List Members-
The following is a re-post on Arctic mirages.
DD
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--- In [email protected], hummingbirdtyl@s... wrote:
Hi all,
Has anyone ever heard of this? It's also referred to as Mirage at
Muir
Glacier.
In the English Mechanic, Sept. 10, 1897, a correspondent to the
Weekly
Times and Echo is quoted.(13) He had just returned
from the Yukon. Early in June, 1897, he had seen a city pictured in
the sky of Alaska. "Not one of us could form the remotest
idea in what part of the world this settlement could be. Some guessed
Toronto, others Montreal, and one of us even suggested
Pekin. But whether this city exists in some unknown world on the
other
side of the North Pole, or not, it is a fact that this
wonderful mirage occurs from time to time yearly, and we were not the
only ones who witnessed the spectacle. Therefore it is
evident that it must be the reflection of some place built by the
hand
of man." According to this correspondent, the "mirage" did
not look like one of the cities named, but like "some immense city of
the past."
In the New York Tribune, Feb. 17, 1901, it is said that Indians of
Alaska had told of an occasional appearance, as if of a city,
suspended in the sky, and that a prospector named Willoughby, having
heard the stories, had investigated, in the year 1887,
and had seen the spectacle.(14) It is said that, having several times
attempted to photograph the scene, Willoughby did finally at
least show an alleged photograph of an aërial city. In Alaska, p.
140,
Miner Bruce say that Willoughby, one of the early
pioneers in Alaska, after whom Willoughby Island is named, had told
him of the phenomenon, and that, early in 1889, he had
accompanied Willoughby to the place over which the mirage was said to
repeat.(15) It seems that he saw nothing himself, but he
quotes a member of the Duc d'Abruzzi's expedition to Mt. St.
[200/201]
Elias, summer of 1897, Mr. C.W. Thornton, of
Seattle, who saw the spectacle, and wrote -- "It required no effort
of
the imagination to liken it to a city, but was so distinct that
it required, instead, faith to believe that it was not in reality a
city." Bruce publishes a reproduction of Willoughby's photograph,
and says that the city was identified as Bristol, England. So
definite, or so un-mirage-like, is this reproduction, trees and many
buildings shown in detail, that one supposes that the original was a
photograph of a good-sized terrestrial city, perhaps Bristol,
England.
In Chapter 10, of his book, Wonders of Alaska, Alexander Badlam tries
to explain. He publishes a reproduction of
Willoughby's photograph: it is the same as Bruce's, except that all
buildings are transposed, or are negative in positions.(16)
Badlam does not like to accuse Willoughby of fraud: his idea is that
some unknown humorist had sold Willoughby a dry plate,
picturing part of the city of Bristol. My own idea is that something
of this kind did occur, and that this photograph, greatly
involved in accounts of repeating mirages, had nothing to do with
mirages. Badlam then tells of another photograph. He tells
that two men, near the Muir Glacier, had, by means of a pan of
quicksilver, seen a reflection of an unknown city somewhere,
and that their idea was that it was at the bottom of the sea near the
glacier, reflecting in the sky, and reflecting back to and from
the quicksilver. That's complicated. A photographer named Taber then
announced that he had photographed this scene, as
reflected in a pan of quicksilver.(17) Badlam publishes a
reproduction
of Taber's photograph, or alleged photograph. This time,
for anybody who prefers to think that there is, somewhere in the sky
of Alaska, a great, unknown city, we have a most
agreeable photograph: exotic-looking city; a structure like a
coliseum, and another prominent building like a mosque, and many
indefinite, mirage-like buildings. I'd like to think this photograph
genuine, myself, but I do conceive that Taber could have taken
it photographing a panorama that he had painted. Badlam's explanation
is that mirages of glaciers are common, in Alaska, and
that they look architectural. Some years ago, I read five or six
hundred pounds of literature upon the Arctic, and I should say
that far-projected mirages are not common in the Arctic: mere
[201/202] looming is common. Badlam publishes a photograph
of a mirage of Muir Glacier. The looming points of ice do look
Gothic,
but they are obviously only loomings, extending only
short distances from primaries, with no detachments from primaries,
and not reflecting in the sky.
For the first identification of the Willoughby photograph as a
photograph of part of the city of Bristol, see the New York
Times, Oct. 20, 1889.(18) That this photograph was somebody's hoax
seem to be acceptable. But it is not similar to the
frequently reported scene in the sky of Alaska, according to
descriptions. In the New York Times, Oct. 31, 1889, is an
account, by Mr. L.B. French, of Chicago, of the spectral
representation, as he saw it, near Mt. Fairweather.(19) "We could see
plainly houses, well-defined streets, and trees. Here and there rose
tall spires over huge buildings, which appeared to be ancient
mosques or cathedrals....It did not look like a modern city -- more
like an ancient European City."(20)
Jour. Roy. Met. Soc., 27-158:(21)
That, every year, between June 21 and July 10, a "phantom city"
appears in the sky, over a glacier in Alaska; that features of it
had been recognized as buildings in the city of Bristol, England, so
that the "mirage" was supposed to be a mirage of Bristol. It
is said that for generations these repeating representations had been
known to the Alaskan Indians, and that, in May, 1901, a
scientific expedition from San Francisco would investigate. It is
said
that, except for slight changes, from year to year, the scene
was always the same.
La Nature, 1901-1-303:(22)
That a number of scientists had set out from Victoria, B.C., to Mt.
Fairweather, Alaska, to study the repeating mirage of a city
in the sky, which had been reported by the Duc d'Abruzzi, who had
seen
it and sketched it. [202]
http://www.resologist.net/lands219.htm
**** This quote about made me wonder...
"He tells
that two men, near the Muir Glacier, had, by means of a pan of
quicksilver, seen a reflection of an unknown city somewhere,
and that their idea was that it was at the bottom of the sea near the
glacier, reflecting in the sky, and reflecting back to and from
the quicksilver."
*** I found a photo at this site:
http://www.greatestplaces.org/mirage/fake.html
MaTa 
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