Effects of Unequal Refraction at Bridlington Quay. 1 1 



All the representations of ships in Plate II. (Fig 5.)> it should 

 be observed, are telescopic, being taken from a view obtained with 

 an ordinary spy-glass. With the naked eye, the looming of the 

 vessels could be readily perceived ; but it required a magnifying 

 power to resolve the apparently confused and enlarged outline 

 into the ship and its images. The images were, in most respects, 

 very similar to what I have formerly observed in the Arctic Re- 

 gions, though scarcely so distinct and well defined. In high la- 

 titudes, indeed, I have seen them as sharp and definite as if cut 

 with a graver. 



On June the 24th, a day already referred to as one distin- 

 guished by unequal refractions, the Holderness Coast was most 

 singularly affected by the state of the atmosphere. The ordina- 

 ry appearance of this coast, as seen from the window of my 

 sitting-room, which commands a view of all the southern part of 

 Bridlington Bay, is that represented in Plate II. Fig. 4. But in 

 the forenoon of this day, the sun having intense power, this low 

 and uninteresting part of the promontory, terminating at the 

 Spurn, assumed the appearance of Fig. 2. to the naked eye. Slight 

 hummocks and knolls, on the ridge of the land, were raised into 

 parallel vertical pillars, resembling immense detached columns of 

 basalt ; and the whole range, for a considerable extent, seemed to 

 be surmounted by a horizontal and almost continuous platform ! 

 This platform or causeway, which it resembled, seemed in many 

 places entirely unsupported ; the clear view of the sky being ob- 

 tained beneath it. But this apparent platform was in reality the 

 refracted image of the stratum of land beneath, forming conti- 

 nuous columns, where the land was highest and the image joined 

 the protuberances ; but leaving vacant interstices, where the land 

 was low and the resemblances more remote. 



Having made a sketch (Fig. 2.) of the appearance of the 

 coast from my window, which is at the height of about 40 feet 

 above the level of the sea at low- water, (the state of the tide at 



B 2 



