[Letters to Editors]

Abstract

HAVING occasion to leave my house at 6.40 (the time given is Greenwich mean time throughout, and the bearings and directions were estimated from the pole-star, not compass) this evening, I was immediately struck with an unusual amount of uniformly diffused white light in the west and north-west. In a very few minutes a band of the same colour, but brighter, appeared, extending continuously across the sky, from W.S.W. to E.N.E. It was sharply defined, somewhat variable in breadth, but commonly about 6°. It lasted for nearly a quarter of an hour, and gradually disappeared, from the east westward. The diffused light, previously mentioned, remained unaffected. There were a few clouds in the south, but none elsewhere.