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Every point seemed a diamond; every edge sent forth a gleam of light, and many of the masses reflected the rich prismatic colours of the rainbow. It seemed as if the sun himself had been multiplied in order to add to the excessive brilliancy, for he was surrounded by parhelia, or sun-dogs as the men called them. This peculiarity in the sun's appearance was very striking.
Far as the eye could reach, the sea lay stretched in the sunshine, calm as a mill-pond, and sparkling with ice-jewels of every shape and size. An Arctic haze, dry and sunny, seemed to float over all like golden gauze. Not only was the sun encircled by a beautiful halo, but also by those lovely lights of the Arctic regions known as parhelia, or mock-suns.
At noon, for the first time, they could admire a magnificent solar phenomenon, a halo with two parhelia; the doctor observed it, and took its exact dimensions; the exterior bow was only visible over an extent of thirty degrees on each side of its horizontal diameter; the two images of the sun were remarkably clear; the colours of the luminous bows proceeded from inside to outside, and were red, yellow, green, and very light blue in short, white light without any assignable exterior limit.
Anaxagoras, that, the solar rays being reflected from a condensed cloud, the sun being placed directly opposite to it forms the bow after the mode of the repercussion of a mirror; after the same manner he assigns the natural cause of the Parhelia or mock-suns, which are often seen in Pontus.
Two parhelia were observable with a halo; the colours of the inner edge of the circle were a bright carmine and red lake intermingled with a rich yellow, forming a purplish orange; the outer edge was pale gamboge. December 5. A man was sent some distance on the lake to see if it was sufficiently frozen for us to cross.
"But this, begging your pardon, I do think, that before a young woman does really, truly, and cordially centre her affections on one object, she suffers fancy, imagination, the desire of power, curiosity, or Heaven knows what, to stimulate, even to her own mind, pale reflections of the luminary not yet risen, parhelia that precede the sun.
So also the sign of the shadow going back was revealed to Isaiah according to his understanding; that is, as proceeding from a going backwards of the sun; for he, too, thought that the sun moves and that the earth is still; of parhelia he perhaps never even dreamed.
Parhelia were less to him than covered eyes, and the perilous peace of the snow. It seemed a long time before he sat up, and began to beat the stiffness out of his hands against his breast. But when he spoke, it was only to say: "I mean to camp." "For how long?" "Till a team comes by or something."
We are now about to consider an order of phenomena which are of rarer occurrence, but which have this property in common with the rainbow, viz., that they take place also upon the side of the sky opposite to the sun. The optical phenomena which occur on the same side as, or around the sun, such as halos, parhelia, etc., will be dealt with later on.
The sky was brighter than usual at the time. This was owing to one of those strange appearances which one sees more of in the Arctic regions than in any other part of the world. The sun shone with unclouded splendour, and around it there were three mock suns almost as bright as the sun itself, one on each side and one directly above it. Learned men call these bright spots parhelia.
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