STUDY X. 287 



fublime fpeftacle prefents itfelf to them at the 

 hour of prayer, and feems to invite them to lift up 

 their hearts with their voices to the Heavens. It 

 changes it's appearance every inftant : what was 

 jufl now luminous, becomes in a moment coloured 

 limply J and what is now coloured, will, by and 

 by, be in the (hade. The forms are as variable as 

 the (hades ; they are, by turns, iflands, hamlets, 

 hills clothed with the palm-tree ; vaft bridges 

 ftretching over rivers, (lelds of gold, of amethyfts, 

 of rubies, or rather, nothing of all this j they are 

 celeflial colours and forms which no pencil can 

 pretend to imitate, and which no language can 

 defcribe. 



It is very remarkable, that all travellers who 

 have, at various feafons, afcended to the fummits 

 of the higheft mountains on the Globe, between 

 the Tropics, and beyond them, in the heart of the 

 Continent, or in Iflands, never could perceive, in 

 the clouds below them, any thing but a gray and 

 lead- coloured furface, without any variation what- 

 ever as to colour, being always (imilar to that of a 

 lake. The Sun, notwithftanding, illuminated 

 thofe clouds with his whole light ; and his rays 

 might there combine, without obftruftion, all the 

 laws of refraftion to which our fyftems of Phyfics 

 have fubjeded them. From this obfervation it 



follows, 



