• [TO THU EDITOR OF THE "SPECI.A.TOR., SIR, — In your issue
of September 21st your correspondents describe two kinds of "the natural phenomenon known as the Spectre of the Brocken." In the description quoted from the Abbe Gorreb the mirage surrounded the shadows of all the spectators,—" ce mirage nous formait is tons une conronne no milieu de laquelle noun voyions notre ombre." This corre- sponds with what I have seen under similar conditions at the back of Chenur Mountain at Nynee Tal in the Himalayas; with this addition, that there each spectator saw himself as the centre of the group framed by the halo. In the account given by your Cambridge correspondent there was no group- ing of the figures in the centre of a circle, and the halo was seen only by each observer round his own head,—" His own vast shadow glory-crown'd." I have times without number seen my own long shadow with a bright white halo round the head while riding by the dew-laden fields of young grain in the early morning in India- This, too, is a case of "the observer seeing the glory round nobody's head but his own."
—I am, Sir, &c., J. G. S. [We cannot print any more letters on this subject—ED. Spectator.]
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