A surprising instance of atmospherical refraction occurred at Hastings,
England, on the twenty-sixth of July, 1798. W. Latham, Esq., sitting in
his dining-room, situated on the parade, close to the sea-shore, and
nearly fronting the south, about five in the afternoon, had his
attention suddenly drawn by a great number of people running down to the
seaside. On inquiring the reason, he was informed that the coast of
France was plainly to be distinguished by the naked eye. On going down
to the shore, he was surprised to find that, even without the assistance
of a telescope, he could very plainly see the cliffs on the opposite
coast; which, at the nearest part, are between forty and fifty miles
distant, and are not to be discerned, from that low situation, by the
aid of the best glasses. They appeared to be only a few miles off, and
seemed to extend for some leagues along the coast. Pursuing his walk
along the shore to the eastward, close to the water’s edge, and
conversing on the subject with the sailors and fishermen, they could
not, at first, be persuaded of the reality of the appearance; but soon
became so thoroughly convinced, by the cliffs gradually appearing more
elevated, and approaching nearer as it were, that they pointed out and
named to him the different places they had been accustomed to visit,
such as, the Bay, the Old Head or Man, the Windmill, &c., at Boulogne;
together with St. Vallery, and other places on the coast of Picardy.
This they afterward confirmed, when they viewed them, thus refracted,
through their telescopes, observing that the above places appeared as
near as if they had been sailing, at a small distance, into the harbors.
From the eastern cliff, which is of a very considerable hight, a most
beautiful scene presented itself to Mr. Latham’s view, for there he
could at once see Dungeness, Dover cliffs, and the French coast, all
along from Calais, Boulogne, &c., to St. Vallery; and, as some of the
fishermen affirmed, as far to the westward even as Dieppe. By the
telescope, the French fishing-boats were plainly to be seen at anchor,
and the different colors of the land on the hights, with the buildings,
were perfectly discernible. This curious phenomenon continued in the
highest splendor till half past eight o’clock, notwithstanding a black
cloud for some time totally obscured the face of the sun, and then
vanished gradually. So remarkable an instance of atmospherical
refraction had not been before witnessed by the oldest inhabitant of
Hastings. It was likewise observed at Winchelsea, and other places along
the coast. The day was remarkably hot, without a breath of wind
stirring.
As another instance of this refracting power of the atmosphere, Dr.
Vince, an English philosopher, was once looking through a telescope at a
ship, which was so far off, that he could only see the upper parts of
the masts. The hulk was entirely hidden by the bending of the water, but
between himself and the ship he saw two perfect images of it in the air.
These were of the same form and color as the real ship; but one of them
was turned upside down. And when Captain Scoresby was in the polar sea
with his ship, he was separated by the ice from that of his father for
some time, and looked out for her every day with great anxiety. At
length, one evening, to his utter astonishment, he saw her suspended in
the air, in an inverted position, traced on the horizon in the clearest
colors, and with the most distinct and perfect representation. He sailed
in the direction in which he saw this visionary phenomenon, and actually
found his father’s vessel by its indication. He was separated from the
ship by immense masses of icebergs, and at such a distance that it was
impossible to have seen her in her actual situation, or to have seen her
at all, if her spectrum had not been thus raised several degrees above
the horizon in the air by this most extraordinary refraction. It is by
this bending of the rays of light that the images of people are often
seen at a distance, and sometimes magnified to a gigantic size. We have
given an account of such an appearance in the Hartz mountains, in
Germany.
Another singular instance of the refracting power of the atmosphere, was
witnessed within the present year, (1854,) by Mr. Elliott, the aeronaut,
while ascending in his balloon from Petersburg, Virginia. After he had
ascended about three thousand feet he discharged some five pounds of
ballast, when he shot onward and upward with amazing rapidity till he
began to approximate to the clouds. He then discharged about five pounds
more of sand, the remainder of the bag, when he again darted upward
among the clouds, which were so dense as to wholly exclude all
terrestrial objects from his view, and of course he was lost to all
observers below. These discharges were distinctly seen by persons
watching him, and on the first occasion some one exclaimed that the
balloon had burst. While among the clouds, it seemed to him as if he was
in the midst of a large ground-glass globe, some two or three hundred
feet in diameter, against the side of which opposite to the sun, the
shadow of his balloon rested, some five or six times larger than the
corporeal one. About half-way between him and the shadow, which seemed
as if resting on the glass wall, another balloon was seen, of a size
between the shadow and the real one, resting as if in a vacuum, which
displayed every color of the original faithfully. He then saw another
Elliott, clad and with features like himself, and seemingly self-like.
He then extended his own fingers, when he was mimicked by his image; and
whether he extended one finger or more, or whatever he did, this figure
duplicated exactly. When he would cause his balloon to oscillate, this
balloon would move exactly like his. When he threw out more ballast to
elevate himself, this figure _sank down_ instead of rising with him; and
when he arose above the clouds into the rays of the unclouded sun, he
left the mimic aeronaut below him.
In the rays of the sun above the clouds he found it so warm as to cause
him to perspire freely, a state of heat never before experienced at this
hight, nearly twenty-four thousand feet, where the air is very rarefied
and generally very chilly. He then opened the valve for the purpose of
descending, and as soon as he had sunk one or two thousand feet, which
he ascertained by barometrical indications, he felt as if he had entered
an ice-house, and a cold chill seized his whole person. Here he again
met his mimic aerial voyager, whom he kept in company for some time,
from philosophical motives. Whenever he moved sideways, this _mum_
gentleman would move in the same direction. But when he moved up or
down, the duplicate would move in a directly opposite way; and when he
concluded to descend, the image moved upward until the tricolored flag
was out of sight, when he could see the car and the aeronaut still
standing in it as if in a basket attached to nothing. He continued to
look until his head was Robespierred, and finally, piece by piece, his
body, and, at last, his feet and basket, ascended out of his sight. Mr.
Elliott said that he had been up a hundred and one times, but never had
seen anything in the form of an illusion like this before.
[Illustration: SHIP REFRACTED IN THE AIR.]
But one of the most remarkable cases of atmospheric refraction of which
we have any record, is that which occurred at New Haven, Connecticut, in
the early settlement of the colony. The colonists had built a ship, and
freighted her for England with a valuable cargo, with which she sailed
from their harbor in the winter of 1647, having several of their
principal men on board. They were obliged to cut their way through the
ice to get out of the harbor; and the ship, never being heard of
afterward, was supposed to have foundered at sea. No tidings arriving of
the ship or of her fate, the colonists were deeply distressed, and “were
very earnest in their prayers, both public and private, that God would
in some way make manifest to them what had become of their friends.” In
the following June, a violent thunder-storm arose out of the north-west,
after which the atmosphere being very calm and serene, about an hour
before sunset, a ship of the dimensions and form of the one they had
lost, with all her canvas set and flags flying, appeared in the air,
coming up the harbor, her sails filled as though by a fresh gale, and
sailing against the wind, for the space of half an hour.
At length, as she came nearer, her maintop seemed to be blown off,
though left hanging in the shrouds; then, her mizzen-top; then all her
masting seemed blown away by the board; quickly after, her hulk
careening, she overset, and seemed to sink and vanish in the clouds, and
as these clouds passed away, the air where she was seen, was, as before,
perfectly clear. The crowd of spectators could distinguish the
appearance of the various parts of the ship, the principal rigging, and
such proportions as made them satisfied that this was indeed their ship;
and Mr. Davenport, the minister, declared, in public, that God, for the
quieting of the hearts of the people, had given them this extraordinary
exhibition and account of what he had done with their property and
friends. But science gives us a more natural and less miraculous
explanation of the matter, in the refracting power of the air when in
certain states; and the probability is, that the ship, thus seen in the
air, was some strange vessel (which they imagined looked like their own)
coming up the harbor before the breeze, and then driven off and wrecked
by the storm, which reached her after it had passed New Haven; or else
that it was, indeed, their own ship, which after being driven about for
months, was now coming back to her port, when she was thus caught in the
tempest and destroyed. And as confirming this view of the matter, it may
be added, in conclusion, that within the present century, it is said, a
similar refraction of a ship in the air, has been witnessed in the same
place.