BRILLIANT SUNSETS

Hokitika Guardian, 18 June 1932, Page 6

BRILLIANT SUNSETS

MARVELLOUS VOLCANIC DUST.

SEEN IN MELBOURNE,

MELBOURNE, June 4,

That the recent brilliant sunsets which attracted interest in the Dominion were also l experienced, in Australia is apparent from the following extract from a recent issue of the Melbourne “Age” :—■ “Literature is resplendent with many purple passages concerning wonderful sunsest; Toward dusk yesterday (June 1) the western sky was suffused with a crimson glow as if a mighty conflagration were veiled behind a mystic curtain of delicate grey hue.. Even in the hustle and bustle of homegoing city life, people paused and marvelled -at this impressively beautiful phenomenon. Whence came it, and how? From the mystic heights of rhapsodical conjecture to the facts of scientific explanation is a steep fall. “The meteorological experts explained that such atmospheric phenomena had not infrequently been caused by fine, dust particles carried cloud-like high into the sky as the result of some eruption. It was pointed out that it was highly probable that the recent eruption in Chile was the cause of the wonderful,y sunsets which have made the western sky so superbly beautiful in: Melbourne during the past few days. 'Similarly gorgeous .sunsets had been remarked in Perth and in parts of New Zealand a few days ago.

“It was explained that marvellous sunsets had been witnessed after the groat eruption of Krakotoa, in the ■Malay Archipelago in 1883. Dust particles from that eruption had been car-, ried from six to ten mjles into the skv by convection cloud®, and then those dust particles had moved like misty clouds round the world, spreading wonderfully in the Northern Hemisphere. and eventually migrating toward the North Pale.”