purposes 

 where the castings are required to withstand a 

 great strain, having been tested successfully for 

 a strain of 34,754 pounds per square inch. 

 The second quality is very hard and tough, 

 has a tensile strength of 29,979 pounds per 

 square inch, and is suitable for bearings and 

 the wearing parts of machinery. 



METEOROLOGY. A n extraordin ary lurid glow 

 in the western sky after sunset, and in the 

 eastern sky before sunrise, attracted the atten- 

 tion of the world during November and De- 

 cember, 1883. The light occupied the usual 

 place of the twilight, except that its focus of 

 brilliancy was shifted a little to the southeast, 

 but was much brighter, was of a deeper red, 

 the colors were more varied and turbid, and it 

 rose to a greater height and was longer con- 

 tinued. It also did not appear at the instant 

 of sunset, but a few moments later, after the 

 lapse of an interval of comparative darkness. 

 A, description given by an observer in Umbal- 

 lah, India, will give a correct idea of the spec- 

 tacle as it was seen everywhere. " The sun," 

 he says, "goes down LS usual, and it gets 

 nearly dark, and then a bright red and yellow 

 and green and purple blaze comes in the sky, 

 and makes it lighter again." The phenomenon 

 began to excite attention in the eastern part of 

 the United States about the 27th of November, 

 when it appears to have reached its culmina- 

 tion in America and Europe. The western 

 sky was illuminated as if by the light of a great 

 conflagration, and fire-alarms were sounded in 

 many places. The spectacle was remarked on 

 the Pacific coast a week previous to this ; in 

 Europe early in November ; and at points in 

 the East Indies and the Pacific Ocean in Sep- 

 tember. The earliest notices of it seem to 

 have been made in the islands of Rodriguez, 

 Mauritius, and the Seychelles on the 28th of 



August, in Brazil on the 30th, and on the 

 Gold Coast of Africa on the 1st of September. 

 It was observed at Trinidad, in connection 

 with a " blue sun," on the 2d of September, 

 and at Ongole, India, after the setting of a 

 " green sun," early in the same month. It was 

 usually associated either with a wholly clear 

 sky or with a sky marked only by light, float- 

 ing, cirrous clouds. 



An apparent connection has been traced be- 

 tween the red light and a blue or green color- 

 ing of the sun, which was observed in the East 

 Indies and in tropical America early in Sep- 

 tember. This phenomenon was observed at 

 Panama and Trinidad on the 2d and 3d of that 

 month. At Manila, in the Philippine islands, 

 on the 9th of September, during a light dry 

 mist, the sun appeared green, and diffused over 

 all the bodies it illuminated "a strange and 

 curious greenish hue." Similar colorations 

 were observed at the same time at Colombo, 

 Ceylon, just before sunset, and at Madras, In- 

 dia, where Prof. 0. Michie Smith, of the Chris- 

 tian College, remarked the perfectly rayless 

 and bright silvery-white color of the sun on 

 the 9th and its pea-green color on the next 

 day. This was repeated several days after- 

 ward. The appearance of a green color in 

 the sun and in parts of the sky, outside of the 

 red glow, was remarked on several occasions 

 in Europe. One observer in England recorded 

 the appearance at sunset of a greenish and 

 white opalescent haze about the point of the 

 sun's departure, that shone as with a light of 

 its own, near the horizon. "The upper part 

 of this pearly mist," he says, u soon assumed 

 a pink color, while the lower part was white, 

 green, and greenish yellow." Another observer 

 described the blue of the sky as changing to 

 green and the green to the ruddy tint, while 

 the sun appeared of a brilliant emerald hue, 

 tingeing every thing with green. Similar phe- 

 nomena, with variations in detail, were noticed 

 at many places in England and on the Con- 

 tinent, including Berlin, Rome, and Davos 

 Platz, in the high Alps, where the spectacle 

 was very brilliant, and the sun appeared 

 through the day " surrounded by a luminous, 

 slightly opalescent haze, not at all resembling 

 halo or iridescence of vapor." 



The red glow and the green sun are regard- 

 ed as effects of a common cause. The same 

 medium which gives by transmitted light ^ a 

 green color to objects viewed through it will 

 reflect the red rays. In seeking to account for 

 the phenomena, they must be assumed to be 

 due to some peculiar condition of our atmos- 

 phere; for if the glow had been produced by 

 any cause outside of the atmosphere, it would, 

 have been visible in some form through the 

 night, whereas its duration corresponded toler- 

 ably closely with that of ordinary twilight; 

 and the cause must have been co-extensive 

 with the atmosphere, for the glow lasted as 

 long as a twilight, and even longer. The mani- 

 festation was not auroral or electrical, for no 



