Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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I Could Distinguish So Perfectly The
Spots Of The Moon, That It Might Have Been Supposed Its Disk Was
Before The Clouds.
The latter were at a prodigious height, disposed
in bands, and at equal distances, as from the effect of electric
repulsions:
- These small masses of vapour, similar to those I saw
above my head on the ridge of the highest Andes, are, in several
languages, designated by the name of sheep. When the reddish vapour
spreads lightly over the sky, the great stars, which in general, at
Cumana, scarcely scintillate below 20 or 25 degrees, did not retain
even at the zenith, their steady and planetary light. They
scintillated at all altitudes, as after a heavy storm of rain.* (*
I have not observed any direct relation between the scintillation
of the stars and the dryness of that part of the atmosphere open to
our researches. I have often seen at Cumana a great scintillation
of the stars of Orion and Sagittarius, when Saussure's hygrometer
was at 85 degrees. At other times, these same stars, considerably
elevated above the horizon, emitted a steady and planetary light,
the hygrometer being at 90 or 93 degrees. Probably it is not the
quantity of vapour, but the manner in which it is diffused, and
more or less dissolved in the air, which determines the
scintillation. The latter is invariably attended with a coloration
of light. It is remarkable enough, that, in northern countries, at
a time when the atmosphere appears perfectly dry, the scintillation
is most decided in very cold weather.) It was curious that the
vapour did not affect the hygrometer at the surface of the earth.
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