Abstract
ALLOW me to corroborate the report of your correspondent, whose letter appears in NATURE of April 2 (p. 506) as to the visibility of very distant terrestrial objects. In the spring of 1837 I was travelling from Rome, northwards, by “Vetturino,” and from the summit of the Apennine on the road between Florence and Bologne, I saw, with astonishment, the whole range of the Swiss Alps, not merely distinguishable but conspicuous. Measured on the map in a direct line the nearest part of the range was distant about 200 miles. The extreme portions, including Mont Blanc, were considerably more. I have no doubt that the atmospheric conditions were unusually favourable. For when I asked the Vetturino what mountains they were, he, having often passed that way without seeing them, said they were nothing but clouds. I told him that I knew a snow mountain when I saw it; and as a peasant, living on the spot, shortly passed, I renewed my inquiry—to which he immediately answered, to my surprise, that they were the mountains of Switzerland.
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HIPPISLEY, J. Far-Sightedness. Nature 31, 553 (1885). https://doi.org/10.1038/031553a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/031553a0
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