STUDY 3C. 283 



In a fine Summer's night, when the Iky is fe- 

 rene, and loaded only with fome light vapours, 

 fufficient to flop, and to refraft, the rays of the 

 Sun, as they traverfe the extremities of our Atmo- 

 fphere, walk out into an open plain, where the 

 firft fires of Aurora may be perceptible. You will 

 firft obferve the Horizon whiten at the fpot where 

 fhe is to make her appearance; and this kind of 

 radiance, from it's colour, has procured for it, in 

 the French language, the name of mibe (the dawn) 

 from the Latin word alba, which fignifies white. 

 This whitenefs infenfibly afcends in the Heavens, 

 and aflumes a tint of yellow, fome degrees above 

 the Horizon ; the yellow, as it rifes fome degrees 

 higher, pafles into orange; and this fliade of 

 orange rifes 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 fucceeding the vermilion, then the 

 azure, after it the deep blue or indigo colour, 

 and, lafb of all, the black quite to the weftward. 



Though this difplay of colours prefents an in- 

 finite multitude of intermediate fhades, which 

 fucceed each other with confiderable rapidity, ne- 

 verthelefs, there is a moment, and, if my recollec- 

 tion of it be accurate, it is the moment when the 

 Sun isjuft going to exhibit his difk, that the daz- 

 zling white is vifible in the Horizon, the pure 



yellow. 



