“The Dark Day”

REFERRING to the account of the phenomenon in New England on September 6 last (NATURE, vol. xxiv. p. 540), and in Mr. Harding's letter (p. 557), let me refer your readers to a succinct account of the occurrence on May 19, 1780, which they will find in Webster's Dictionary, “Explanatory and Pronouncing Vocabulary of the Noted Names of Fiction, &c.” In Public Opinion (June 4, 1881) there is an account of a, precisely similar occurrence on the morning of Sunday, November 8, 1819, known, it is remarked, as the “Phenomenon of 1819.” The account of this phenomenon is very explicit, and the details furnished correspond so closely with the event of May 19, 1780, that a doubt might be felt whether there had been two such days, or whether there had not been some mistake made in regard to the date given. I wrote to Public Opinion, making inquiries (see Public Opinion of June 11, 1881, p. 755), but no reply has hitherto appeared to my inquiries. I may observe that the year 1819 would not coincide with any one of the sunspot cycle of eleven years from 1780 to which the New York Nation refers.