Influence of the Great Lakes on our Autumnal Sunsets. 339 
From considerations connected with the figure of the earth, the 
relative position of the sun and the lakes, the nature of 
, and the hills that it has been ascertained border Lake Hu- 
ron on the east, it appears clear to us, that the broken line of these 
hills acts the part of clouds or mountains in other circumstances, in 
intercepting and dividing into pencils the broad mass of light reflect- 
ed from the Huron, and thus creating those beautiful streamers that 
appear in the north of west, and with which, as it were, the com- 
mencement of autumn and the Indian summer is marked. Farther 
to the south, appears distinctly the break occasioned by the land that 
intervenes between the Lakes Huron and St. Clair, and this as well 
as the one between the latter lake and Erie, is rendered more stri- 
king by the brilliant pencil streaming across the heavens from the 
St. Clair. The reflected light of this body of water, insulated as it 
is by the shaded spaces in the sky, and separated from the glowing 
masses to the north and the south, is, throughout the season, one of 
the most striking and best defined objects in the west. From the 
middle of September to the early part of October, during which time 
the sun sets nearly in the west from this place, the appearance of 
the reflected rays is somewhat like the representation below. 
Here the letters and figures represent the same objects as in the 
former cut, and show that the cause of the pencils must be perma- 
nent or-such_a change in their inclination would not take place with 
the declination of the sun. The reflections from Erie at this time 
rise in a broad unbroken mass a little south of west, while that from 
St. Clair occupies the centre, and the maze of pencils from Huron 
in to blend and show nearly as one body. As the sun returns 
still farther south, the light from Erie occupies a still more prominent 
place ; the column of light from the St. Clair inclines still more to 
