The Zodiacal Light

Abstract

THE phenomenon to which your correspondents allude, under the head of zodiacal light, was seen by me in the month of April, 1852. At the time I wrote a letter to the Times, in which I suggested it might be caused by the reflection of the sunlight at the surface of two masses of air of different densities, however irregular the bounding surface might be, in the same manner as the line of light seen reflected between the observer and the sun across the sea. One of your correspondents has suggested a more probable origin, viz. particles of ice in the air. From other correspondents it seems that the sun column is not always vertical, which might be the result of the general flame of the reflecting surface not being parallel with the earth's surface.