oftentimes filling all the sky. The level cloud-bars usually present
are fired on the edges, and the spaces of clear sky between them are
greenish-yellow or pale amber, while the orderly flocks of small
overlapping clouds, often seen higher up, are mostly touched with
crimson like the out-leaning sprays of maple-groves in the beginning
of an Eastern Indian Summer. Soft, mellow purple flushes the sky to
the zenith and fills the air, fairly steeping and transfiguring the
islands and making all the water look like wine. After the sun goes
down, the glowing gold vanishes, but because it descends on a curve
nearly in the same plane with the horizon, the glowing portion of the
display lasts much longer than in more southern latitudes, while the
upper colors with gradually lessening intensity of tone sweep around
to the north, gradually increase to the eastward, and unite with
those of the morning.

The most extravagantly colored of all the sunsets I have yet seen in
Alaska was one I enjoyed on the voyage from Portland to Wrangell,
when we were in the midst of one of the most thickly islanded parts
of the Alexander Archipelago. The day had been showery, but late in
the afternoon the clouds melted away from the west, all save a few
that settled down in narrow level bars near the horizon. The evening
was calm and the sunset colors came on gradually, increasing in
extent and richness of tone by slow degrees as if requiring more time
than usual to ripen. At a height of about thirty degrees there was a
heavy cloud-bank, deeply reddened on its lower edge and the
projecting parts of its face. Below this were three horizontal belts
of purple edged with gold, while a vividly defined, spreading fan of
flame streamed upward across the purple bars and faded in a feather
edge of dull red. But beautiful and impressive as was this painting
on the sky, the most novel and exciting effect was in the body of the