Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1874-01-15
WAS Ir A MIRAGE?
A New Theory Of the dausc Of the VIII
0u nnvrc Disaster

Inc New York Daily Bulletin pub
fishes the following interview, which is
curious, if nothing else:
The captain of the steamship Java,
which arrived at this port on the 10Th
of this month, gives the following rs
his opinion as to the cause of the late
disaster to the steamer Vile du Havre,
viz. That fof0 neorgano deceived the
crew, and consequently the passengers
met their most deplorable fate by an
optical illusion called mirage, or, in
other Northern languages, kin.na,.ng.
Mirage, as most of our readers are
doutless aware, is a kind of optical
illusion arising from an unequal refrac.
tion in the lower strata of
the atmosphere, and causing
remote objects to- be seen
double, as If reflected in q mirror, or
to appear as if suspended in the air.
The indlstinct and magni6ea appear
,ance OF objects seen in particular
states of the atmosphere is o species OF
mirage. The mirage is frequently
seen in the deserts of Persia, .Tartary,
in lower Egypt, and also on the plains
of Mexico, and in other places, where
of the French physicist Blot, in his
"Astronomie Physicale," vol. j., gives
very interesting details. The mirage,
for instance, presents to the caravan of
weary, exhausted and thirsty wanderers
the appearance of water, which induces
them, and, more so, their fatigued
camels and parched horses, to hasten
in the direction of the vision, in order
to get the means of quenching their
thirst. They find, alas too late, that
only an optical illusion had led them
astray, and are doubly disappointed at
Last. In those deserts generally the
objects themselves are seen, besides 4
reversed image of them in the air. On
the high seas, however. often three
images can be observed, one of
the object itself, in . direct way,
and in an upright position; next, one
in the water reversed and caused by its
mirror-hke surface; and thirdly, re-
fected ono of the former, but in an
upright position. "Fata Morgana" is
q pretended fairy, which, by the super
stitious Sicilian fisherman, is held in
great dread for the fatal consequences
she throws upon them by leading them
astray through her fictitious objects.
She brings forth her mirages rising
from the sea by the water-evaporating
heat of the sun, and they are the more
deceptive, as they originate during &C.
rene, warm and quiet weather. They
gradually transform to strange like
nesses of ships, towns, castles, and so
forth, and deceive even the scientist.
BY the motion of the water and toar of
the air those lnsubstantial pictures re.
ceive motion themselves, and thus get
that magical appearance which is usu.
ally the case with those apparitions of
the Fata Morgana peculiar to the Sici-
liap coast, near the Strait of Messina..
A distinguished passenger of the Ja-
va. Mr.. Moses L. Beach (the former
proprietor of the SUM: asserts that he
Witnessed some such apparition-that
is to say, in looking from one part of
the ship he at one and the same time
observed heavy rain pouring down,
and looking Immediately afterward at
the phenomenon, from another part of
the same vessel, he did not perceive
the least particle of the SAID occurrence,
and could not observe even q drop of
rain. The idea is, then, that the sup
posed apparitiona( place of the sailing
vessel Loch Erne, resulting from. OBJ.
servations made from o different part
of the Vile du Havre (irom that
which would have shown the true posi-
ton of the former) led to the fatal BE-
lief that the distance between the two
was greater than it really was, and so
produced the collision. The conclu-
sion, therefore, is arrived at that, for
the avoidance of similar collisions in
future, observations-especially when
the atmosphere is unusually loaded
with the watery vapor which brings
forth those reflected images-oaght to
bs made from two different points, and
these as wide apart as possible. It
may be fancy shat the awful disaster
alluded to was the product of an op-
tical illusion, but in seeking to arrive
at the real cause of the catastrophe,
fancies AZ we'll as facts, as aids to in
vestigation, may not unreasonably be
taken into account.