h. So the setting sun is
seen of apparently increased size. Sir John Herschel asserts that the
appearance is an illusion, and so do some others. Professor Carey
says, that, if we look through a paper tube at the moon when on the
horizon, the paper being folded so as to make the aperture of its
exact size, and then look again at it when it reaches the zenith, we
shall find there is no difference.

On the other hand, an experiment is offered by a German Professor, of
the name of Milo, of this kind: If we look through a tube so
constructed as to have one side filled with spirits of wine and the
other with common air, the half of the object seen through the former
will be found to appear much larger to the eye than the other half
seen through the latter.

It is laid down, that, where extraordinary refraction takes place
laterally or vertically, the visual angle of the spectator is
singularly enlarged, and objects are magnified, as if seen through a
telescope. Dr. Scoresby, a celebrated meteorologist and navigator,
mentions some curious instances of the effects of refraction seen by
him in the Arctic Ocean.

Many remarkable phenomena attend this state of the atmosphere, known
as the Fata Morgana of Sicily, the Mirage of the Desert, the Spectre
of the Brocken, and the more common exhibitions of halos, coronae, and
mock suns. The Mountain House at Catskill has repeatedly been seen
brightly pictured on the clouds below. Rainbows are also due to this
condition of the atmosphere.

We might occupy the remainder of the space allowed us by enlarging on
various topics which belong to this part of our subject. The twilight
gray, the hues of the evening and morning sky, the peculiarity of the
red rays of light, the scintillation of stars, their flashing changes
of colors, are all meteorological in their character, as well as
strikingly beautiful and interesting.

* * * * *

Polarity of light is another of the wonders of which Meteorology takes
cognizance. The celebrated Malus, in 1808, while looking at the light
of the setting sun shining upon the windows of the Luxembourg, was led
to the discovery that a beam of light which was reflected at a certain
angle from transparent and opaque bodies, or by transmission through
several plates of uncrystallized bodies, or of bodies crystallized and
possessing the property of double refraction, changed its character,
so as to have sides, to revolve around po