But the other phenomenon had burst on them so suddenly that they
uttered a cry loud enough to wake up Barbican from his problem. They had
discovered a true starry ring! Around the Earth's outline, a ring, of
internally well defined thickness, but somewhat hazy on the outside,
could easily be traced by its surpassing brilliancy. Neither the
_Pleiades_, the _Northern Crown_, the _Magellanic Clouds_ nor the great
nebulas of _Orion_, or of _Argo_, no sparkling cluster, no corona, no
group of glittering star-dust that the travellers had ever gazed at,
presented such attractions as the diamond ring they now saw encompassing
the Earth, just as the brass meridian encompasses a terrestrial globe.
The resplendency of its light enchanted them, its pure softness
delighted them, its perfect regularity astonished them. What was it?
they asked Barbican. In a few words he explained it. The beautiful
luminous ring was simply an optical illusion, produced by the refraction
of the terrestrial atmosphere. All the stars in the neighborhood of the
Earth, and many actually behind it, had their rays refracted, diffused,
radiated, and finally converged to a focus by the atmosphere, as if by a
double convex lens of gigantic power.
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