button to main menu   West's Guide to the Lakes, 1778/1821

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Page 12:-
  landscape mirror
The landscape mirror will also furnish much amusement in this tour. Where the objects are great and near, it removes them to a due distance, and shows them in the soft colours of nature, and in the most regular perspective the eye can perceive, or science demonstrate.
The mirror is of the greatest use in sunshine, and the person using it ought always to turn his back on the object that he views. It should be suspended by the upper part of the case, holding it a little to the right or left (as the position of the parts to be viewed require) and the face screened from the sun.
The mirror is a plano-convex glass, and should be the segment of a large circle; otherwise distant and small objects are not perceived in it; but if the glass be too flat, the perspective view of great and near objects is less pleasing, as they are represented too near. These inconveniences may be provided against by two glasses of different convexity. The dark glass answers well in sunshine; but on cloudy and gloomy days the silver foil is better. Whoever uses spectacles upon other occasions, must use them in viewing landscapes in these mirrors.
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