DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18826#0019
lect. i.] on perspective. 13
]z£t is curious, and allied to this discourse, I shall be
permitted to introduce.
<c I cannot take leave of these Monuments," says
hea " without mentioning a strange deception in their
appearance at different distances; it may serve to
give some idea of the height of these masses, which
is not to be conveyed by any comparison.
" I have already said, that I set out, at midnight,-
from Gise, with the Arabs, who were to conduct me
to the Pyramids. We directed our route by keeping
these prodigious edifices, which seemed like so many
mountains, continually in view. Being arrived at a
village, which had hid them a moment from our
sight, they re-appeared, on leaving it. so large and
so near, that I thought I could f c :, chem. I was
even desirous to alight, but the . les assured rac
they were still a full league off. In faict, we conti-
nued to ride on, near three quarters of an 1 our, at
the end of which the (great) Pyramid seemed so
much lessened, that I alighted from my >e3 a
hundred paces from it, as much surprised to find it
no bigger, as I had been before at its enormous - ze.
But I presently found it magnified again on my
nearer approach ; and these contrarieties in its ap-
pearance, made me curious to discover their cause.
For this purpose, I removed to the distance of six
hundred paces from the Pyramid, along the plain
horizontal to its base ; I then turned about, and this
point of view giving me its greatest apparent size, I
remarked, that at this distance, its perpendicular
height filled the angle of the visual rays in such a
manner, that, on a nearer approach, this same
vol. hi. Edit. 7. c angle,
]z£t is curious, and allied to this discourse, I shall be
permitted to introduce.
<c I cannot take leave of these Monuments," says
hea " without mentioning a strange deception in their
appearance at different distances; it may serve to
give some idea of the height of these masses, which
is not to be conveyed by any comparison.
" I have already said, that I set out, at midnight,-
from Gise, with the Arabs, who were to conduct me
to the Pyramids. We directed our route by keeping
these prodigious edifices, which seemed like so many
mountains, continually in view. Being arrived at a
village, which had hid them a moment from our
sight, they re-appeared, on leaving it. so large and
so near, that I thought I could f c :, chem. I was
even desirous to alight, but the . les assured rac
they were still a full league off. In faict, we conti-
nued to ride on, near three quarters of an 1 our, at
the end of which the (great) Pyramid seemed so
much lessened, that I alighted from my >e3 a
hundred paces from it, as much surprised to find it
no bigger, as I had been before at its enormous - ze.
But I presently found it magnified again on my
nearer approach ; and these contrarieties in its ap-
pearance, made me curious to discover their cause.
For this purpose, I removed to the distance of six
hundred paces from the Pyramid, along the plain
horizontal to its base ; I then turned about, and this
point of view giving me its greatest apparent size, I
remarked, that at this distance, its perpendicular
height filled the angle of the visual rays in such a
manner, that, on a nearer approach, this same
vol. hi. Edit. 7. c angle,