206 JUDGING DISTANCES. 



above referred to, which exercised its effect upon the 

 conduct of this war : while the Boers, we need hardly 

 remind our readers, were firing under the conditions 

 to which a life's experience had accustomed them, and 

 were therefore wholly exempt from this disadvantage. * 



The difficulty experienced by the new-comer, in the 

 way of judging distances upon plains, arises as we 

 have said, partly from there being nothing to guide 

 the eye in forming its estimate of distance, as is gene- 

 rally the case in England and other thickly inhabited 

 countries. The same phenomenon however recurs upon 

 our coasts and at sea, whenever inexperienced persons 

 attempt for example to estimate distances over water 

 say of ships in the offing, or the width of an estuary, 

 also of coasts seen from on ship-board; and as we 

 know the most ridiculously extravagant guesses are 

 frequently made on such matters, showing how widely 

 the eye may be deceived under such circumstances, f 



For this reason it is usual in all our coast defence 

 forts to have a regular table of ranges posted up in 

 every battery, showing the ascertained distance of 

 every remarkable object in the landscape, in order to 

 prevent as far as possible the misdirection of fire in 

 this sort of way. 



But in addition to the difficulty of judging distances 

 arising out of the foregoing conditions, there is another 



* N.B. In the Boer war the country was mountainous, but treeless, 

 and consisted of grass-covered hills. 



f An amusing "catch question" for instance, is to ask the height 

 of an ordinary top-hat, measured from the brim to the top of the 

 crown the replies will exhibit the extent of the optical illusion to 

 which the top-hat gives rise, and the error is generally equal to quite 

 50 per cent, of the whole height this in an article that can be held in 

 the hand while the guess is being made, is remarkable. Our attention 

 was originally called to the fact by a professional hatter. 





