174 "J^HE AMERICAN MIDLAND NATURALIST 



Hero." He tells atout a horseman who had been riding full speed 

 ujD the creek, one morning in 1856, and who stopped at their 

 cabin door. The horseman brought news that the Ruffians were 

 over the border, upon them again, in strong force. He was a 

 messenger from the Middle River region, and had been dispatched 

 to them by his comrades in distress. His mission was, of course, 

 to secure help. The need was urgent. Then there comes the 

 description of the mirage, "As the speaker drew his narration to 

 a close, all present instinctively turned their eyes in the direction 

 whence he had come: nam.ely, toward the south-east. There a 

 sight met our gaze that riveted us to the spot — a spectacle as 

 marvelous as it was beautiful, and singularly confirmatory of our 

 informer's words. To our utter astonishment we looked directly 

 at that moment into the enemy's camp twenty miles away, though 

 seen ingly less than a quarter of that distance. It was one of those 

 peculiar phenomena, rarely seen on the water and less frequently 

 on the land, and more wonderful in the latter case when it does 

 thus appear, because the more perfect and on a grander scale: 

 the mirage." 



"The prairie mirage is of wondrous beauty. It is usually in the 

 autumn, when all the atmospheric conditions are favorable, that 

 these strange illusions take place on the prairie ocean. Along the 

 eastetn horizon,' near sunrise, a narrow belt of silver light appears. 

 As it grows broader the silvery gray of its lower side changes 

 slightly golden. Fleecy clouds above the belt take on a yellow red. 

 The grayish shadows of the dawn lift slowly from the earth. Just 

 before the red disk of the sun peers above the horizon-line, one 

 sees in the sky the landscape of trees, of waving grasses or grain, 

 or rocks and hills, held together as it were by threads of yellow and 

 gray and azure. The earth stands inverted in the air. 



"The groundwork of this illusion is grayish, semi-opaque mist; 

 and the objects are seen standing or moving along in it. The feet 

 of animals and of men, the trunks of trees, the rocks and hillocks, 

 are set in this aqueous soil. When the conditions are perfect, 

 objects far beyond the range of vision over the prairie are brought 

 near and into plain view of the beholder. 



"That morning was such a time and afforded such a scene. 

 There was the camp of the enemy, — miles away, as has been said, — 

 mirrored perfectly and beautifully on the sky, every feature of it 

 traced with the minuteness of a line-engraving. By the aid of our 



