Grand Canyon Sunrise

THE STAR from page 16

When we burn coal we are setting fire to the remains of an ancient forest, and setting free energy from the sun that was held inside the coal for thousands of years.

No wonder coal is called "black sunlight." And oil is called "liquid sunlight."

Look up, look down, look all around; everywhere you can trace energy back to the sun. The music of a waterfall, swallows stunt-flying over a chimney, the twenty pounds of black coffee you sip per year - all these somehow or other owe their energy to the sun.

Thelma Ireland wrote a poem to tell us how

The poppy is a miner

Who digs into the arid hills, And brings out petalled gold.

That "petalled gold" is nothing but freshly minted sunshine served up on a green stem.

Not only our lives but also our way of life depends upon the sun. Not only are coal, oil, and gas that have fueled the expansion of our civilization made from plants that acquired their energy by converting sunlight, but even the winds that drive windmills originate from the uneven heating of our atmosphere by the sun.

Waterpower is dependent upon rainfall which is possible only because the sun's heat evaporates water from the oceans.

The sun will last another five billion years in its current state as a normal, or main sequence star. So, solar power may be considered inexhaustible as far as we are concerned. And no one can cut off our imports of sunshine.

The sun is prodigal in its generation of energy. Every second, it throws off into space more than man has used since civilization began.

About one two-billionth of the sun's energy hits planet earth. In three days this tiny fraction of the sun's energy provides about as much heat and light as is available from all our known reserves of coal, oil, and gas.

Arizona owes its color-splashed fascination to the day time star we call the sun!

Neither Grand Canyon, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, or Superstition Mountain give off any color of their own. On a dark night when low scudding clouds shut out even the feeble light from the stars, you can stand five feet away from a mesquite tree and never see its spring dress of little yellow catkins. A Mountain Locust, a Desert Marigold, and a Fairyduster are all wrapped in equal blackness. The tiny Goldfields weave no saffron yellow carpet. The delicate hyacinth does not parade its beautiful lavender headdress, and the owl cover nods no maroon head. It is only when the morning sun comes cascading over the eastern horizon that mountains leap and gleam with color, and beauty crowds the hush of desert miles.

It is sunlight that tips the flaming fire in the Indian Paintbrush, and turns the Arizona sky into an immensity of baffling blue, a dome of azure crystal, luminous as a jewel. It is sunlight breaking in galaxies of diamonds against the rippling waters of Lake Mohave that gives it the beauty of sapphire and aquamarine.

The sun gives Grand Canyon its deep purples, fringed with flaming scarlets and burnished gold, and lends magic to the wizard pinnacles that dip into the gamut of blues and indigo.

It is the sun that bursts the claret-cup cactus into blossoms that make music out of color.

Sometimes we tend to think of sunlight as being simply "white" yet "white" sunlight contains all colors from Chinese red to Prussian blue and mystic violet. To prove it for yourself, simply imitate Sir Isaac Newton. Insert a glass prism into a beam of sunlight, and behold the magic. The "white" beam turns into a rainbow and fans out in all the glory of a peacock on dress parade.

When a silver arrow of light quivers to a standstill in the heart of an Indian Paintbrush, a strange thing happens. The petals of the Paintbrush absorb all the colors, except red. The Paintbrush is unable to absorb the flaming red, and so it reflects, or bounces back, this impetuous color to your eye.

Grass is green because it absorbs all the colors from the sun except green. These restful rays are reflected to the eye. Snow reflects all colors, so we call it white. Coal absorbs all colors and reflects none back, so we call it black.

Strange as it seems, opaque objects have no color in themselves. Their color depends upon the kind of light that falls upon them, and the color they reflect. This paper looks white because it bounces back, or reflects so many of the waves of light that fall uppon it. The print is black because it absorbs most of the waves.

A red apple under a green light is in a very difficult fix! It absorbs all the green light, and doesn't have any red light to bounce back or reflect. Result it looks black!

No man can gaze steadfastly into the sun. Its blinding radiance is too overpowering for our week eyes. But we catch reflections of its beauty in the violet hidden in its dell of dew, in the vivid orange-red Mariposa lily, in the stately grandeur of the giant saguaro, and in the splendor of fir tips with upright cones against the mountain sky, heaven's candelabara bright with light. All this pageant of color, luster, and glory is borrowed from the sun. Indeed, all material creation mirrors back the majesty of the sun.

It is the white light of the sun that gives us both the blue sky of high noon, and the flaming red of sunset. Particles in the atmosphere act as scattering agents or dispersers. Small particles break up and scatter only light of the shortest wave lengths (blue and violets). Larger particles, mostly coarse dust floating in the lower section of the atmosphere scatter the longer red waves.

When the sun is directly overhead at high noon, its light pierces the atmosphere perpendicularly, like a falling arrow, passing through only a minimum of dust-filled lower air. Only the blue rays are scattered, to give the sky its cool look of dreamy blue, so inviting and mysterious to behold. Our air canopy intercepts the short bluewave lengths from the sunlight to give us the azure firmament that pours into our eyes its wine of airy gold.

When the sun is sinking near the horizon, its slanting rays have to pass through much more of the dust filled lower atmosphere. These coarse particles scatter the longer rays that give the western sky its crimson glow. Like gypsies of the sky the clouds steal the glowing embers of the dying sun and scatter them in blazing climax to light campfires in the sky.

"He who stands to watch a sunset," we are told, "moves in close to God, having come close to Him by the old, swift avenue of beauty."

For a sensation that is "out of this world" stand on the south rim of Grand Canyon and watch a brand new day emerge from night's black wrapping paper. To watch sunrise explode over Grand Canyon is like having a box seat on the day of creation.

Autographed by wind and storm the color-tinted cliffs stand sentinel on the march of centuries. You throw your imagination into technicolor spaces your eyes can hardly believe. Swirling patterns eroded in red and yellow clay form weird shapes like the awesome landscape of some distant planet.

Dramatic as a thunderclap, the scenery is all beneath your shoelaces. You look down into brooding voids of tumbled space. As the molten, radiant glory of the dawn pours over the sprawling cliffs, you can almost catch an echo of the words of the Almighty, "Let there be Light!"