890 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
The marked similarity between these two tables is most striking, and, as 
in the first table, the greatest discrepancy is found between Krakatoa and 
Mauritius, where the time is reckoned in so many hours, in which case an 
hour or two makes a material difference in the diurnal velocity. 
At present I cannot find any station reporting the phenomenon between 
Mauritius and Adelaide, but we may conclude that after it passed Mauritius it 
crossed Africa, the South Atlantic, and South America, whence we may expect 
to hear of it as there are many competent observers in that part of the world; 
it then traversed the great South Pacific Ocean and North Australia, and, 
after performing another such journey round the world, was seen at 
Adelaide in South Australia about the 17th September. I conclude, as Mr. 
Todd, the Government Astronomer there, says in his report to ** Nature," 
that it was visible during the last fortnight of September. We next hear 
of it at the Cape of Good Hope on the 20th September. It again crossed 
the South Atlantic and South America about the latitude of Buenos Ayres, 
and a third time traversed the South Pacific, striking the coast of New 
Zealand on the 25th September, the date of my first seeing it, on which 
occasion the western sky at sunset presented all the colours seen in the 
pearl shell. Since then the western and eastern skies have presented those 
beautiful crimson tints that have delighted and astonished the world, and 
on many occasions have I seen it almost in the zenith two hours after sun- 
set. During some evenings it has quite illuminated the western face of 
buildings with a bright red glow, as from a fire, and on others it has been 
very faint and sometimes not discernible, giving to my mind the idea of its 
not being a continuous band, but a series of dust clouds with clear spaces 
between. 
From an investigation of the two foregoing tables, it will be seen that 
the mean diurnal velocity in the northern hemisphere was, during the first 
revolution, about 2,162 miles, and during the second it increased to 2,192, 
or 80 miles per diem extra. And the same increased velocity is observed in 
the southern hemisphere, where we find the approximate velocity during 
the first two revolutions, viz., on its reaching Adelaide, to be 2,041, whereas 
during the next revolution from Adelaide round to New Zealand it was 
2,120 miles, or an increase of 80 miles a day. 
It will be further noticed that in the northern hemisphere the time 
occupied in its first revolution was about 11 days, and the same rate is 
observed during the next revolution and three-quarters—or, in other words, 
within the tropics it encircled the world in 11 days. It is the same within 
the southern tropics, where it took 214 days to reach Adelaide in its second 
revolution ; but it performed the next revolution in about 91 days, reaching 
New Zealand in 29} days after the eruption. Thus it performed two revo- 
lutions and three-quarters (22) in the northern hemisphere in 293 days, and 
