On the fifth of February, 1674, near Marienberg, in Prussia, the sky
being everywhere serene, the sun, which was still some degrees above the
horizon, was seen to lance out very long and reddish rays, forty or
fifty degrees toward the zenith, notwithstanding it shone with great
luster. Beneath this planet, toward the horizon, there hung a somewhat
thin small cloud, at the inferior part of which there appeared a mock
sun, of the same apparent size with the true sun, and of a reddish
color. Soon after, the true sun descending gradually to the horizon,
toward the said cloud, the spurious sun beneath it grew clearer and
clearer, in so much that the reddish color in this apparent solar disk
vanished, and it put on the genuine solar light, in proportion as it was
approached by the genuine disk of the sun. The latter, at length, passed
into the lower counterfeit sun, and thus remained alone. This phenomenon
was considered the more wonderful, as it was perpendicularly under the
sun, instead of being at its side, as parhelia usually are; not to
mention the color, so different from that which is usual in mock suns,
nor the great length of the tail cast up by the genuine sun, of a far
more vivid and splendid light than parhelia commonly exhibit. This
appearance was soon followed by an exceedingly intense frost, which
lasted till the twenty-fifth of March, the whole bay being frozen up
from the town of Dantzic to Hela in the Baltic sea.
On the twenty-eighth of August, 1698, about eight o’clock in the
morning, there was seen at Sudbury, in Suffolk, England, the appearance
of three suns, which were then extremely brilliant. Beneath a dark,
watery cloud, in the east, nearly at its center, the true sun shone with
such strong beams, that the spectators could not look at it; and on each
side were the reflections. Much of the firmament was elsewhere of an
azure color. The circles were not colored like the rainbow, but white;
and there was also, at the same time, higher in the firmament, and
toward the south, at a considerable distance from the other phenomena,
the form of a half-moon, but apparently of double the size, with the
horns turned upward. This appearance was, within, of a fiery red color,
imitating that of the rainbow. These phenomena faded gradually, after
having continued about two hours.
Two mock suns, an arc of a rainbow inverted, and a halo, were seen at
Lyndon, in the county of Rutland, on the twenty-second of October, 1621,
at eleven in the morning. There had been an =aurora borealis= the
preceding night, with the wind at west-south-west. The two parhelia, or
mock suns, were bright and distinct, and in the usual places, namely, in
the two intersections of a strong and large portion of a halo, with an
imaginary circle parallel to the horizon, passing through the true sun.
Each parhelion had its tail of a white color, and in direct opposition
to the true sun; that toward the east being some twenty or twenty-five
degrees long, and that toward the west from ten to twelve degrees, both
narrowest at the remote ends. The mock suns were evidently red toward
the sun, but pale or whitish at the opposite sides, as was the halo
also. Still higher in the heavens, was an arc of a curiously inverted
rainbow, about the middle of the distance between the top of the halo
and the vertex. This arc was as distinct in its colors as the common
rainbow, and of the same breadth. The red color was on the convex, and
the blue on the concave of the arc, which seemed to be about ninety
degrees in length, its center being in or near the vertex. On the top of
the halo was a kind of inverted bright arc. This phenomenon was seen on
the following day, and, again, on the twenty-sixth. On the eleventh of
the preceding month, September, a very splendid and remarkable =aurora
borealis=, presenting truly unaccountable motions and removals, was
witnessed in Rutlandshire, in Northamptonshire, and at Bath.