100 



THE DESERT 



The orange 

 sky. 



Desert 

 clouds. 



of orange takes its place. It is a flame-colored or- 

 ange, and its hue is felt in reflection upon valley, 

 plain, and mountain peak. This indeed is the 

 orange light that converts the air in the moun- 

 tain canyons into golden mist, and is measur- 

 ably responsible for the yellow sunshafts that, 

 streaming through the pinnacles of the western 

 mountains, reach far across the upper sky in 

 ever-widening bands. This great orange belt is 

 lacking in that variety and vividness of coloring 

 that comes with clouds, but it is not wanting 

 in a splendor of its own. It is the broadest, the 

 simplest, and in many respects the sublimest 

 sunset imaginable a golden dream with the 

 sky enthroned in glory and the earth at its feet 

 reflecting its lustre. 



But the more brilliant sunsets are only seen 

 when there are broken translucent clouds in 

 the west. There are cloudy days even on 

 the desert. After many nights of heat, long 

 skeins of white stratus will gather along the 

 horizons, and out of them will slowly be woven 

 forms of the cumulus and the nimbus. And it 

 will rain in short squalls of great violence on 

 the lomas, mesas, and bordering mountains. 

 But usually the cloud that drenches a mountain 

 top eight thousand feet up will pass over an 



