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The great orb of day was about ten degrees above the horizon, and a horizontal line of white passed completely through it, extending to a considerable distance on either hand, while around it were two distinct halos, or circles of light. On the inner halo were situated the mock-suns, which were four in number one above and one below the sun, and one on each side of him.
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.
It is scarcely surprising that they should feel thus, when it is remembered that profound calms usually prevailed at that season, causing the sea to appear like another heaven below them; that the sun never went down, but circled round and round the horizon dipping, indeed, a little more and more towards it each night, but not yet disappearing; that myriads of wild birds filled the air with plaintive cries; that whales, and sea-unicorns, and walruses sported around; that icebergs were only numerous enough to give a certain strangeness of aspect to the scene a strangeness which was increased by the frequent appearance of arctic phenomena, such as several mock-suns rivalling the real one, and objects being enveloped in a golden haze, or turned upside down by changes in atmospheric temperature.
You saw four mock-suns round the real one yesterday, didn't you? and the day before you saw icebergs floating in the air, eh?" "True, father, but these appearances were deceptive, whereas this ice, which looks so tightly packed, is a reality." "That is so, lad, but it is not set fast for the winter, though it looks like it.
The great orb of day was about ten degrees above the horizon, and a horizontal line of white passed completely through it extending to a considerable distance on either hand, while around it were two distinct halos, or circles of light. On the inner halo were situated the mock-suns, which were four in number one above and one below the sun, and one on each side of him.
So did the mock-suns which hovered in the sky, chained by the radiant circle which held the dying sun prisoned. Then in the north the heavy clouds were gathering. They gathered and dispersed. Then they gathered again. And always they banked deeper and darker. The wind was rising. That fitful, patchy wind which is so full of threat, and which bears in its breath the cutting slash of a whip.
This, of course, was owing to the fact that there was a continuous current blowing northward in the higher regions of the atmosphere. The sun, meantime, glowed overhead with four mock-suns around him, nevertheless the heat was not oppressive, partly because the voyagers were sitting at rest, and partly because a slight current of cool air, the creation of their own progress, fanned their cheeks.
Metrodorus, that when the sun casts its splendor through a cloud, the cloud gives itself a blue, and the light a red color. These rods and the mock-suns are constituted of a double nature, a real subsistence, and a mere appearance; of a real subsistence, because the clouds are the object of our eyes; of a mere appearance, for their proper color is not seen, but that which is adventitious.
When he opened them they rested on the alder-twig, a couple of yards above, holding out mocking finger-tips, and he turned his head in the snow till again he could see the mock-suns looking down. "As well try to reach the sky as reach the alder-bush. What did that mean? That he was really going to lie there till he died? He die, and the Colonel and everybody else go on living?"
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.
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