sunset, are exactly of the same color whether you see them from Berne or Schaffhausen. But the gilding to our eyes of a burnished cloud depends, I believe, at least for a measure of its luster, upon the angle at which the rays incident upon it are reflected to the eye, just as much as the glittering of the sea beneath it—or the sparkling of the windows of the houses on the shore.
Previously, at page 10, in calling the molecules of transparent atmospheric 'absolutely' unreflective of light, I mean, in like manner, unreflective from their
So also the green of the sky (p. 13) is said to be given by transmitted light, yellow rays passing through blue air: much yet remains to be known respecting translucent colors of this kind; only let them always be clearly distinguished in our minds from the firmly possessed color of opaque substances, like grass or malachite.
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Diffraction.—Since these passages were written, I have been led, in conversation with a scientific friend, to doubt my statement that the colored portions of the lighted clouds were brighter than the white ones. He was convinced that the resolution of the rays would diminish their power, and in
For the rest, the phenomena of diffraction are not yet arranged systematically enough to be usefully discussed; some of them involving the resolution of the light, and others merely its intensification. My attention was first drawn to them near St. Laurent, on the Jura mountains, by the vivid reflection, (so it seemed), of the image of the sun from a particular point of a cloud in the west, after the sun itself was beneath the horizon: but in this image there were no prismatic colors, neither is the constantly seen metamorphosis of pine forests into silver filigree on ridges behind which the sun is rising or setting, accompanied with any prismatic hue; the trees become luminous, but not iridescent: on the other hand, in his great account of his ascent of Mont Blanc with Mr. Huxley, Professor Tyndall thus describes the sun's remarkable behavior on that occasion:—"As we attained the brow which forms the entrance to the Grand Plateau, he
Nothing irritates me more, myself, than having the color of my own descriptions of phenomena in anywise attributed by the reader to accidental states either of my mind or body;—but I cannot, for once, forbear at least the innocent question to Professor Tyndall, whether the extreme beauty of these 'interference spectra' may not have been partly owing to the extreme
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'Either stationary or slow in motion, reflecting unresolved light.'
The rate of motion is of course not essentially connected with the method of illumination; their connection, in this instance, needs explanation of some points which could not be dealt with in the time of a single lecture.
It is before said, with reserve only, that "a cloud is where it is seen, and is not where it is not seen." But thirty years ago, in 'Modern Painters,' I pointed out (see the paragraph quoted in note 8th), the extreme difficulty of arriving at the cause of cloud outline, or explaining how, if we admitted at any given moment the atmospheric moisture to be generally diffused, it could be chilled by formal
But the first step to any elucidation of the matter is in the firmly fixing in our minds the difference between windless clouds, unaffected by any conceivable local accident, and windy clouds, affected by some change in their circumstances as they move.
In the sunset at Abbeville, represented in my first diagram, the air is absolutely calm at the ground surface, and the motion of its upper currents extremely slow. There is no local reason assignable for the presence of the cirri above, or of the thundercloud below. There is no conceivable cause either in the geology, or the moral character, of the two sides of the town of Abbeville, to explain why there should be decorative fresco on the sky over the southern suburb, and a muttering heap of gloom and danger over the northern. The electric cloud is as calm in motion as the harmless one; it changes its forms, indeed; but imperceptibly; and, so far as can be discerned, only at its own will is exalted, and with its own consent abased.
But in my second diagram are shown forms of vapor sustaining at every instant all kinds of varying local influences; beneath, fastened down by mountain attraction, above, flung afar by distracting winds; here, spread abroad into blanched sheets beneath the sunshine, and presently gathered into strands of coiled cordage in the shade. Their total existence is in metamorphosis, and their every aspect a surprise, or a deceit.
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'Finely comminuted water or
My impression that these clouds were glacial was at once confirmed by a member of my audience, Dr. John Rae, in conversation after the lecture, in which he communicated to me the perfectly definite observations which he has had the kindness to set down with their dates for me, in the following letter:—
"4, Addison Gardens, Kensington,
Dear Sir,—I have looked up my old journal of thirty years ago, written in pencil because it was impossible to keep ink unfrozen in the snow-hut in which I passed the winter of 1853-4, at Repulse Bay, on the Arctic Circle.
[I trust that Dr. Rae will forgive my making the reader better aware of the real value of this communication by allowing him to see also the following passage from the kind private letter by which it was supplemented:—
"Many years in the Hudson's Bay Company's service, I and my men became educated for Arctic work, in which I was five different times employed, in two of which expeditions we lived wholly by our own hunting and fishing for twelve months, once in a stone house (very disagreeable), and another winter in a snow hut (better),
"My Arctic work has been recognized by the award of the founder's gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society (before the completion of the whole of it)"]
On the 1st of February, 1854, I find the following:—
'A beautiful appearance of some cirrus clouds near the sun, the central part of the cloud being of a fine pink or red, then green, and pink fringe. This continued for about a quarter of an hour. The same was observed on the 27th of the month, but not so bright. Distance of clouds from sun, from 3° to 6°.'
On the 1st February the temperature was 38° below zero, and on the 27th February 26° below.
'On the 23d and 30th (of March) the same splendid appearance of clouds as mentioned in last month's journal was observed. On the first of these days, about 10.30 a.m., it was extremely beautiful. The clouds were about 8° or 10° from the sun, below him and slightly to the eastward,—having a green fringe all round, then pink; the center part at first green, and then pink or red.'
The temperature was 21° below zero, Fahrenheit.
There may have been other colors—blue, perhaps—but I merely noted the most prominent; and what I call green may have been bluish, although I do not mention this last color in my notes.
From the lowness of the temperature at the time, the clouds
The phenomenon is by no means common, even in the Arctic zone.
The second beautiful cloud-picture shown this afternoon brought so visibly to my memory the appearance seen by me as above described, that I could not avoid remarking
