40 The Horizontal Moon. 



But what is the cause of this optical delusion? We can only 

 answer that by some optical law, not well understood, all objects 

 seen against the sky horizontally, or slightly elevated, appear 

 larger than when seen at greater elevations. A kite appears larger 

 just as soon as it leaves the ground than it does when it is well up 

 in the air; I mean with the same length of string. A captive bal- 

 loon, which is allowed to rise a thousand feet, appears smaller at 

 that elevation than on the ground, with you a thousand feet from 

 it, or at such a distance as the hypothenuse of the angle made by 

 the rope and the ground would require. A man on a spire, one 

 hundred feet high, appears smaller than a man at the base of the 

 spire, at the distance of the hypothenuse from you. 



I remember, some fifteen years ago, when there were not so 

 many houses in my part of the city as there are now ; when there 

 was nothing between my south verandah and Markham's Hill, one 

 summer afternoon a hay-rigging drove on to the hill, and the horse, 

 and wagon, and men appeared larger than they ought had they 

 stood on my lawn. I was almost startled — it seemed like an appa- 

 rition. 



Since then I have frequently observed the same magnification of 

 objects on West Peak. The other day, as I was looking that way 

 with a small telescope, using a power of about forty, a dog came 

 on to the peak, and he looked larger than the largest dog ought to 

 forty rods from me; and men were correspondingly magnified, 

 not by the telescope, but by the horizontal vision. I was using a 

 power which brought the peak within forty rods, or the eighth of a 

 mile, at which distance the largest dog in Meriden would not have 

 appeared as large as the dog on the peak. Now I am not prepared 

 to say just what it was that made the dog appear so large, but have 

 no hesitancy in saying that it was the same thing that makes the 

 moon appear so large when rising. I am fully satisfied that dis- 

 tant objects are magnified when viewed horizontally. 



