Desktop Icon Sorting Arrangement

I don't use desktop icons much, except for temporary files, but even so, it would be very useful for me to be able to set the default arrangement in a different fashion than seems to be available in the Desktop View Menu. I would like to have all icons arrange horizontally, starting at the top of the screen, rather than vertically, as seems to be the design. I know that I can turn off the auto arrange function and place the icons in that fashion manually, but when I reboot, some will remain horizontal, while others go back to vertical. I also know that I could turn off aligning to grids, and they probably would stay horizontal, but I would like to let that remain active for ease of arrangement.