BROKEN AND SHADED LIGIIT 
the form of a white beam, stronger than the 
yellow one, because falling through denser 
moisture. There may be many of these shafts, 
and they may radiate in all directions from the 
sun, as one often sees at evening, when the west 
is barred or streaked with clouds. The reach- 
ing down of sun-shafts toward the earth, with 
or without a shower, is commonly referred to as 
the sun ‘‘ drawing water.” It is really the sun 
illuminating the dust or moisture in the air, 
just as the rainbow, which spans the opposite 
heavens from the sun, is but the sun’s rays re- 
flected and refracted in prismatic colors from 
drops of rain. 
For variety in the display of sun-bursts I 
know of no country more interesting than Scot- 
land. In stormy weather at sunset the light 
falling through chinks of the clouds will often 
make a half-wheel or fan-shaped alternation of 
light and shadow most brilliant in its flashes 
of gray and silver. And again, I have never 
seen such effects of sun-bursts and flying 
shadows together as in the Grampians, particu- 
larly those more barren portions of the hills 
where the heather is absent and only a yellow- 
green of grass and a slate-gray of stone are seen 
as background. Over the slopes and down the 
The sun 
“drawing 
water.” 
Sun-bursts 
in Scotland. 
