NATURE FOR ITS OWN SAKE 
Cloud 
colors, 
Clouds at 
sunset, 
seems uncontaminated by earthly touch, and 
their shining surfaces are not comparable to any 
terrestrial thing save the newly fallen snow 
glistening on the highest Alpine peaks. 
And in color what is, what could be, more 
gorgeous, without a note of discord, than the 
western clouds at sunset ? They have no hue 
in themselves, and yet, like the flowers of the 
fields and the waters in the lakes, they have the 
power of reflecting and refracting colors of the 
utmost brilianey. And how vivid these hues 
become as the hot sun throws his parting shafts 
of fire over and under and through the fleecy 
drifts of vapor! After the red disk has fallen 
below the horizon the scattered patches con- 
tinue to burn and glow in scarlets, golds, and 
pinks—all imaginable hues from bright blood- 
red to dark violet. As the sun sinks still lower 
its shafts strike upward upon the under-sur- 
faces of the clouds, and for a time the color 
seems even more brilliant. And when the 
cloud-bars just across the horizon begin to dim 
their lustre the high, ‘mackerel sky” catches 
up the color and the flame mounts upward to 
the zenith, from cloud to cloud, lke steps in a | 
ladder of fire, lessening in glory as the height 
is reached, and finally lost entirely in the blue. 
