MOUNTAINS AND HILLS 
223 
aud none of these is seen so well from the peak 
as from the valley. And here comes in the 
normal truth of color and shadow. Looking 
up, we have great masses of shadow broken by 
large expanses of light. Every cliff, every 
scar, every stone reveal them; and as the snow 
is reached, blue patches of it in shadow are 
contrasted with great pink fields of it in sun- 
light. Color is everywhere. The wall of the 
chasm is dappled with a hundred hues, the 
forests of pine stand in masses of dark green, 
the grass strips show pale green flecked with! 
yellow, the glacier ice is blue-green, the rocks 
are gray, sometimes the needles of the peaks are 
dashed with cream-yellow at sunrise, or turned 
to pinkish-rose at sunset, and back of it all 
is the blue sky for a ground. The moun- 
tain’s grandeur of bulk and line, its beauty 
of color and light are practically destroyed for 
us when we are standing upon the peak. We 
have, in short, the wrong point of view. 
While not so impressive, perhaps, in their 
sense of loftiness, the mountains and ridges, 
that are but a few thousand feet high, and have 
no snow belts, are often more beautiful to look 
upon than the Alps or the Andes. Their tops 
may be turreted with rocks here and there, 
The moun- 
tains from 
the valley. 
Mountain- 
colors. 
The lower 
ranges. 
