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THE GUIDE TO NATURE. 



i 



I 







A COTTONWOOD BEARING ITS BURDEN 

 OF THE BEAUTIFUL 



This was a strange phenomenon — a 

 temperature to continue in a mountain 

 region for five days just cold enough 

 to reduce the atmospheric moisture to 

 frost and still warm enough to prevent 

 the clearing of the atmosphere. It 

 must have been about the condition as 

 when snow forms in the clouds. It 

 may be explained, however, by several 

 conditions of topography- Our lo- 

 cation was on the south-east slope of 

 the mountain near where a canon from 

 the north-west opened out into a valley 

 sloping to the southeast. Up this val- 

 ley came the winds, warmed and sat- 

 urated, from the warmer regions be- 

 low. As these winds crept up our 

 slope they found a temperature just 

 right to reduce the moisture to pre- 

 cipitation and after the first frosty 

 night the limbs of the trees remained 

 slightly colder — merely freezing — than 

 the newly and constantly arriving, sat- 

 urated atmosphere from the southeast. 

 On the sixth night the temperature 

 went low enough to clear the air of 

 the water particles and the following 

 morning the sun poured over the east- 

 ern mesa on to one eastern sloping 

 mountain side and the disaster to the 



previously described grandeur re- 

 sulted. 



The unfortunate feature of these 

 pictures — darkness in all but one — is 

 the result of exposure having been 

 made when the fog was too dense for 

 proper light. The light picture was taken 

 from a north window just as the sun 

 appeared in the southeast ; but before 

 the cloud or fog had yet been dissipat- 

 ed. It is seen clinging to the mountain 

 top to the northwest and lower down 

 in the mouth of the canon to the right 

 and beyond the mountain that pene- 

 trates the retreating mist. 



Amateur Snap of a Young Robin. 



The camera was a 5 x 7 Kodak ; the 

 lens, a Zeiss Tessar, to which was fit- 

 ted a specially made portrait attach- 

 ment ; and this combination was used 

 wide open. From the original negative 

 there was made a positive on glass. 

 From this positive another negative 

 was made on a 5 x 7 plate with the 

 robin enlarged to about two thirds 

 life size, and the useless foreground 

 and back ground cut off. 



A GOOD SNAP SHOT OF A YOUNG ROBIN 



