MIRAGES

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 131, 24 August 1927, Page 6

MIRAGES

Under the burning sun the scorched air trembles with heat and produces the. most extravagant optical effect?. Here a piece of sky is suddenl / reflected on the plain, like a great blue lake amid golden sands. There a little pebble is suddenly caught up in a mysterious mirror by two, three, or ten others of its kind. It is multiplied, and grows to the size of a man, of an animal, or of some strange thing. And in the whirling air-currents we seem to see waves breaking in the sand, and men, and animals; all those vague dark shapes seem to be running, stopping, starting again, then, all at once, fading away into the fiery sky, and again returning. Now we see water in front of us only a hundred yards away. It is there, motionless, with the bright leaden shine of great rivers; we shall soon reach it, but it comes no nearer; it flees from us . . . There it is again, present but impalpable, on our right, on our left. This time its waves rise and fall, and from its banks great crowds of moving shadows come towards us ... It is gone. But it is back again, here, there, everywhere. The illusion of the mirage is complete.