Optical Mirages

Famous quotes containing the word optical:

    It is said that a carpenter building a summer hotel here ... declared that one very clear day he picked out a ship coming into Portland Harbor and could distinctly see that its cargo was West Indian rum. A county historian avers that it was probably an optical delusion, the result of looking so often through a glass in common use in those days.
    —For the State of New Hampshire, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)