There is nothing luminous, transparent, or delicate about dust. Dust would not remain in the atmosphere for months, it would settle in a very short time, and if thick enough in the atmosphere to obstruct the light of the sun it would be visible, discernible, to the eye, and manifest on the face of nature. Years ago, before the age of the weather map, we might have thought that the atmosphere followed the surface of the earth like the water on a grindstone, but it does not. As already seen, the wind is from the area of high barometer to that of low, and there are many of these "low centers."
From the best calculation we can make at present, there would be at least some six centers on an average between the center of the United States and the island of Java. In addition to this there would also be a number of belts of "low" centers, which would complicate the thing threefold at least. At all these different centers the winds would be blowing from all points of the compass at the same time. Such winds would not be apt to bring the "meteoric dust" from Java to the United States, either in an easterly or westerly direction. But, it is said, "dust" has been gathered.
How high from the surface of the ground has this dust been gathered--at what elevation?
There is undoubtedly a little dust in the air most of the time, but I do not think that it extends very high. Where it would be the highest and most perceptible would be on the arid plans of Africa and Asia, when the simoom is passing, or in the track of a tornado. But from the multiplicity of these storm centers and the varied winds they would produce even this dust could not travel from Java to America.
Again, all clouds, no matter how high or how low, are affected by the low centers, as the movement of clouds prove, and travel from the "high" to the "low," from and to all points of the compass. High authority gives the heights of the clouds as follows: lower clouds, 16,000 feet; upper clouds, 23,000 feet.
As all clouds, from the highest to the lowest, are affected by the centers as above referred to, it follows that if this "meteoric dust" follows the earth around, as it would have to do in order to make good this theory, it would have to travel suspended in the atmosphere above the upper clouds, or at a height of more than 23,000 feet, or at an elevation of over four miles!
Now, is it reasonable to believe that dust, however fine, will remain in the atmosphere at that elevation for over six months?
As a side argument it is suggested that the smoke of the burning woods, or few years ago in Michigan, caused as peculiar condition of the atmosphere. This extensive fire was on a day when the area of low barometer was on a high line of latitude and passing to the eastward. This naturally took the smoke, which is far lighter than dust, along with it. It mingled with the muggy condition of an extensive "low," and produced a yellowness of the atmosphere. This however was of only a few hours' duration, and was only visible in favorable localities.
Here again we see the advantage of the weather maps; but for this map we would never have been able to have satisfactorily explained the peculiar phenomenon produced by the great Michigan fire.
If the delicate redness of the sky is not caused by dust, what is it caused by?