164 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



peculiarities of the vegetation (leafless elm trees in midsummer) 

 nor the tiles on the chimneys offered any difficulties. The obvious 

 but commonplace explanation was that of the few only. Even 

 now, every summer, some account of the marvel goes the rounds 

 of the newspapers. I am told that in 1896 a company of people 

 encamped for some time on the glacier, in hopes of seeing this 

 great wonder of Nature. 



They did not see it, unfortunately, but others had better 

 success, and these lucky ones have recently substantiated their 

 account by their affidavits. An affidavit in Juneau costs but a 

 drink of whisky, the usual price along the Northwest coast, a fact 

 of which one great nation of our day has not been slow to profit 

 in connection with an International Tribunal of Arbitration. As 

 the sale of photographs declines, more persons will probably be 

 granted a sight of the Silent City, and there will arise a new series 

 of affidavits and newspaper stories. 



It is hardly necessary to call the attention of the intelligent 

 reader to the absurdities involved in Mr. Willoughby's story and 

 in the photograph which is its financial justificaion. But there 

 are many persons, not without education and culture, who believe 

 without the least question any tale which is uncanny or which 

 seems outside the ordinary run of things. In vain does Science 

 protest that the natural order is the only order there is, that all 

 contradictions to it are either so in appearance only or else are 

 deceptions or frauds. 



An interest in human psychology led Dr. Charles H. Gilbert, 

 then acting as naturalist on the Albatross, to investigate Mr. 

 Willoughby's methods of photography. He learned from Mr. 

 Willoughby that the plates used were of the ordinary sort, but 

 that the mirage required a very long exposure to set the picture. 

 Mr. Willoughby had had no previous knowledge of photography, 

 and had never tried to reproduce anything except mirages. The 

 chemicals used in developing the negative he would not describe. 

 It was a secret process. The exposed plates had to be soaked for 

 three months in the secret compound before the picture would be 

 fixed. This soaking took place in the open daylight, no dark 

 room being required, nor did Mr. Willoughby seem aware of the 

 ordinary function of the dark chamber in photography. 



The original negative, examined by Dr. Gilbert, was a very 

 old, stained, and faded plate, apparently a negative which had 

 been discarded because underexposed. 



Prof. William H. Hudson, of Stanford University, who lived 

 for a time in Bristol, England, recognizes the picture as a view 

 of that city from Brandon Hill, above the town. The picture 

 must have been taken some twenty years ago, because Prof. 

 Hudson distinctly remembers the scaffolding around the towers 



