An extremely simple arrangement provides a new interference method for the examination of the macroscopic relief of surfaces such as paper to which conventional interference methods are not applicable. Like deveral earlier techniques, it uses illumination at near-grazing incidence to generate fringes which contour the surface at much larger intervals than is the case when near-normal incidence is used: the fringes can be viewed at any angle. A possible explanation involving a mixture of specular and diffuse reflection at the test surface is proposed for the formation of the observed fringes. It is expected that the new method will have practical applications in materials science, particularly in paper technology.