PURE AND REFLECTED LIGHT 
and sunsets seen in many lands. In Spain, 
where I happened to be a year later, the dawns 
were the most ruddy I have ever witnessed ; 
and each night the sun went down hissing 
hot into the Atlantic like a ship on fire, throw- 
ing great flaming signals of distress far up the 
zenith as it sank. 
But while the dust veil may produce great 
mass and variety of colors, these are not neces- 
sarily of the highest intensity. The most brill- 
iant hues are to be seen where the light falls 
the clearest, and this is not in the heated tropics, 
but near the cold poles. The northern countries 
have not the many local colors of the tropical 
lands, but those they possess have more depth 
and clearness. No palm on the banks of the Nile 
ever had such brightness of greens as the pine 
and the spruce on the Norwegian mountains. 
In upper Scandinavia the flowers are brighter, 
the sky and water deeper blue, the mountains 
purer purple, the sunsets more scarlet than in 
Jtaly, Greece, or Algiers. And we all know what 
report the arctic explorers have brought back 
to us of brilliant skies, flaming Northern 
Lights, and intense blues in water, ice, and 
snow seen in the polar regions. There is not 
the slightest reason to doubt the truth of the 
Color in the 
tropics and 
at the north. 
Arctic 
colors. 
