"Travels in Alaska 



one span five miles wide; and so brilliant, so fine and 

 solid and homogeneous in every part, I fancy that if 

 all the stars were raked together into one windrow, 

 fused and welded and run through some celestial 

 rolling-mill, all would be required to make this one 

 glowing white colossal bridge. 



After my last visitor went to bed, I lay down on the 

 moraine in front of the cabin and gazed and watched. 

 Hour after hour the wonderful arch stood perfectly 

 motionless, sharply defined and substantial-looking as 

 if it were a permanent addition to the furniture of the 

 sky. At length while it yet spanned the inlet in serene 

 unchanging splendor, a band of fluffy, pale gray, 

 quivering ringlets came suddenly all in a row over 

 the eastern mountain-top, glided in nervous haste up 

 and down the under side of the bow and over the 

 western mountain-wall. They were about one and a 

 half times the apparent diameter of the bow in length, 

 maintained a vertical posture all the way across, and 

 slipped swiftly along as if they were suspended like 

 a curtain on rings. Had these lively auroral fairies 

 marched across the fiord on the top of the bow instead 

 of shuffling along the under side of it, one might have 

 fancied they were a happy band of spirit people on a 

 journey making use of the splendid bow for a bridge. 

 There must have been hundreds of miles of them; for 

 the time required for each to cross from one end of 

 the bridge to the other seemed only a minute or less, 

 while nearly an hour elapsed from their first appear- 

 ance until the last of the rushing throng vanished 

 behind the western mountain, leaving the bridge as 



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