Mzxsox.—On the recent Sun-glows. 859 
Asia (e.g., India, Ceylon, China, Japan); Africa (Cape of Good Hope, Gold 
Coast); America (the United States, Barbadoes); the Sandwich Isles and 
Australia ; so that we may conclude pretty safely that skies similar to 
those with which we have been familiar have been seen in all parts of the 
world. At the observatories on Mounts Washington and Pike, in the 
United States, it is stated that nothing remarkable was observed except a 
sun-glow on the first-mentioned peak on the 2nd December; the absence 
of the appearance there is in itself phenomenal when they have been seen 
so persistently elsewhere. 
Most of the accounts agree as to the gorgeousness of the display made 
by masses of yellow-orange clouds, silhouetted in a clear sky of magnificent 
colour varying in tint from pink to primrose. The sun on many nights set 
somewhat hazy, but of a brilliant golden or light yellow colour. Even 
before he disappeared there were signs of the coming glory. But a few 
minutes after he sank behind the summit of Mount Arthur, we-in Nelson 
here saw the western sky suffused, as it were, with a blush. When, as 
frequently happened, a few light streaked or parallel clouds attended the 
orb on his departure, these would first catch the colour. But it quickly 
passed towards the zenith, and every second became more intensely red. 
When there were any clouds about the face of the western sky, cumulus, 
cirrus, or cirro-cumulus, these at once were bathed in glorious hues. For 
ten minutes or more after sunset one half of the heavenly canopy was a 
blaze of orange, red, and green colours of every shade and tint. Then this 
brightness gradually waned. But meanwhile a glow as from infinite fires 
mounted from the western horizon, and behind the golden masses of clouds 
far and away transcended them in brilliance. The sky had the appearance 
of burnished metal under the influence of this second, and more remote, and 
more lasting glow. Every colour of the rainbow could be seen therein 
(primrose, orange, violet, rose, and pale green could be distinguished—all 
blending into one another), from the horizon to the zenith was a perfect 
blaze, forming where it touched the horizon a vein of brilliant silver white, 
and the opposite half of the sky, even though cloudless, appeared by con- 
trast to be in Cimmerian darkness. To compare great things with small 
ones, the contrast in light and brightness between the two sides of the sky 
was suggestive of the effect of a splendid theatrical transformation scene. 
It was difficult at times to believe that the western glow was not produced 
by terrestrial fires of colossal proportions. Gradually, but imperceptibly, 
the colour would disappear. In some places it lasted even so long as a 
couple of hours, and frequently here it lingered, as if loath to leave the scene 
of its glory, till the observer grew tired of watching, and dreaming, and won- 
dering what it might mean, and reluctantly passed indoors. 
