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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



Nature in Elementary Schools," is devoting 

 eight of its current numbers to animals, 

 birds, butterflies, trees, flowers, and school 

 garden Avork. In the May number they have 

 adapted the Stokes Fund pledge to read: 



"Please help to save our native plants by 

 promising 



To protect our native plants. 

 Not to destroy rare wild-flowers and ferns, 

 Not to injure any shrub or tree and 

 Not to set fire to the fields or woods." 



The National Geographic Magazine has 

 also issued two sets of colored illustrations 

 of "Common American Wild Flowers" with 

 descriptions. All wild flowers in the suburbs 

 of New York City may become as scarce as 

 trailing arbutus, unless all people unite to 

 preserve them; and this is true not only of 

 the suburbs, but also of the parks of Greater 



NeAV York, and of the New York Botanical 

 Garden and the New York Zoological Park. 

 Signs forbid picking or carrying through the 

 parks any plants whatsoever, and persons 

 who disobey are liable to arrest and fine for 

 a statutory misdemeanor. 



The attention of visitors to the Avild parts 

 of the New York Botanical Garden has been 

 called to the pi-eservation of our native 

 plants by the sign 



Do not pich or hreah leaf or flower. 



People must realize that although they are 

 "tax-payers" and "this is a free country" 

 they have no more right as individuals to the 

 flowers in the parks than multitudes of other 

 people have, and that if all of the millions 

 of Greater Ncav York were selfish there would 

 be no flowers for anyone to enjoy! — Mrs. 

 Nathaniel Lord Britton, New York Bo- 

 tanical Garden-. 



Mirages in the Lower New York Bay 



A RECENT article on mirage in the 

 American Museum Journal i re- 

 ^. called to my memory some very 

 remarkable mirages, which I saw about ten 

 years ago from my house at Sea Gate (Nor- 

 ton's Point). From my house which faces 

 south, the West Bank Light lies somewhat 

 south of southwest at a distance of nearly 

 three miles. The northern entrance to the 

 Ambrose Channel is on a line from my house 

 to that light, about a mile and a half dis- 

 tant. The Romer Shoals Light lies almost 

 due south, at a distance of four miles, and 

 Sandy Hook Light is a little to the eastward 

 of Romer Shoals and about seven miles off. 

 The highlands of the Navesink are on a line 

 with, and some four miles south of, Sandy 

 Hook Light, and several miles behind the 

 West Bank Light is the southern end of 

 Staten Island. 



It is a very common occurrence to see the 

 east shore of Sandy Hook and the coast line 

 beyond (the Seabright shore) raised above 

 the horizon, and occasionally this loom will 

 carry the sky clear under the Navesink High- 

 lands. On a still, hot afternoon, some large 

 houses, towers, and chimneys on the shore 



^ Reeds, Chester A., A Perplexing Phenomenon — 

 Mirage, American Museum Journal, December, 

 1916. 



of Staten Island will be raised in the air 

 by a mirage, which occasionally is very beau- 

 tiful, and very suggestive of the picturesque 

 descriptions of the desert mirages. Occa- 

 sionally even the New Jersey shore, inside 

 Sandy Hook, is raised with a bright line be- 

 tween it and the Avater. 



Frequently the two lighthouses, Romer 

 Shoals and West Bank, which are surrounded 

 by water, undergo a peculiar change of ap- 

 pearance, the lighthouse tOAver showing clearly 

 through the mirage of the loAver part of the 

 lighthouse, but being also raised very con- 

 siderably. This kind of mirage lasts some- 

 times for a couple of hours, varying in 

 clearness and size. The Avater is ahvays 

 smooth, and there is, of course, no Avind in 

 the neighborhood of the mirage. 



On the day I refer to above, there were 

 tAvo spaces in the Lower Bay in which 

 mirages occurred, separated by a clear space. 

 One of these mirage spaces Avas on a line 

 Avith the West Bank Light, the other on a 

 line with Romer Shoals. The air was a 

 little hazy and very still, and the water was 

 very smooth, with lines of different shades 

 of blue and silvery gray on it. The sun was 

 Avest of south — it was about two o'clock. 

 It was very hot. I first noticed that the 

 West Bank Light Avas distorted, and then. 



