378 G. Jones on the Zodiacal Light. 



my eye, having a pretty uniform character quite across, except 

 the yellow part at the horizons as ah^eady noticed. This yellow 

 light, in a good sky, just after nightfall or just before day-break, 

 would extend as high as my zenith, where it would impercepti- 

 bly change into the cold white light. In the former cases, it had 

 the distinctions which I have made in my printed volume, of a 

 great effulgence at the centre and the lowest part, and of a dif- 

 fuse light without this: I sometimes thought that these parts 

 were brighter than I had ever seen them at the level of the sea: 

 but at Panama, on ray way home, I witnessed such a splendid 

 exhibition of Zodiacal Light as rather to make me change my 

 opinion. I ought to add that, on this homeward journey, I saw 

 this Luminous Arch, while at the level of the sea, at Payta, at 

 Panama, off Jamaica, and off the northeastern end of Cuba. My 

 eye by that time had become so experienced as easily to make it 

 out in each of those places; and when, at Payta and at Panama, 

 I pointed out this arch to others, they had no difficulty in, at 

 once, making it out, and in giving me the places among the stars, 

 of the central line and of the boundary on each side. I have 

 little doubt that a person experienced in tracing it on the sky 

 "Will be able to make it out in our owm latitudes — say as far north 

 as New York, in the evening in March. Brorsen informs us in 

 the Astronomische Nachriehten^ No. 998, that he has seen the 

 , Zodiacal Light quite across the sky repeatedly at Septenberg in 

 Germany: Baron Humboldt saw also a portion, if not all, of this 

 Luminous Arch in 1803 in lat. about IS"" K (see Aslron. Nachrich- 

 ten^ No. 989): and I must have seen it repeatedly in my cruise 

 in the Mississippi — for which see Report of Japan Expedition 

 vol. iii, pp. 65, 65 and 85, in all of which instances I was at a 

 great distance from the ecliptic. 



I had also at Quito one good exhibition of Zodiacal Light from 

 the moon, the moon then being 1^ 1^^ past fall : also,_ on orie oc- 

 casion, at 9 30, had simultaneously the Zodiacal Light in the 

 west from the sun and from the moon in the east, just before the 



? 



being connected above by the Luminous Arch. I hope soon to 

 be able to publish all the observations, 123 in number, made m 

 this visit to South America: and also those of Mr. Hernck at 

 New Haven and Prof. Moesta at Santiago in Chile made at the 

 same time. But few of Vvot Moesta's have yet been received ; 

 but, both these and Mr. Ilerrick's sustain the conclusion m my 

 published book, that, when the spectator is north of the ecliptic, 

 the main body of the Zodiacal Light is north of that line : and 



south 



The plate Xo. 7 accompanying this article is made ^P ^^?"^ 

 the result of all my observations on this occasion. The full line 

 cccc^ on the chart, will show the coarse of the centre or tne 



