EXPLANATION OF PHENOMENA. 223 



those formed by unequal refraction. The pictures seen 

 on the sea may be either the aerial images reflected from 

 its surface, or from a stratum of dense vapour, or they 

 may be the direct reflections from the objects themselves. 

 The coloured images, as described by Minasi, have never 

 been seen in any analogous phenomena, and require to 

 be better described before they can be submitted to 

 scientific examination. 



The representation of ships in the air by unequal 

 refraction has no doubt given rise in early times to those 

 superstitions which have prevailed in different countries 

 respecting " phantom ships," as Mr. Washington Irving 

 calls them, which always sail in the eye of the" wind, and 

 plough their way through the smooth sea, where there is 

 not a breath of wind upon its surface. In his beautiful 

 story of the storm ship, which makes its way up the 

 Hudson against wind and tide, this elegant writer has 

 finely embodied one of the most interesting supersti- 

 tions of the early American colonists. The Flying 

 Dutchman had in all probability a similar origin, and the 

 wizard beacon-keeper of the Isle of France, who saw in 

 the air the vessels bound to the island long before they 

 appeared in the offing, must have derived his power from 

 a diligent observation of the phenomena of nature. 



