PURE AND REFLECTED LIGHT 



around an eighth of the horizon circle, and 

 then perhaps to a sixth of it ; or it may mount 

 upward in the shape of a fan. Sometimes pale 

 yellow is a predominant coloring, and in warm 

 weather a rose hue is quite frequently shown. 

 If the sky above the horizon is barred or 

 streaked with clouds, almost any conceivable 

 color may be reflected from them, dependent 

 upon the state of the atmosphere and the posi- 

 tion of the clouds. Again, if the air is dense 

 with vapor or dust, the advance arms of the 

 snn may be seen reaching far over the night 

 like the silver shafts of an enormous search- 

 light. 



These premonitory signs of the coming day 

 are often extraordinary in their appearances. 

 For instance, in Egypt, during the heated 

 season, the dawn is not always the slow steal- 

 ing of light along the horizon. On the con- 

 trary, a single shaft like the pinion of a wing 

 rises upward toward the zenith. In a moment 

 another shaft begins rising by its side, and 

 then another and another, until the whole half- 

 arch of the heavens resembles two spread wings 

 poised perpendicularly. These are, I imagine, 

 the biblical wings of the morning that fly to 

 the uttermost ends of the earth. At other 



