20 
The Sun-spots and the Zodiacal Light. [January, 
sky, long after sunset. It is something like an aurora, but 
does not flash, and is more lurid.” 
The zodiacal light, however, is not only seen at sunset, 
for it is frequently in the East the herald of sunrise. Ur. 
Adam, as quoted in the “ Edinburgh Cabinet Libiary 
(vol. iii., pp. 257-8), thus describes its shadowy form 1 . 
“ It was quite dark, excepting what light the stars afforded, 
which in India is always considerable at this season 
(Odtober), when not a cloud obscures the expanded vault ot 
the heavens. After moving on for some time, on turning 
my eye towards the east, I could perceive the first appear- 
ance of day. It was not dawn, but a mere greyish pillai ot 
light shooting from the horizon upwards, in the shape ot 
a comet’s tail, but without lustre ; the effulgence, if it 
could be so called, resembling that of the milky way more 
than any other object in Nature which I have seen, this 
dull pillar of light was well defined. It continued a long 
time apparently little increased in size, and without having 
acquired much brilliancy. At length its sides near the 
bottom gave way, and the light, now stronger, diffused itself 
latterly to a considerable extent.” Then came the roseate 
hue on the clouds, a pillar of red or orange-red light, and 
the large and fiery sun, the nucleus of the great comet and 
torch of day. The writer adds— “ This pillar of light is the 
zodiacal light first mentioned in modern times by Childraus 
in the year 1559, and again seen by Cassini on the ibth 
March, 1683. Cassini, Mairan, Euler, Laplace, Regmer, 
Hube and Hahn have speculated with regard to its nature. 
So also have Kepler, Fatio Duillier, and others more 
Perhaps the following extradt that lately appeared in the 
“ Daily News ” may tend to show that the zodiacal light is 
a beam of light proceeding from the sun, or rather the lenti- 
cular form the light given out by the sun assumes when seen 
through our concave atmosphere undei ceitain conditions o 
dryness or humidity. “ Mr. M. L. Rouse, of the Inner 
Temple, writes to us ‘ In coming up from Maidstone to 
London by the Chatham and Dover Railway, on Ihursday, 
the 9th of November, our train was neaiing Sevenoaks at 
half-past five, when we perceived in the north-west above a 
black band of cloud that lay along the Ivnockholt Hills a 
bright semicircular flush of pink light, which kept its coloui 
undimmed for fully a quarter of an hour, amid the deep 
azure of the surrounding heavens, spangled with stars 
almost to its very border. Towards its centre the pink, or 
red, was shaded off to yellow, and a yellow riband of light 
