REFRACTION. 
177 
note. In summer indeed,, it is difficult to say 
whether there are any phenomena supervening on 
the peculiar cool or even cold which their arrival 
produces; but in winter, the “ biting east” has some 
interesting consequences which we may here stay 
a moment to enumerate. Towards the evening of 
some day in January which had as yet been wet 
and mild, the air is suddenly observed to become 
gradually sharper and sharper, and on examination, 
the bleak gusts felt by us while walking on some 
elevated ground are found to arrive from the “ cold 
quarter.” Simultaneously, it is remarked also that 
vessels in the seaward horizon seem unusually 
close, and the moor hills appear distant only some 
half dozen miles,—we look on their bare sides as if 
their inclosures could all be discerned and counted. 
This circumstance depends on an unusual clearness 
of the atmosphere and its refracting powers* under 
* Of this however there may be some doubt, it may not 
amount to an ocular deception, there may be no refraction, but 
only a particularly transparent condition of the atmosphere. 
With refracting states of the air bodies seem greatly lifted above 
the horizon , which is not very evident in the above cases, and 
moreover it must be remarked, that refraction does not always 
accompany cold, but may occur at any part of the year. The 
following short statements made known to me by Mr. Roberts 
of Lyme Regis will exemplify the nature of refraction to those 
who desire to understand something of it. The French Coast is 
not discernable from Hastings, but, one day it suddenly became 
evident to the inhabitants,—every little prominence of land was 
distinctly recognised by the fishermen and others, and great 
numbers came out on the heights to observe the phenomenon. No 
one remembered anything of the sort having ever occurred 
before.—The captains of two vessels agreed to meet in the course 
of their voyages at a certain place or certain degree of latidude. 
When at the distance of a hundred or more miles from this 
proposed rendezvous, the captain of one of the traders discerned 
the other and saluted repeatedly, but without answer ; proceeding 
X 
