A BLOOD-RED SUN. 373 



diameter; the smallest measured between twenty and thirty 

 feet; a few attained to 100; and one which absorbed in its 

 vortex all that it approached rose to nearly 200. But soon the 

 atmospheric forces which had raised them, beginning to fail, 

 we saw these sand-spouts fall away one after the other, and 

 form on the surface of the desert a number of hillocks 

 similar to those from which we had just emerged. " * 



During the prevalence of the Simoom, excessive tem- 

 peratures are not uncommon, as may be seen on refer- 

 ence to the chapter on Climates and Temperatures, 

 where these matters are especially considered. These 

 hot winds prove the more trying" from the fact that, 

 contrary to the usual rule in the desert, where the 

 nights are generally cool, and often piercingly cold, 

 there is little intermission of the great heat by night 

 while these winds blow. 



It is also a curious fact that on the hottest days 

 the sun is at such times rarely visible, being almost 

 always shut out by mist, f or if visible through the 

 cloud of sand, it appears of a deep red colour and 

 greatly exaggerated in size, doubtless because viewed 

 through the medium of a more or less thick curtain 

 of dust even when no violent sand storm, such as 

 we have just described, is blowing ; this is a condition 

 of things that may exist for many days together 

 during the prevalence of the Simoom, and there can 

 be little doubt that when the sun is described, in 

 the Sacred Writings, as being " turned into blood " 

 it is to this condition of the atmosphere that reference 

 is made. 



The experience of the surveying parties, employed 



* Travels on the Russo-C.hincse Frontier, by T. W. Atkinson. 

 j Le Desert et Le Soudan, par M. le Comte D'Escayrac de Lauture, 

 1853, p. 47. 



