METEOROLOGICAL NOTES. 637 



METEOROLOGICAL NOTES. 



ISAAC P. NOYES. 



The above title is given to this article for the reason that herein I propose 

 to speak of a number of points on the subject instead of devoting the whole arti- 

 cle to one department, or to writing at this time generally upon the subject of 

 the weather. 



The Dark Day. — A peculiar condition of the atmosphere occurred Septem- 

 ber 6th, i88t, in many parts of the eastern section of the United States, which 

 has passed into history as the " dark day." 



The writer was on the Atlantic sea-board in the southern part of Rhode Isl- 

 and. Here it was quite foggy and the signal-horn at the light-house, at Point 

 Judith, was sounded at stated intervals to warn mariners as to the location of that 

 prominent and dangerous point of land making into the sea. But there was 

 nothing peculiar about this^ even though the sun was obscured, for it is a com- 

 mon thing to have such a fog here. Later in the day there appeared a yellowish 

 tint in the atmosphere. There was a fine gentle breeze from the southwest and 

 no sign of any sudden atmospheric change, though the air was quite "close." 

 The while it grew darker and darker. We thought it local ; but the reports from 

 other places that evening showed that it was quite universal throughout the 

 northeast section of the United States. What could be the cause of such a"phe- 

 nomenon ? My friends, knowing that I had paid some attention to meteorology 

 appealed to me. My reply to them was, I cannot solve it further than from the 

 cloudiness and " closeness " of the atmosphere we must be in'the confines of 

 low barometer, and from the direction of the wind "low" must be traveling to 

 the north of us. 



But almost everybody said they smelled smoke, while a few opposed this idea 

 for the reason, they said, smoke is heavier than air and travels near the ground 

 while this seems as high as the atmosphere itself. Some thought that there must 

 be a hurricane to the westward and that in time it would reach us. My friend 

 was building a small summer-cottage ; it was all ready to raise, but the carpenters 

 refused to take the risk — "If that blizzard reaches here it will destroy all our 

 work; we had better quit for the day." It was then three o'clock in the after- 

 noon. The cattle came up to the house as on regular occasions for] the night, 

 and the fowls went to roost. 



Many people were scared and thought the world had come to an end. The 

 stores and workshops were regularly hghted as at night. Everything green had a 

 beautiful bluish tint — a tint that we would liked to have "fixed" if possible. 

 About ten o'clock at night when there was no fire about, the house or any near 

 us we went out to take another survey. All was quiet — the larger stars were 

 faintly visible. My friend and I agreed that there was smoke in the air, and 

 that even the fires of all the farm-houses around there could not produce such an 



