THE ALASKA ATMOSPHERE 



BY WM. H. BREWER 



HE aspects of the sky and atmosphere along 

 the Alaska coast have a character unlike that 

 of any other part of the United States, and 

 give an especial interest and charm to the 

 scenery. For a better understanding of its 

 peculiarities, a short statement of a few elementary facts 

 regarding the air may be given by way of preface. 



The gases which compose the atmosphere are all trans- 

 parent and if the air contained nothing else, we would 

 have clear weather all the time. We should then see dis- 

 tant objects more plainly, but all the other effects of light 

 and shade and color in landscape and sky would be very 

 unlike what we actually see in nature. The difference 

 in the appearance of the landscape from what it naturally 

 is, would be greatest in the warmer and least in the colder 

 climates. There would then be little color in the landscape 

 and none at all in the black cloudless sky. But the at- 

 mosphere contains dust and smoke and haze and fog and 

 cloud, and these, in one way or another, give it all its 

 varying aspects. The clouds may be of fine particles of 

 water or of ice. 



The phenomena of color are due to the different wave- 

 lengths of light, longer waves producing red, shorter ones 



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