NATURE FOR ITS OWN SAKE 
The dust 
veil. 
Krakatoa. 
coloring than the temperate New England, not- 
withstanding the intensity and the directness of 
the sun’s rays near the equator. The heat of the 
equatorial region produces dryness of the soil, 
and dryness produces dust, which is carried up 
into the air by rising currents. This obscures 
and changes the color of light more effectually 
than perhaps we realize. Professor Langley tells 
us that from the top of Mt. Whitney he saw 
this dust lying below him like a great reddish 
mist suspended four or five thousand feet above 
the level of the surrounding country. It can 
be imagined that light streaming through such 
a mist must be not only obscured, but must 
give a coloring to the earth of yellow, orange, 
and red, somewhat as the coloring of a room is 
affected by red or amber glass placed in the 
windows. 
A practical illustration of a dust-laden at- 
mosphere and its color effect was shown us in 
1883. The volcanic eruption of Krakatoa threw 
a shaft of fine ashes some eighteen miles directly 
into the air, where it was caught by the winds, 
and swept around the globe ; and for months this 
fine ash was slowly settling throngh the atmos- 
phere to the earth again. The result was a tur- 
bid air and an extraordinary series of red dawns 
