Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 September 1883 — “The Specter of the Brocken” in America. [ARTICLE]

“The Specter of the Brocken” in America.

Mr. R. A- Marr, of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, reports that he has -witnessed this atmospheric phenomenon in the Tonjabe range, in Nevada. In describing its appearance he says: “Suddenly, as I stood looking over the vast expanse beneath me, I saw myself, confronted by a monster figure of a man standing in mid-air before me, upon the top of a clearly-defined mountain peak, which had but the thin air of the valley below for a resting-place. The figure was only a short distance from me. Around it were two circles of rainbow light and color, and the one faintly defined as compared with the inner one, which was bright and clear and distinctly iridescent. Around the head of the figure was a beautiful halo of light, and from the figure itself shot rays of color normal to the body. The sight startled me more than I can tell. I threw up my hands in astonishment, and perhaps some little fear; and at this moment the specter seemed to move toward me. In a few minutes I got over my fright, and then, after the figure had ‘faded away, I recognized the fact that I had enjoyed one of the most wonderful phenomena of nature. Since then we have seen it once or twice from Jeff Davis’ peak, but it never created such an impression upon me as' it did that evening when I was doing service as a heliotroper all alone on the top of Arc Dome.” Paris has twenty-three libraries, which it is proposed to increase innumber to forty. More than one-half of all the books read are novels. In Virginia they are making flour of peanuts, and it is praised. It is customary in Georgia to pound the nuts for a pastry.