Captain Basil Hall gives an amusing instance of such an occurrence. The Cambrian 'had run in from sea towards the coast, enveloped in one of these dense fogs. Of course they took it for granted that the light-house and the adjacent land--Halifax included--were likewise covered with an impenetrable cloud of mist; but it so chanced, by what freak of Dame Nature I know not, that the fog on that day was confined to the deep water, so that we who were in the port could see it at the distance of several miles from the coast, lying on the ocean like a huge stratum of snow, with an abrupt face fronting the shore.
'The Cambrian, lost in the midst of this fog-bank, supposing herself to be near land, fired a gun. To this the light-house replied; and so the ship and the light-house went on pelting away gun for gun during half the day, without seeing one another.
'The people at the light-house had no means of communicating to the frigate, that if she would only stand on a little further, she would disentangle herself from the cloud, in which, like Jupiter Olympus of old, she was wasting her thunder. At last, the captain, hopeless of its clearing up, gave orders to pipe to dinner; but as the weather, in all respects except this abominable haze, was quite fine, and the ship was still in deep water, he directed her to be steered towards the shore, and the lead kept constantly going. As one o'clock approached, he began to feel uneasy, from the water shoaling, and the light-house guns sounding closer and closer; but being unwilling to disturb the men at their dinner, he resolved to stand on for the remaining ten minutes of the hour. Lo and behold! however, they had not sailed half a mile further before the flying gib-boom end emerged from the wall of mist, then the bowsprit shot into daylight, and lastly, the ship herself glided out of the cloud into the full blaze of a bright and 'sunshine holiday.' All hands were instantly turned up to make sail: and the men, as they flew on deck, could scarcely believe their senses when they saw behind them the fog-bank--right ahead the harbour's mouth, with the bold cliffs of Cape Sambro on the left--and further still, the ships at their moorings, with their ensigns and pendants blowing out light and dry in the breeze.'