, perhaps, be interesting at the present time, when so
much attention has been given to the late brilliant sunsets and
sunrises, to be reminded that almost identically the same
appearances were observed just a hundred years ago.

Gilbert White writes in the year 1783, in his 109th letter,
published in his 'Natural History of Selborne':--

'The summer of the year 1783 was an amazing and portentous one, and
full of horrible phenomena; for besides the alarming meteors and
tremendous thunderstorms that affrighted and distressed the
different counties of this kingdom, the peculiar haze or smoky fog
that prevailed for many weeks in this island and in every part of
Europe, and even beyond its limits, was a most extraordinary
appearance, unlike anything known within the memory of man. By my
journal I find that I had noticed this strange occurrence from June
23d to July 20th inclusive, during which period the wind varied to
every quarter without making any alteration in the air. The sun at
noon looked as black as a clouded moon, and shed a ferruginous
light on the ground and floors of rooms, but was particularly lurid
and blood-colored at rising and setting. The country people began
to look with a superstitious awe at the red lowering aspect of the
sun; and, indeed, there was reason for the most enlightened person
to be apprehensive, for all the while Calabria and part of the Isle
of Sicily were torn and convulsed with earthquakes, and about that
juncture a volcano sprang out of the sea on the coast of Norway.'

Other writers also mention volcanic disturbances in this same year,
1783. We are told by Lyell and Geikie, that there were great
volcanic eruptions in and near Iceland. A submarine volcano burst
forth in the sea, thirty miles southwest of Iceland, which ejected
so much pumice that the ocean was covered with this substance, to
the distance of 150 miles, and ships were considerably impeded in
their course; and a new island was formed, from which fire and
smoke and pumice were emitted.

Besides this submarine eruption, the volcano Skaptar-Joekull, on the
mainland, on June 11th, 1783, threw out a torrent of lava, so
immense as to surpass in magnitude the bulk of Mont Blanc, and
ejected so vast an amount of fine dust, that the atmosphere over
Iceland continued loaded with it for months afterwards. It fell in
such quantities over parts of Caithness--a distance of 600
miles--as to destroy the crops, and that year is still