Douglas Island news., 1907-10-30
Story of a WondsrfuI Mirage.
Especial Corrospondence.)

ly a clever fake2 This is one of the questions that the management of the Alaska, Yukon Pacific Exposition will eudeavor to settle before the big worlds fair opens at Seattle on June ], 1909,
 The story of the mirage is one of the most wonderful of all tales of tho kind. Suddenly one esummer evening at Nome some six years ago-at least this Is how those who claim to have witnessed it tell the tale-there appeared smudge in the northern heavens which quickly resolved itself, to the amazement of the spectators, into houses, streets, towers, etc., and for all the spectators could distinguish they were gazing at a solid, substantial city built in the sky.
 The spectacle lasted six minutes and faded as quickly as it arose. One of those on the beach had a camera and took e photograph of the remarkable spectacle, and that picture of the "city in the sky has been published in all the great magazines and newspapers in the world.
 It was only a few days after the first publication of the mirage picture that the mystery of the cloud city was a mystery no longer. An Euglishman re- siding in the north recognized the cloud city as Birmingham, in the English midlands, the great manufacturing cen Ire of England, and famed as the home of Joseph Chamberlain. Then others who knew "Brummegen" recognized certain features of the picture as be- longing to that city, and the identifca tion was considered complete.
 But alas, two years ago some we'll known nOrtherners arose, the occasion being some public reference to the mir age, and said the mirage story was fake from beginning to end. The pie ture had been manufactured" by a clever Nome amateur, who had hun dreds of plates. To rather fine cloud effect picture he grafted another plate, one that was ir the collection when he bought the camera from its former owner, and showing the picture he told the story of the mirage to few friends who passed it along" The story "took" so we'll, and sounded so probable, said the "muck-raker," that those who start ed it, intending to announce after a few days that it was a joke, had not the heart to disillusionize the people of the North, and said nothing, till this time.
 Somehow this story, this confession, did not receive much of a welcome It was not, in fact, very generally believed. There arose dozens of prominent citi- zens who were prepared to make adida- vit that they had seen with their own yes, this mirage. The men who con- tessed the fake, said in answer to this, that these men had been telling every o1s for so long that they had seen the milage, being the kind that pretend al ways to have been on the spot when anything interesting had occurred, that they had, for their own credits sake, to maintain that the story was true and that the mirage actually oc- cured.
 At any rate the photo exists, and the original is now in the possession of either Casey" Moran, or Bernard II. Moran as he was christened, but never called, editor of the Fairbanks News, or W. II. Thompson tWrong Font Thompsonl former editor. The Strand and The Wide World have each pub lished copies of the picture and a story about it.
 There the matter stands. Articles have been written on the scientific as- pect of the mirage and many ingenious theories were advanced by leading sa. wants to explain how picture of Bir- mingham could appear on Nome sun- set sky at time when it was midnight in the English city. It is to be hoped that the Alaska-Yukou- Pacific Exposi- tion commissioners to Alaska will be able to fix the truth of the whole mat ter and thereby complete tale that has in it great deal of interest and one which has provoked many long and bitter debates in the cabins of the Northland.
 Ladies:-Call and see the new Dress