Atmospheric Effect

Abstract

AN atmospheric effect, which is sometimes observed in England, displayed itself here in great beauty yesterday. The western sun had been cut off from us by an intervening ridge, while the upper atmosphere was still filled with his light. There was a good deal of opalescent haze in the atmosphere, which, had the sun shone upon it uniformly, would have presented a tolerably uniform hue. But besides the haze, small detached clouds floated in the air, and behind each of them was a sheaf of shadow, drawn through the haze. The density of these shadows varied with that of the clouds which produced them, nor was the density uniform for all parts of the transverse section of the same shadow. The parallel bars of graduated shade thus produced converged, through an effect of perspective, to a point in the east, exactly as if the sun were going to rise there. The display of the convergent glory was strikingly beautiful.