Vou. 9, 1882] 
NATORE 31 
below the horizon corresponded with that of the moon in the 
west above the horizon, 
““These bands or shoots are more or less numerous, bright, 
and persistent ; some have been observed in the evening, forty- 
five minutes after sunset, and in September, 1876, I saw them 
appear with the first break of day. They are evidently movable 
in the sky, and there is no doubt that they are due to cunuli 
floating about the horizon, below or above, through which the 
light of the sun is sifted and split ; they are, in fact, nothing 
else than the shadows of the clouds in the faint white or rosy 
tint of the twilight. According as the clouds before the sun are 
more or less compact or loose, the bands may be blue, white, or 
red. More than once also have I seen the sky half white and 
half blue, the separa'ion of the two colours being plainly per- 
ceivable, and Venus shining brilliantly in the blue sky close to 
that limit, whilst it would probably have been almost invisible 
through the milky sky hard by.” 
Any one who gazes for the first time at this beautiful pheno- 
menon cannot help wondering and acknowledging it to ve 
greatly different from anything to be seen elsewhere. The cele- 
brated Jesuit, Father Bouvet, an old missionary to China, wit- 
nessed the phenomenon when on his way from China to Europe 
as envoy of the great Emperor Kang-hi, in the year 1693; the 
relation of the voyage (du Halde, vol. i., 1755) gives the fol- 
lowing account of his observations :— 
*€25 Juillet, 1693.—Ce jour-]a, environ un quart d’heure avant 
le lever du soleil, je vis dans le ciel un phénoméne que je n’ai 
jamais vu et dont je n’ai point oui parler en France, quoiqwil 
soit fort ordinaire en O,ient, surtout 4 Siam et a la Chine ; car 
je l’ai observe distinctement plus de vingt fois, tantét le matin, 
tantot le soir, dans chacun de ces deux Royaumes, sur mer et 
sur terre, et méme a Peking. 
“Ce phenoméne n’est autre chose que certains demi-cercles 
dombre et de lumiére que paraixsent se terminer et s’unir dans 
deux points opposés du Ciel, savoir d’un c6%é dans le centre du 
Soleil, et de l’autre dans le point qui est diamétralement opposé 
a celui-la. Comme ces demi-cercles sont tous terminés en 
pointe, tant en Orient qu’en Occident, c’est-a-dire vers les points 
opposes de leur reunion et qu’ils vont en s’élargissant uniformé- 
ment vers le milieu du Ciel a mesure quils s’éloignent de 
Yhorizon, ils ne ressemblent pas mal pour leur figure aux 
Maisons Célestes, de 1a maniére dont on les trace sur les Globes, 
a cela prés seulement que ces Zones d’ombre et de lumiere sont 
ordinairement fort inégales pour la largeur et qu’il arrive souvent 
quwil y ade Vinterruption entr’elles, surtout lorsque le phéno- 
mene n’est pas bien formé. 
‘Toutes les fois que je l’ai observé, et je l’ai vu quatre fois 
différentes dans ce voyage en moins de quinze jours, j’ai toujours 
remarqueé que le temps était extrémement chaud, le ciel chargé 
de vapeurs, avec une disposition au tonnerre et qu’un gros nuage 
€pais entr’ouvert était vis-a-vis du Soleil. Ce phenoméne semble 
pour la figure fort différent de ces longues traces d’ombre et de 
lumiére qu'on voit souvent le soir et le matin dans le ciel aussi 
bien en Europe qu’ailleurs et auxquelles leur figure pyramidale a 
fait donner le nom de verge’. Si l’on demande pour quelle 
raison ce phénoméne parait plutét en Asie qu’en Europe et en 
été que dans les autres saisons, il me semble qu’on pourrait en 
attribuer la cause a la nature des terres de l’Asie, qui étant pour 
Ja plupart beaucoup plus chargées de mitre que celles d’Europe, 
remplissent l’atmosphére, surtout en été, et lorsque le soleil a 
plus de force pour les élever, d’exhalaisons nitreuses, lesquelles 
étant répandues également dans V’air, les rendent plus propres a 
réfléchir la lumiére et par conséquent a former le météore.” 
The phenomenon described by the old Jesuit astronomer is 
undoubtedly the same I have witnessed hundreds of times at 
Zi-ka-Wei. He evidently considers it as different from any 
hitherto observed atmospheric phenomenon ; but his explanation 
is tainted with the false science of his time. It is quite certain 
that the phenomenon is due to the atmospheric vapour, but I 
am rather at a loss to give a more satisfactory explanation. The 
dispersion of the direct rays of the sun z#éo the minute drops 
resulting from a partial but wide-spreading condensation of the 
aqueous vapour in the upper strata of the air, might account for 
the milky or roseate appearance of the sky at morning and 
evening time. Besides, the interposition of a lizht cloud in the 
Way of the sun’s rays does not impair the transparency of the 
drops, and the blue sky may be visible. Now, in the morning 
and evening the rays of the sun are almost parallel with the 
horizon ; they traverse the whole expanse of the sky, and their 
apparent convergence on the both sides is only due to the same 
optical illusion which shows us the two rails of a railway track 
or the walls of a tunnel as converging. 
Let this explanation be worth what it may, the fact in incelf is 
interesting, and I would beg you, Sir, to notice it in NATURE, 
dealing, however, with this long communication as you may 
deem proper. Marc DECHEVRENS 
Zi-ka-Wei Observatory, near Shanghai, (China), August 28 
Habits of Scypho-Medusz 
THE communications to NATURE of Mr. Archer (vol. xxiv. 
p- 307), and of Mr. Alexander Agassiz (vol. xxiv. p. 509), on 
the subject of Medusee lying upon the bottom with their ten- 
tacles upward, lead me to forward some observations which I 
made on a similar habit of Medusz in the island of Simbo, one 
of the Solomon Islands. The Medusa in question frequents a 
swall mangrove swamp, which lies inclo-ed in the low point 
that forms the south shore of the anchorage. Numbers of these 
annals of a large and dirty-white colour were lying lazily on 
the mud at the bottom of the water, which varied in depth from 
one to three feet, with their umbrellas lowermost, and a mag- 
nificent mass of arborescent tentacles well displayed. When 
one of them was disturbed and turned over with a stick, it 
immediately began to contract the umbrella, until, after swim- 
ming a short distance, it resumed its former position on the 
bottom, of tentacles upward. The dark mud which formed the 
bottom of the swamp was composed of decayed vegetable mat- 
ter—low confervoid growths, and a few infusoria and living 
diatoms. but I invariably observed, after raising several of 
these Medusze from the bottom, that a layer of white sand 
covered over the place where each had lam, its light colour 
forming a marked contrast wih the dark mud around. The 
form of these patches of sand corresponded with the outline of 
the animal ; but when the Medusa lay in its usual position, the 
umbrella completely concealed them from view. The sand was 
sometimes fine, at other times coarse, and was derived from the 
coral and trachytic rocks in the vicinity, with occasionally frag- 
ments of shells intermingled. ‘The sand did not adhere to the 
surface of the umbrella. 
The Medusze measured generally some eight or nine inches 
across the umbrella, and appeared to belong to the Rhizosto- 
mide. H. Bb. Guppy 
H.M.S. Lark, St. Christoval, Solomon Islands, June 29 
Prof. Owen on Primitive Man 
IN the first number of Zongman’s Magazine Prof. Owen 
criticises an article of mine on Primitive Man, in the Zortnightly 
Review. In doing so, he quotes some words from my article, 
which are there given as a quotation from Prof. Schaafhausen. 
He proceeds to make them the text of his paper, as though the 
opinions expressed in them were my own. On the question at 
issue—the Neanderthal skulI—I am not competent to form 
any personal opinion; I merely abstracted the opinions of 
Rolleston and Schaafhausen. Prof. Owen would hardly have 
spoken in the same lofty magisterial tone had he attributed those 
opinions to their real authors, whose reputation can take care of 
itself. The respect I feel for Prof. Owen’s work makes me 
deeply regret the necessity for this explanation; but I cannot 
allow him to quote as mine words which I placed between 
inverted commas, attributing them at the same time to their real 
author. GRANT ALLEN 
Magnetic Arrangement of Clouds 
THERE is a curious arrangement of clouds which, though 
seen my-elf for the first time this year, may doubtless have been 
observed by others, though I have never seen it referred to any- 
where. Light clouds of the cirrus formation apparently at great 
elevations range themselves round two poles—one about in the 
direction of the magnetic north pole, and the other in that of the 
south. ‘The space between the two poles is filled more or less 
completely by wispy cirri. The exact point where the various 
threads or wisps should form themselves into a pole I have 
never been able to clearly see, owing to the dense stratum of 
vapour which even on the clearest day accumulates at the horizon, 
On Sunday, October 29, the arrangement above noticed was 
remarkably distinct in the afternoon. C. H. ROMANES 
Worthing 
