Credit: © The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.10432
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    Terrestrial refraction

    Date
    1835
    Creator
    John Brandard (1812 - 1863, British) , Lithographer
    Object type
    Library reference
    27714
    Material
    Technique
    Dimensions
    height (print): 145mm
    width (print): 215mm
    Subject
    Content object
    nature
       > landscape
    Description
    Plate illustrating John Ross’s report of the curious effects of refraction in Arctic latitudes. The observations were made on 22 September 1832 at North End Cape, Somerset Island, in the Canadian Arctic. Figure 1 shows the land “as with no refraction, distant fourteen miles”; figure 2 shows “the same land, with an iceberg four miles distant raised above the land”; figure 3 shows “the same refracted in a different way on the same day.”

    Plate facing p.cix of the Natural History appendix to the Narrative of a second voyage in search of a north-west passage, and of a residence in the Arctic regions during the years 1829 ... 1833, by Sir John Ross (London, 1835).

    John Ross and his nephew James Clark Ross endured four winters trapped in the Arctic ice on an expedition to find the elusive Northwest Passage. John Ross was knighted in 1834 following his return to England.
    Associated place
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