MIRAGE 
169 
The new line of water, which did not get so high as a further 
line of the horizon, did not appear to be quite horizontal, but 
more in the form of an enormous whale’s back, and drooping to 
the west. 
The Needles remained almost hidden from view in this way 
for five or ten minutes, when they seemed to grow up out of the 
water to nearly their former proportions. 
After a short time the dark line again appeared, followed by 
the apparent rise of water, and when I left my friend’s house the 
Needles were still almost submerged. 
The dark line was not, as we at first thought, formed by the 
smoke of passing steamers, but was undoubtedly the horizon 
seen at ordinary times in front of the Needles, and would be 
about five miles from where I was, my eye being some fifteen 
feet above sea level. Somehow a second horizon was visible 
below it with part of the Needles, making them look nearly 
twice their usual height with a black band across them. 
The apparent rise and fall of the water may have been due, 
I think, to a cold stratum of air urged forward by thunderclouds 
approaching the other end of the Island, which broke with 
violence later on, at about 8 o’clock, over Hayling Island, thirty 
miles distant, but did not come to Christchurch. 
The rays of light from the surface of the sea in front of the 
Needles going obliquely upwards through this dense medium 
of cold air would, on striking the thinner medium of hot air, be 
refracted more or less horizontally towards the eye, and my idea 
is that the layer of cold air was shaped like a wedge, and that 
part of the wedge melted away when the phenomena changed. 
But a satisfactory explanation I must leave to someone more 
versed in the subject than I am. 
The two sketches, though not pretending to any artistic 
merit, have been drawn with some care, and represent as nearly 
as I can make them what I saw. The changes in the picture 
give us four different horizons seen within the space of a few 
minutes. Those who critically examine sketch i will please 
remember that the ordinary horizon is three miles in front of the 
Needles, so that what is seen above it is only a portion of those 
rocks, and what is seen below it is not their base, but a repetition 
(not a reflection) of a part of the upper portion of the rocks. 
The sketch is therefore not like any near view they may have 
had. 
Looking in the newspaper to see if any account were given 
of what I had seen, I found that a gentleman, writing from 
Hayling Island, described how a phantom row of houses had 
appeared at 4 o’clock, on the east of Chichester harbour, which 
was, I suppose, projected through heated air over cold from 
a distance, and a lightship had been made to appear quite close, 
so that he could see men moving on it. 
Mirage phenomena have been frequently observed at the 
Isle of Wight, and the lady of the house where I was taking tea 
