Bennington semi-weekly banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 1894-1902, 1895-05-10
SEEING LONG DISTANCES.
How Far Away Has the Human Eye De-
tected Another Object on Earth?


tected Another Object on Earth?
The recent claim of the United States
signal service to have transmitted hello
graph signals over distance of 1873 miles,
and of the United States coast survey and
geodetic survey to have beaten that many
years since between Mount Hclna and
Mount Shasta, over 102 miles, has started
mountain climbers to make all sorts of
guesses and assertions about the distances
they ought to see and the distances they
do see. 1t would appear that one of the
enthusiastic climbers Of MOUNT Hood, in
Oregon, made the statement that from the
summit he saw the peak of Mount Shasta,
276 miles to the southwark. OF course he
was doubted, but principally because the
curvature Of tho earth would prevent the
intervisihility of the peaks, and SO an APP
peal was made to a young officer of the
United States engineering corps, who COM
puted the distance at which these peaks
would be intervisible. Mount Hood is
given ga II, 1853 feet above the sea level
and Mount Shasta as II, 440 and the dis
lance on the latest charts is 27S% miles.
BY his computation the total visible dis
tancc" was 277 miles, which gave lone
mile to spare" over his assumed distance
of 276 miles, upon which The Oregonian
and some of the New York papers have as
sumed the intcTvisibility of the peaks, and
that tho mountain climber was right in
his declaration of seeing Mount Shasta.
That is all very pretty, Professor David
son says, if the ocean interviewed between
the two peaks, when the line of intervisi
bility would be tangent to the surface of
the sea at n point nearer to Mount Hood,
but unfortunately the surface between
these two peaks is the backbone of tho
Cascade range of mountains, aud the in
tervisibility is an absolute physical impos-
sibility. We must turn to Alaska if we
expect to obtain the longest lines of in
tervisibility, because the great mountain
peaks like Elias and Logan of tho st.
Elias range Immediately dominate a curry
ing coast line. The greatest authenticated
distance at which these great master peaks
have been visible from sea was by Captain
H. T.. Nichols of the United States navy
when commanding the United States gun
boat Pinta. He was close upon Middleton
island, off the approaches to Prince Will
liam sound, in well determined position,
when he had view of Mount Elias to the
east northeast and Mount Wrangell to
the northward. Tho former was distant
1877 statute miles and the latter 2l3 miles.
1t may have been possible that Mount
Elias was only part of the mass he saw,
and Mount Logan, 20 miles to the north
by cast from Mount Elias and 10, 512 feet
elevation, was the summit of the visible
mass In this case the distance was 204
miles.
1t may be mentioned that the consensus
of opinion Of men who have been through
Alaska and have seen Mount Wrangell is
that the highest mountain mass is just
under G2 degrees latitude and between 147
and 14S degrees longitude, or 1866 miles
west northwest from Wrangell. This
would put the unnamed Mount Wrangcll,
Mounts Elias, Fairwcather, Cook, Cridon,
La Pcrouse, etc, of the MouI9 Elias range
in one limo extending throLsdh nearly 600
miles.-San Francisco Bulletin.