I ran out in auroral excitement, and sure enough here was another
aurora, as novel and wonderful as the marching
Rainbow-colored
columns - a glowing silver bow spanning the Muir Inlet in a
magnificent arch right under the zenith, or a little to the south of
it, the ends resting on the top of the mountain-walls. And though
colorless and steadfast, its intense, solid, white splendor, noble
proportions, and fineness of finish excited boundless admiration.
In form and proportion it was like a rainbow, a bridge of one span
five miles wide; and so brilliant, so fine and solid and homogeneous
in every part, I fancy that if all the stars were raked together
into one windrow, fused and welded and run through some celestial
rolling-mill, all would be required to make this one glowing white
colossal bridge.
After my last visitor went to bed, I lay down on the moraine in
front of the cabin and gazed and watched. Hour after hour the
wonderful arch stood perfectly motionless, sharply defined and
substantial-looking as if it were a permanent addition to the
furniture of the sky. At length while it yet spanned the inlet in
serene unchanging splendor, a band of fluffy, pale gray, quivering
ringlets came suddenly all in a row over the eastern mountain-top,
glided in nervous haste up and down the under side of the bow and
over the western mountain-wall. They were about one and a half times
the apparent diameter of the bow in length, maintained a vertical
posture all the way across, and slipped swiftly along as if they were
suspended like a curtain on rings.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 313 of 316
Words from 84660 to 84939
of 85542
