556 Proceedings. 
his surprise, on several evenings, that through rifts in the vapour masses, crimsoned in the 
ordinary manner by the sun after it had set, a back-ground of intense greenish blue was 
visible. After all the ordinary sun-set tints had faded, this blue changed to orange pink, 
and graduated off through the various prismatic tints to a magnificent crimson spanning 
over what appeared to be cloudless sky, considerably to the eastward of the meridian. 
This spectacle gradually faded with the advance of nightfall, but lasted about one hour and. 
twenty minutes after the ordinary twilight tints had faded. This shows that the vapour 
causing the tints must have an enormous and very unusual altitude. A similar pheno- 
menon in the evening sky was observed in New Zealand about sixteen years since, but 
the exact date has not been ascertained. The glow of September last still continues, but 
it is drawing now towards the pole, as if the unusual height of the refracting medium 
was extending the antarctic twilight tint even to our latitudes. 
With the hint we get from the self-recording barometers it is very difficult to avoid 
connecting this curious phenomenon which has been seen all over Australia and New 
Zealand, with the Sunda eruption.* 
Dr. Hector also read a letter from Major Scannell, Inspector A. C., stationed at Taupo, 
giving an account of marked oscillation in the level of Taupo Lake, amounting to a 
vertical rise and fall of 18 inches, which was repeated several times at intervals of 20 
minutes at about noon on the same date that the tidal disturbance was felt on the coast, 
viz., on 28th August ; affording clear evidence of the passing of waves through the lake, 
due to a motion of the land, probably produced by the unusual periods of the tidal 
inequalities of pressure on either coast. 
Mr. Higginson, C.E., reminded the meeting that in a paper read before this Society on 
2nd February, 1878,t he had described similar disturbances of Lake Wakatipu, which were 
observed by him on 17th November, 1877. : 
7. ** Notes on the Colour of Tellerium," by W. Skey. 
AxNvaL MxzriNG. 13th February, 1884. 
Dr. Buller, President, in the chair. 
New Members.—W. F. Wheeler, F. W. Pennefather, — Richmond, and 
Rev. H. van Staveren. 
AssrRACT or Report ror 1883, 
During the past year ten general meetings and a conversazione were held. The 
attendance at the meetings was larger than usual. Six papers had been read on Geolo- 
gical subjects, 6 on Zoology, 13 on Botany, 2 on Chemistry, and 13 on Miscellaneous 
subjects. There were now 247 members on the roll, 15 having been added during the 
year. 75 volumes had been added to the library. Extensive alterations were being made 
in the library of the New Zealand Institute, and the Museum authorities had converted 
*In “ Nature,” October 25th, No. 730, p. 627, received to-day, I find that a similar 
disturbance was traced by the barograph, at Mauritius, at the same Greenwich date as at 
Melbourne, and as these two stations are at the same distance from Sunda, in nearly 
opposite directions, there can be no doubt but that the disturbance was due to the propaga- 
tion of a circular wave in the upper atmosphere haying the velocity already stated. J. 
Hector, 20th December, 1883. 
t Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. x., p. 180. 
