The possibility of such a miracle has been questioned by many, who have insisted that it would involve not only stoppage of the motion of the earth upon its axis, but an impossible retrograde movement, to be accomplished in a moment of time. However, Professor Garbett, writing for a magazine called Knowledge, declares that he knew of an afternoon some years ago when, on many sundials in Southern England, there occurred exactly the wonder described in the book of Kings. Asked by Astronomer R.A. Proctor to describe it, he writes as follows: “The shiftings of the shadows an the dials, that Isaiah predicted to sick Hezekiah, are liable to occur at any place, when these two circumstances occur: (1) That the upper atmosphere is in that condition which causes two bright parhelion or mock suns to appear an opposite sides of the sun; and (2) that the lower air contains drifting clouds, massive enough to hide often two of the three (apparent suns). When the real sun and eastern mock sun are hidden, there is only the western (mock sun) to cast shadows, which then coincides with what the sun would cast an hour and a half later; but if the clouds shift so as to hide the west parhelion, and disclose the eastern, the shadows instantly become such as the sun cast an hour and a half earlier….On March 29, 1858, these effects occurred, had anyone been looking, on every dial of Portsea, and very probably of much of Hampshire besides. The parhelia were present and bright enough at about 11 a.m. and still better at 1 p.m.
