VOL. I. ] Flora of the Olympics. : 279 
down upon a three-foot mountain hemlock ( 7suga Pattoniana), 
which supported me like a spring bed, and from whose top, as I 
drank in the splendor of the scene, I cut the flowers both male and 
female! Then I bent over toward me a six-foot alpine fir (Abies 
subalpina), and cut from its top the female flowers and half devel- 
oped cones. What was the age of these dwarfs would be difficult 
to calculate, as the rings are so near as to be amost unrecognizable 
without the aid of a microscope; but from the cut end of one 
about the same size on Mt. Hood I made out fifty rings and_possi- 
bly more! This dwarfish nature is only natural to them when in- 
habiting the extreme tops of the lower mountains, or above the snow 
line on the higher. On the slopes near the end of the main timber 
belt, they reach generous proportions and are both objects of beauty. 
The fir is sometimes nearly one hundred feet high and is almost 
cylindrical from the bottom to the top, so short and thick are the 
branches. The hemlock is the exact opposite, and when half-grown 
is a perfect cone and the most beautiful conifer with which I am 
acquainted. It seems at times as if the tree must have been sub- 
jected to the pruner’s shears, so perfectly regular is its form. Add 
to this its very dense, pretty clusters of leaves giving it the appear- 
ance of being thickly covered with green rosettes, and it is a de- 
lightful object to gaze upon. Even when age has given it a diameter 
of three feet, it does not lose its beauty, for a pleasing majesty 
takes the place of its charming regularity, like a beautiful girl 
tipened into regal womanhood. No room was given me at this 
_ time for these reflections, for while my companion had kindled a fire 
in a little clump of dead hemlock, and the bacon was sizzling there- 
on, preparatory to being sandwiched between slices of bread, our 
frugal, but after such labors, appetizing meal, I was busy making a 
rough map. I spread out a sheet of clean paper upon a flat bowl- 
der, and, placing upon it my compass to get the cardinal points, I 
_ traced thereon the main trend of rivers and chains, and located the 
highest peaks. This was all done to enable our friends below to 
judge somewhat of the unexplored country beyond us, and where 
it was most probable a trail could be run, for this purpose alone, for 
had the time been altogether at my disposal, I should have done 
nothing but gaze, gaze. A more magnificent scene had never pre- 
sented itself to my eyes, and I doubt whether anything in the 
higher Alps or the grand ice-mountains of Alaska could outrival 
