308 the beautiful ladder. 
fire. A broad arch of brilliant prismatic colors 
spanned the heavens from east to west, like a 
gigantic rainbow, with a long fringe of crimson 
and yellow streamers stretching up from its 
convex edge to the very zenith. At short in¬ 
tervals of one or two seconds wide, luminous 
bands, parallel with the arch, rose suddenly 
out of the northern horizon, and swept with a 
swift and steady majesty across the whole 
heavens, like long breakers of phosphorescent 
light rolling in from some limitless ocean of 
space. 
“ ‘ Every portion of the vast arch was momen¬ 
tarily wavering, trembling, and changing color, 
and the brilliant streamers which fringed its 
edge swept back and forth in great curves, like 
the fiery sword of the angel at the gate of 
Eden. In a moment the vast auroral rainbow, 
with its wavering streamers, began to move 
slowly up toward the zenith, and a second 
arch of equal brilliancy formed directly under 
it, shooting up another long serried row of 
slender colored lances toward the North Star, 
like a battalion of the celestial host presenting 
arms to its commanding angel. Every instant 
the display increased in unearthly grandeur. 
