PHENOMENA BEAUTIFUL. 



By W. A. Cook, Baker University, Baldwin, Kan. 



THE human eye, one of the most valuable of our members, 

 is one of the easiest to deceive of our sense organs. Look- 

 ing through a screen door, the plane of which is at right angles 

 to the line of vision, the rising moon seems to send its rays in 

 straight lines forming a Greek Cross, the arms running par- 

 rallel to the wires in the screen. Turn the screen to an angle 

 of forty-five degrees and the horizontal bar of the cross divides 

 into two bars making an angle of from forty-five to sixty de- 

 grees with each other, depending on the mesh of the screen. 

 The rays of light coming through the screen between the 

 arms of the cross are deflected until they do not reach the eye, 

 hence only those coming through in straight lines are seen. 



The mirage, which may well be termed "Phenomena 

 Wonderful," is one of the greatest illusions the eye beholds. 

 The sights and scenes depicted in the old poem of "Seeing 

 Things at Night" do not approach the wonderfulness of the 

 mirage. But the mirage has another quality, that of beauty, 

 and the more appropriate name would be "Phenomena Beauti- 

 ful." So leaving out the physical principles involved in the 

 mirage, which are familiar to all, the writer will present with 

 the use of charts some illustrations that it has been his privi- 

 lege to see, and which will warrant the name "Phenomena 

 Beautiful." 



Traveling westward from Salina, along the Smoky Hill 

 river, an observer may see the most wonderful and most 

 beautiful shifting scenery. Hills suddenly rise out of the midst 

 of the blue of beautiful lakes, to shiver and smoke like active 

 volcanoes for a few minutes and then as suddenly sink back 

 into the lake, or being torn into fragments gradually vanish 

 away into nothingness. The beautiful lakes themselves are 

 ever just a little beyond, settling in among the hills or spread- 

 ing away to limitless distances over the prairie. Around the 

 borders of these lakes familiar objects appear near at hand, as 

 if by magic, or assume grotesque shapes as they come and go in 

 the kaleidoscopic view. Hence the name Smoky Hill river. 



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