Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/911

 BUNGB V. STEAMSHIP TJTOPIA. 903 �of the steamer being N. by W. J W. If the bark, bearing thus from the steamer, was on an east by south course, she had, in fact, already crossed the bows of the steamer, and was pointing to the leeward of the steamer, and not to the south- ward of her or across her bows. If such had been observed from the steamer to have been her course, the steamer's wheel would not hava been put to port, a movement which tended at once to bring them upon crossing courses, involving danger of collision. �Yet I am unable to reject the positive testimony of those on the bark as to her course/ if it is possible to reconcile their testimony with any probable hypothesis of a mistake in this respect on the part of those who observed her move- ments from the steamer; and I think it can be so reconciled. Each vessel saw the other through the fog. Whatever may have been their distance apart, (a point to be hereafter con- sidered,) it was, at the first glimpse, necessarily very indis- tinct, that those on the steamer got of the bark, that they thought her crossing to the southward. It is not at ail improbable that upon this first glimpse they should be mis- taken as to her course. It is not at ail improbable that some- thing in the trim or appearance of her sails gave them the impression that she was crossing their course to the south- ward. �It is too common an optical illusion to excite either remark or surprise that when the eye catches some object in an im- perfect light, or indistinctly through a fog, the image con- forms itself more or less in detail to what it seems to be as Buggested by some one feature which the observer, for the instant, thinks he makes out. Thus, it is to be expected that if there was something which gave the' impression of the bark's standing to the southward, it should also seem to those observing her that they made out the port bow, or saw along her port side, as they testify, with more or less posi- tiveness, although this impression as to detaUs may indeed merely be a trick of the memory, or the imagination working in aid of the impression they had at the time that the bark was standing across their course to the southward, it is the ��� �