The wonders of the world

by John Loraine Abbott

SHIP REFRACTED IN THE AIR.

But one of the most remarkable cases of atmospheric refraction of which we have any record, is that which occurred at New Haven, Connecticut, in the early settlement of the colony. The colonists had built a ship, and freighted her for England with a valuable cargo, with which she sailed from their harbor in the winter of 1647, having several of their principal men on board. They were obliged to cut their way through the ice to get out of the harbor; and the ship, never being heard of afterward, was supposed to have foundered at sea. No tidings arriving of the ship or of her fate, the colonists were deeply distressed, and “were very earnest in their prayers, both public and private, that God would in some way make manifest to them what had become of their friends.” In the following June, a violent thunder-storm arose out of the north-west, after which the atmosphere being very calm and serene, about an hour before sunset, a ship of the dimensions and form of the one they had lost, with all her canvas set and flags flying, appeared in the air, coming up the harbor, her sails filled as though by a fresh gale, and sailing against the wind, for the space of half an hour.

At length, as she came nearer, her maintop seemed to be blown off, though left hanging in the shrouds; then, her mizzen-top; then all her masting seemed blown away by the board; quickly after, her hulk careening, she overset, and seemed to sink and vanish in the clouds, and as these clouds passed away, the air where she was seen, was, as before, perfectly clear. The crowd of spectators could distinguish the appearance of the various parts of the ship, the principal rigging, and such proportions as made them satisfied that this was indeed their ship; and Mr. Davenport, the minister, declared, in public, that God, for the quieting of the hearts of the people, had given them this extraordinary exhibition and account of what he had done with their property and friends. But science gives us a more natural and less miraculous explanation of the matter, in the refracting power of the air when in certain states; and the probability is, that the ship, thus seen in the air, was some strange vessel (which they imagined looked like their own) coming up the harbor before the breeze, and then driven off and wrecked by the storm, which reached her after it had passed New Haven; or else that it was, indeed, their own ship, which after being driven about for months, was now coming back to her port, when she was thus caught in the tempest and destroyed. And as confirming this view of the matter, it may be added, in conclusion, that within the present century, it is said, a similar refraction of a ship in the air, has been witnessed in the same place.

PARHELIA, OR MOCK SUNS.

On the fifth of February, 1674, near Marienberg, in Prussia, the sky being everywhere serene, the sun, which was still some degrees above the horizon, was seen to lance out very long and reddish rays, forty or fifty degrees toward the zenith, notwithstanding it shone with great luster. Beneath this planet, toward the horizon, there hung a somewhat thin small cloud, at the inferior part of which there appeared a mock sun, of the same apparent size with the true sun, and of a reddish color. Soon after, the true sun descending gradually to the horizon, toward the said cloud, the spurious sun beneath it grew clearer and clearer, in so much that the reddish color in this apparent solar disk vanished, and it put on the genuine solar light, in proportion as it was approached by the genuine disk of the sun. The latter, at length, passed into the lower counterfeit sun, and thus remained alone. This phenomenon was considered the more wonderful, as it was perpendicularly under the sun, instead of being at its side, as parhelia usually are; not to mention the color, so different from that which is usual in mock suns, nor the great length of the tail cast up by the genuine sun, of a far more vivid and splendid light than parhelia commonly exhibit. This appearance was soon followed by an exceedingly intense frost, which lasted till the twenty-fifth of March, the whole bay being frozen up from the town of Dantzic to Hela in the Baltic sea.

On the twenty-eighth of August, 1698, about eight o’clock in the morning, there was seen at Sudbury, in Suffolk, England, the appearance of three suns, which were then extremely brilliant. Beneath a dark, watery cloud, in the east, nearly at its center, the true sun shone with such strong beams, that the spectators could not look at it; and on each side were the reflections. Much of the firmament was elsewhere of an azure color. The circles were not colored like the rainbow, but white; and there was also, at the same time, higher in the firmament, and toward the south, at a considerable distance from the other phenomena, the form of a half-moon, but apparently of double the size, with the horns turned upward. This appearance was, within, of a fiery red color, imitating that of the rainbow. These phenomena faded gradually, after having continued about two hours.

Two mock suns, an arc of a rainbow inverted, and a halo, were seen at Lyndon, in the county of Rutland, on the twenty-second of October, 1621, at eleven in the morning. There had been an aurora borealis the preceding night, with the wind at west-south-west. The two parhelia, or mock suns, were bright and distinct, and in the usual places, namely, in the two intersections of a strong and large portion of a halo, with an imaginary circle parallel to the horizon, passing through the true sun. Each parhelion had its tail of a white color, and in direct opposition to the true sun; that toward the east being some twenty or twenty-five degrees long, and that toward the west from ten to twelve degrees, both narrowest at the remote ends. The mock suns were evidently red toward the sun, but pale or whitish at the opposite sides, as was the halo also. Still higher in the heavens, was an arc of a curiously inverted rainbow, about the middle of the distance between the top of the halo and the vertex. This arc was as distinct in its colors as the common rainbow, and of the same breadth. The red color was on the convex, and the blue on the concave of the arc, which seemed to be about ninety degrees in length, its center being in or near the vertex. On the top of the halo was a kind of inverted bright arc. This phenomenon was seen on the following day, and, again, on the twenty-sixth. On the eleventh of the preceding month, September, a very splendid and remarkable aurora borealis, presenting truly unaccountable motions and removals, was witnessed in Rutlandshire, in Northamptonshire, and at Bath.

LUNAR RAINBOW.

This very rare phenomenon was witnessed at Glapwell Hall, in Derbyshire, England, on the twenty-fifth of December, 1710, about eight in the evening, with a remarkable and very unusual display of colors. The moon had passed her full about twenty-four hours, and the evening had been rainy; but the clouds were dispersed, and the moon then shone quite clear. This iris lunaris had all the colors of the solar iris, exceedingly beautiful and distinct, only faint in comparison with those which are seen in the day; as must necessarily have been the case, both from the different beams by which it was occasioned, and the disposition of the medium. What most surprised the observer was the largeness of the arc, which was not so much less than that of the sun, as the different dimensions of their bodies, and their respective distances from the earth, seemed to require; but the entireness and beauty of its colors furnished a charming spectacle.