I frequently lay down on the bunker of our little sloop, and looked far up
into blue dome of the sky; and, notwithstanding the sun was shining far away
in the east, I always saw a single star overhead. For several days, when I
looked for this star, it was always there directly above us. It was now,
according to our reckoning, aboout the first of August. The sun was high in
the heavens, and was so bright that I could no longer see the one lone star
that attracted my attention a few days earlier. One day about this time, my
father startled me by calling my attention to a novel sight far in front of
us, almost at the horison. "It is a mock sun," exclaimed my father. "I have
read of them; it is called a reflection or mirage. It will soon pass away."
But this dull-red, false sun, as we supposed it to be, did not pass away for
several hours; and while we were unconscious of its emitting any rays of
light, still there was no time thereafter when we could not sweet the
horizon and locate the illumination of the so-called false sun, during a
period of at least twelve hours out of every twenty-four. Clouds and mists
would at times almost, but never entirely, hide its location. Gradually it
seemed to climb higher in the horizon of the uncertain purply sky as we
advanced. It could hardly be said to resemble the sun, except in its
circular shape, and when not obscured by clouds or the ocean mists, it had a
hazy-red, bronzed appearance, which would change to a white like a luminous
cloud, as if reflecting some greater light beyond. We finally agreed in our
discussion of this smoky furnace-colored sun, that, whatever the cause of
the phenomenon, it was not a reflection of our sun, but a planet of some
sort - a reality[
Related thread: Olaf's Description — Follows the March 2018 'Olaf's Description' post