MOUNTAINS AND HILLS 



223 



and none of these is seen so well from the peak 

 as from the valley. And here comes in the 

 normal truth of color and shadow. Looking 

 up, we have great masses of shadow broken by 

 large expanses of light. Every cliff, every 

 scar, every stone reveal them ; and as the snow 

 is reached, blue patches of it in shadow are 

 contrasted with great pink fields of it in sun- 

 light. Color is everywhere. The wall of the 

 chasm is dappled with a hundred hues, the 

 forests of pine stand in masses of dark green, 

 the grass strips show pale green flecked with 

 yellow, the glacier ice is blue-green, the rocks 

 are gray, sometimes the needles of the peaks are 

 dashed with cream-yellow at sunrise, or turned 

 to pinkish-rose at sunset, and back of it all 

 is the blue sky for a ground. The moun- 

 tain's grandeur of bulk and line, its beauty 

 of color and light are practically destroyed for 

 us when we are standing upon the peak. We 

 have, in short, the wrong point of view. 



While not so impressive, perhaps, in their 

 sense of loftiness, the mountains and ridges, 

 that are but a few thousand feet high, and have 

 no snow belts, are often more beautiful to look 

 upon than the Alps or the Andes. Their tops 

 may be turreted with rocks here and there, 



Thf moun- 

 tains from 

 the valley. 



Mountain- 

 colors. 



The lower 

 ranges. 



