FALSE LEVELS. 



A few well-known instances will illustrate 

 this. 



We often find, on traversing it, that country 

 which from high up a mountain had looked 

 as flat as a billiard table is really undulating, or 

 even hilly, with upland and hollow, highly 

 perched castle and deep ravine, long sloping 

 meadows, and streams between steep wooded 

 banks. The effect of viewing this tract from 

 a great height was to smooth away all the 

 hills and produce an appearance of dead level. 



Yet, strange to say, a view, from a similar 

 great elevation, of a considerable hill not far 

 off on the other side of a valley, will make it 

 look steeper and higher than it looked from 

 beneath. And in the same way a view of 

 the sea from a high hill close to it presents 

 it as a considerable hill rising upwards from 

 the shore. 



So that viewing scenery from a great height 

 sometimes has the effect of diminishing hills 

 till they disappear altogether, sometimes exag- 

 gerates their height, or even makes hills appear 

 where there are none. 



These contradictory effects are due, some 

 of them to the nature of the impressions made 

 by actual outward facts upon the eye, others 

 to erroneous judgments caused by applying 

 to unusual cases the instinctive habits acquired 

 in and suited to ordinary circumstances. 



When the point of view is low down, the 



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