392 KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



OBSERVATIONS ON MIRAGES. 



By Bernard B. Smyth, Topeka. 

 Read before the Academy, at Manhattan, November 28, 1903. 



ly/f IR.A.GES are of two kinds — reflecting and refracting. They are 

 ■^-'~ both so well known I need not define them here. Both occur in 

 western Kansas, where the air is clear and distant vision is possible 

 Reflecting mirage is again of two kinds, always more or less associated 

 with refraction. The most noticeable form is the ground mirage, 

 which always occurs in the heat of the day when the sun shines 

 brightly and* the air next the ground becomes superheated. A broad 

 level or slightly depressed area is necessary for its best development. 

 On such occasions the earth becomes invisible and the sky is reflected 

 from the ground as from a sheet of water. The action of a slight 

 breeze enhances the deception by causing waves on the surface of the 

 mirage as on a lake of water. Small objects, as weeds on a slight 

 elevation beyond the mirage, are magnified and distorted into trees 

 and living forms, often appearing to move with great rapidity. This 

 kind of mirage has been described so often I will not dwell upon it. 

 I only mention a single occurrence that took place in Barton county, 

 Kansas, during the summer of 1876. The Santa Fe railroad passed 

 in front of my house, about one-third of a mile distant toward the 

 south. My house, from which I viewed the phenomenon, stood on a 

 slight eminence, raising me about fifteen feet above the prairie inter- 

 vening between me and the railroad. 



One afternoon, with the wind gentle from the southeast, a passen- 

 ger-train came from the west, making no audible sound. The ground 

 mirage was like a sheet of water or dense fog, reflecting the sky be- 

 tween me and the train so as to completely hide the ground, the 

 wheels, and a depth of about a foot of the lower part of the cars. The 

 entire train, very distinctly to be seen except its lower part, sailed 

 along silently on top of the fog-like mirage as though floating through 

 the air. No visible smoke just then came from the engine ; no rum- 

 ble of the train could be felt ; and, except the faces at the windows 

 and one or two persons standing on the platforms, there was no evi- 

 dence of life and no activity. The whole presented a most remarkable 

 sight-.— the silence of the train; the invisibility of its lower part; the 

 quiet, majestic movement ; the spectral appearance of the engine and 

 cars — the whole made an impressive scene that lasted while the train 

 was traveling nearly a mile, or say a little more than a minute. On 

 reaching a point toward the wind, half a mile to the southeast, a gentle 



