length.

"We shall employ a method, not quite so learned, to convey an idea of
the generation of colors, and the decomposition of the solar ray.
Instead of examining them in a prism of glass, we shall consider them in
the heavens, and there we shall behold the five primordial colours
_unfold themselves_ in the order which we have indicated.

"In a fine summer's night, when the sky is loaded only with some light
vapours, sufficient to stop and to refract the rays of the sun, walk out
into an open plain, where the first fires of Aurora may be perceptible.
You will first observe the horizon _whiten_ at the spot where she is to
make her appearance; and this radiance, from its colour, has procured
for it, in the French language, the name of _aube_, (the dawn,) from the
Latin word _alba_, white. This whiteness insensibly ascends in the
heavens, _assuming_ a tint of yellow some degrees above the horizon; the
yellow as it rises passes into orange; and this shade of orange rises
upward into the lively vermilion, which extends as far as the zenith.
From that point you will perceive in the heavens behind you the violet
succeeding the vermilion, then the azure, after it the deep blue or
indigo colour, and, last of all, the black, quite to the westward.

"Though this display of colours presents a multitude of intermediate
shades, which rapidly succeed each other, yet at the moment the sun is
going to exhibit his disk, the dazzling white is visible in the horizon,
the pure yellow at an elevation of forty-five degrees; the fire color in
the zenith; the pure blue forty-five degrees under it, toward the west;
and in the very west the dark veil of night still lingering on the
horizon. I think I have remarked this progression between the tropics,
where there is scarcely any horizontal refraction to make the light
prematurely encroach on the darkness, as in our climates.

"Sometimes the trade-winds, from the north-east or south-east, blow
there, card the clouds through each other, then sweep them to the west,
crossing and recrossing them over one another, like the osiers
interwoven in a transparent basket. They throw over the sides of this
chequered work the clouds which are not employed in the contexture, roll
them up into enormous masses, as white as snow, draw them out along
their extremities in the form of a crupper, and pile them upon each
other, moulding them into the shape of mountains, caverns, and rocks;
afterwards, as evening