Meeson. — -On the recent Sun-glows. 871 



euri, at noon, looked as blank as a clouded moon, and shed a rust-coloured 

 ferruginous light on the ground, and floors of rooms ; but was particularly 

 lurid and blood-coloured at rising and setting. All the time the heat was 

 so intense that butchers' meat could hardly be eaten on the day after it was 

 killed ; and the flies swarmed so in the lanes and hedges that they rendered 

 the horses half frantic, and riding irksome. The country people began to 

 look with a superstitious awe at the red lowering aspect of the sun ; and 

 indeed there was reason for the most enlightened person to be apprehensive, 

 for, all the while, Calabria and part of the Isle of Sicily were torn and con- 

 vulsed with earthquakes, and about that juncture a volcano sprang out of 

 the sea on the coast of Norway." 



And Cowper in the " Task " describes the same appearances (Task, 

 Book ii.). 



" Sure there is need of social intercourse, 



Benevolence, and peace, and mutual aid, 



Between the nations in a world, that seems 



To toll the death-bell of its own decease, 



And by the voice of all its elements 



To preach the gen'ral doom. When were the winds 



Let slip with such a warrant to destroy ? 



When did the waves so haughtily o'erleap 



Their ancient barriers, deluging the dry ? 



Fires from beneath, and meteors from above, 



Portentous, unexampled, unexplain'd, 



Have kindled beacons in the skies, and th' old 



And crazy Earth has had her shaking fits 



More frequent, and forgone her usual rest." 

 From another source ("Nature," 17th July) I hear that extraordinary 

 sunrises and sunsets in that year lasted for eleven months, and have been 

 attributed by Arago to volcanic dust, for besides the volcanic activity to 

 which the Vicar of Selborne refers in the letter mentioned, there were, it 

 appears, in 1783 tremendous eruptions of Asama Yama, in Japan, and 

 Skaptar Jokul, in Iceland. Mrs. Somerville, Sir C. Lyell, and Sir J. 

 Herschell all refer to the latter event, and the last named says that on that 

 occasion 21 cubic miles of lava were ejected from the crater. Again, 

 similar phenomena were observed in Europe and America in 1831, and at 

 first when this fact was disinterred from historical archives or recalled by 

 human memory, it was stated that that year was memorable for no parti- 

 cular eruption. But a quotation from Nile's Begister, 31st October, 1831, 

 given in " Nature " of May last, puts a different aspect on the case. It 

 says that on 7th August preceding, there occurred a violent eruption off the 

 coast of Sicily, during which Graham's Isle was formed : two days later the 

 sunsets began to be very lurid and remarkable, the glow extending to the 



