480 ; PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION E. 
NOTE ON SOME REMARKABLE MIRAGE 
PHENOMENA SEEN AT FALMOUTH. 
By Cotonet W. V. Leces, F.L.S. 
i Plates. ] 
On the 2nd November last, a party of friends and myself 
witnessed a series of Mirage phenomena on the east coast _ 
of Tasmania, which appear to be worthy of description. 
The effects, which had a most remarkable appearance, 
were apparently produced by smoke. About 20 miles 
north of Falmouth, the promontory known as St. Helens 
Point projects from the coast, which itself has an easterly 
trend towards the north, considerably lengthening the 
appearance of the Point when viewed from the south. 
Beyond St. Helens, the coast-line has a northerly direction 
along the Bay of Fires towards Eddystone Point, and is 
completely hidden from Falmouth by the Promontory. 
During the spring and summer, fires are lit along the shore 
beyond St. Helens, the country being a wild and almost 
uninhabited region, taken up as sheep-runs, the only 
capable improvement of which consists in the usual “burn- 
ing off.” 
It is no uncommon thing, therefore, at that season of 
the year to see clouds of smoke of the ordinary shape and 
appearance rising from beyond the long line of coast, 
shown in the sketch No. 1. 
The approach from the uplands along the Break o’Day 
River to this part of the coast at Falmouth, is by way 
of the romantic St. Mary’s Pass, which descends from the 
divide near the township of that name to the sea, and as 
it winds down the sides of the range near St. Patrick’s 
Head, discloses a full view of the coast to the north. 
On the date referred to the weather was bright, with 
clear blue sky, and a north-easterly sea-breeze, but along 
the whole horizon, as we afterwards discovered, was an 
almost imperceptible, though solid, belt of bluish haze, 
extending up about 15 degrees, and the upper edge of 
which blended into the blue sky in a line parallel to the 
horizon. On nearing the bottom of the pass, and opening 
out the coast to the north, we perceived, standing up 
beyond the distant shore, an opaque blackish mass with a 
perfectly flat upper edge, or summit, looking like a huge 
and distant basaltic mountain, only that its sides were 
slightly concave, and the upper points projecting out ae 
the line of the top. 
