Foghorn

“ A vast bedlam of sound flies up to my window, and above all is the immense whistling of unseen and unfelt winds.
"The fog has again swept over the city and the whistling is coming closer and closer.
"It is now directly beneath me.
"God! An instant ago the mist opened and I caught a glimpse of the streets below.
"The fog is not simply vapor -- it lives! By the side of each moaning and weeping human is a companion figure, an aura of strange and vari-colored hues. How the shapes cling! Each to a living thing!
"The men and women are down. Flat on their faces. The fog figures caress them lovingly. ”

“ In an hour its lofty crest had ascended far up into the sky.
"It's a comin," said Captain Corbet. "I knowed it. Grind away, you old fog mill! Pile on the steam, you Grand Mananers!"
"Is there any wind down there?"
"Not a hooter."
"Is the fog coming up without any wind?"
"Course it is. What does the fog want of wind?"
"I thought it was the wind that brought it along."
"Bless your heart, the fog takes care of itself. The wind isn't a bit necessary. It kine o' pervades the hull atmosphere, an rolls itself on an on till all creation is overspread. ”

“ The long swaths they were now mowing lay in direction to and from the ocean, and the place where the bouts ended and the indispensable jug stood in readiness, chanced to be so situated with reference to the gap between the hills that it afforded a view directly out upon the sea. The nature of the fog made this view more or less indistinct, at times shutting it entirely out of sight. Here the wind would bank up the fog, twist it into fantastic shapes, and blow them all away, only to summon more of the pliant medium and heap it up again into more grotesque masses. ”

“ It is a serious business to be lost in a fog on Dartmoor, and it can happen easier than you think. I mind when I was a bit of a lad not much older than you, Master Theodore, I missed my way in a fog one dull November afternoon, and should have had to spend the whole night on the moor if it hadn't cleared. I was crouching for shelter under a great granite rock, half-dead with cold I really believe, when I saw a glow of light appear. The fog cleared almost suddenly, and the full moon slowly sailed upwards into the sky, making everything show out as plainly as though it was day. ”

“ But not a living object met their strained gaze, and not the semblance of a sound greeted their listening ears. A light sheeted fog, of varying thickness and density in the different portions of the wide expanse,—here thin and spray-like, as if formed of the breath of some marine monster, and there thickening to the appearance of the stratiform cloud,—lay low stretched, in long, slow-creeping undulations, over the bosom of the waveless lake. ”

“ But there come days also when the fog spreads itself like a close gray blanket, under which the ground, with its mounds and bushes and heather, creeps stealthily, disappearing a few yards away. And out of the fog comes a fine, mist-like rain, which deposits itself in tiny gray beads on every blade and every pine needle, so that wherever any one goes there is a little sprinkling of water. ”

“ Equipped with snow-shoes, they successfully passed over the summit's ridges to the desolate base of old Mt. Hood. Here they were enveloped in a dense fog—that most fearful of all calamities to a man in unknown woods, or mountains. Even to the experienced hunter or trapper, familiar with the topography of a mountain range, or a dense forest, the coming-in or settling-down of a fog envelopment, is viewed with apprehension, and alarm. A fog obliterates all the landmarks. Darkness has different shades of blackness;—the depth before you has an intensified blackness ”

“ Rime is a rough deposit formed from fog, the drops of which are “undercooled”—i. e., are below the freezing point—and turn to ice on coming in contact with solid objects. The most remarkable examples of rime are seen on mountains and in the polar regions. It occurs on the branches and leaves of122 trees, and on the corners and edges of upright objects, rather than on horizontal surfaces. In drifting fog it grows most rapidly if not entirely on the windward side of objects—i. e., it builds up against the wind. On Ben Nevis it has been observed to grow at a rate of more than an inch an hour. ”

“ For'ard there and get that fog-horn to goin'! And keep it goin'! Lively, you sculpin! Don't you open your mouth to me!'
"Well, all night we sloshed along, straight acrost the bay. We must have been a curious sight to look at. The floats was awash, so that the automobile looked like she was ridin' the waves all by her lonesome; the lamps was blazin' at either side of the bow; Billings was a tootin' the rubber fog-horn as if he was wound up; and I was standin' on the cushions amidships, keepin' the whole calabash afore the wind.
"We never met another craft the whole night through. ”

“ As long as the sun was high there was no trace of fog in the valleys, but as he sloped to the west the shadow of the Finsteraarhorn crept over the snow-fields at its base. A dim sea of fog began to form, which after a time rose to a considerable height, and then rolled down like a river along the flanks of the mountain. On entering the valley of the Rhone, it crossed a precipitous barrier, down which it poured like a cataract; but long before it reached the bottom it escaped from the shadow in which it had been engendered, and was hit once more by the direct beams of the sun. ”

“ In the country it is disagreeable enough; but never so intensely raw and dense as in the city. On the sea, too, the fog is disagreeable and fraught with danger. The fog-horn is heard, in its deep, sombre note, from the lighthouse tower, when the strong artificial light is almost useless. ”

“ Drawn by some current of air, the fog at the moment blew out of the cleft, like smoke from a chimney; and there, before our gaze, was a great curved tusk coming up through the ice and inside it.
"Now I clapped my hands in an agony, lest the fog should close in again, and the vision fade before my eyes; for, following the sweep of the tusk, I was aware of the phantom presentment of some monster creature lying imbedded within the ice, its mighty carcase prostrate as it had fallen; the conformation of its enormous forehead presented directly to our gaze. ”

“ At certain times, especially in spring, fog banks moving in from the Pacific Ocean frequently blanket the coastal base of the mountains and the foothills. On such days the fog generally "burns off" in the morning, but may persist into the afternoon or throughout the day. Never in my experience has fog spilled over the main part of the range far onto the desert slope, although the fog may push through the lower passes to be dissipated quickly in the dry desert atmosphere. ”

“ The fog was so thick that a man might have lost his way in his own barnyard. The lanterns looked like fox fire at twenty feet.
Stud led the way and the others followed, Indian file, down the slushy lane to the tobacco sheds. The mist, which had rolled northward flooding the valley from hilltop to hilltop, enveloped them in a thick, white blanket, muffled their footsteps, and drowned their voices with its weight of silence. Once when the fog lifted momentarily Peter could see lights at other farm houses, other lanterns moving, the whole countryside astir. ”

“ Now fog is a thing that I understand, and can do with well enough, where I know the country; but here I had never been before. It was nothing to our Exmoor fogs; not to be compared with them; and all the time one could see the moon; which we cannot do in our fogs; nor even the sun, for a week together. Yet the gleam of water always makes the fog more difficult: like a curtain on a mirror ”

“ Half an hour later, the fog had surmounted all the ridge on the opposite side of the gap, though a shoulder of the mountain still warded it out of our canyon. Napa Valley and its bounding hills were now utterly blotted out. The fog, sunny white in the sunshine, was pouring over into Lake County in a huge, ragged cataract, tossing treetops appearing and disappearing in the spray. The air struck with a little chill, and set me coughing. It smelt strong of the fog, like the smell of a washing-house, but with a shrewd tang of the sea-salt. ”

“ We had considered the dense fog which prevailed throughout the morning, as almost the greatest inconvenience that could have befallen us, since it rendered the air extremely cold, and prevented us from distinguishing any distant object towards which our course could be directed. Yet this very darkness enabled the party to get to the top of the hill which bounded the valley wherein the musk-oxen were grazing, without being perceived. Had the herd discovered us and taken alarm, our hunters in their present state of debility would in all probability have failed in approaching them. ”

“ The western headlands of Fogo are exceedingly attractive, lofty, finely broken, of a red and purplish brown, tinted here and there with pale green. The painter is busy with his colors. As we pass the bold prominences and deep, narrow bays or fiords, they are continually changing and surprising us with a new scenery. And now the great sea-wall, on our right, opens and discloses the harbor and village of Fogo, the chief place of the island, gleaming in the setting sun as if there were flames shining through the windows. ”

“ I inquired.
“As far as we can while the fog hangs. Then we must hide in the first good place. If they don’t strike our trail we’ll be all right.”
The fog lingered in patches. From patch to patch we threaded, with many a glance over shoulder. But time was traveling faster. I marked her searching about nervously. Blue had already appeared above, the sun found us again and again, and the fog remnants went spinning and coiling, in last ghostly dance like that of frenzied wraiths.
Now we came to a rough outcrop of red sandstone, looming ruddily on our right. ”

“ She had evidently sighted our little craft just in time to change her course, and was passing us with not more than a hundred and fifty feet to spare. I can see them tonight, as they vanished into the fog--three men and a big Newfoundland dog, looking over the rail and down on us who, a moment before, were about to die.
Storm, fog, icebergs, cold, exposure, the alert and strenuous life, with his own life the forfeit of failure, are a part of the normal experience of a deep sea fisherman. Two members of our crew were father and son, Uncle Ike Patch and his son, Frank. ”

“ Many evenings and early mornings fog completely fills the surrounding valleys, so that the observatory seems to rest on an island in a vast sea of fog. Often peaks only a few hundred feet lower than Mount Hamilton are covered by the fog, yet the work with the great instruments is uninterrupted. The picture "Fog in the Valleys at Sunset" gives a better idea of this condition than I can describe. In such a location as this the 36-inch refractor can be used with its maximum power a large portion of the time. In less favorable localities even larger instruments would not be so efficient. ”

“ Fog, and night, and snow-storms, an tide dead agin me, an a lee shore, are circumstances that the Antelope has met over an over, an fit down. As to foggy nights, when it's as calm as this, why, they're not wuth considerin."
Captain Corbet's prognostication as to the fog proved to be correct. It was only for a short time that they were allowed to stare at the magnified proportions of the Nova Scotia coast and Ile Haute. Then a change took place which attracted all their attention. ”

“ Nothing marred the beatific success of the jaunt up to the time that the fog arrived. It was Joe who drew the attention of the others to the fact that the wide-flung landscape below them was no longer visible. As a fog on Bald Mountain is a damp and chilly affair, and as it is no particular aid to finding one’s way down a road that twists like a grapevine, they decided to make an early start. ”

“ After a night of fog signals, I awoke this morning to find it still foggy and the ground covered with a grey rime. All day the fog has remained: I look out now thro' the yellowish atmosphere across a field which is frosted over, the grass and brambles stiff and glassy. My back is aching and the cold is so intense that unless I crouch over the fire hands and feet become immediately stone-cold. All day I have crouched over the fire, reading newspapers, listening to fog signals and the screaming of the baby.... ”

“ Coast fog, which is probably of the same nature as land fog, is most frequent in the winter months, whereas sea fog and ocean fog is most extensive and frequent in the spring and summer. By June the fog area has extended from the Great Banks over the ocean to the British Isles, in July it is most intense, and by August it has notably diminished, while in November, which is proverbially a foggy month on land, there is hardly any fog shown over the ocean. ”

“ A light fog would be a few degrees better than a dark one; besides, by this time all the boats in the harbor must be beating about in search of him. But no boat found him all that long, cold day, and another night found Frank Hallock, limp and helpless and half unconscious, lying in the Clover, which drifted and drifted in the open Sound. It was the longest fog that had been known in many years.
158 Chapter XVI.
Again and again Kate Hallock reiterated the statement that only a little while before the fog came she saw two boats lying near the island. ”

“ This morning we had a thunder-storm in the midst of a heavy fog—a pure white one like those we call a mist in our country, and bearing no resemblance to the London pea-soup. The lightning flashing through it had an odd and beautiful effect. Later the fog rolled down the mountain to the [50] valleys of lower ranges, leaving only a light mist on the mountains and peak opposite. Through this the sun shone gently, and the dense low-looking forests on those distant heights looked as if lightly powdered. I have been down into the forest again. ”