214 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



The Natural Attractions of High 

 Ridge. 



Mr. Perrine is not a man to retro- 

 grade. After loving and living with 

 the Palisades for many years, it is a 

 high compliment he pays High Ridge 

 in moving there. So I inquired what 

 he considered the chief attractions or, 

 perhaps I should say, how the well- 

 known attractions chiefly appealed to 

 him. He replied as follows : 



" *Y\ 'hat is it that attracted me to this 

 place?'" 



"It is simple. The hills and stone 

 walls and vines that run over them, 

 the trees whose boughs are harps for 

 the autumn gales — these are all a good 

 excuse for one to break into song if 

 it is in him. But the quality of the 

 song has little to do with the local 

 aspect of the scene. Its life is wholly 

 dependent upon the artist's ability to 

 catch and register the play of elemental 

 forces. He must subject what his eye 

 sees to what his every sense playing 

 upon the emotions tells him. It is not 

 the little cross section of the land- 

 scape that arouses one. it is the eternal 

 laws that are shot through every atom 

 of the universe. What has color to do 

 with the landscape? It comes over it 

 and is gone; a sound vibrating from 

 an Aeolian harp. Nature as the eye 

 reports her is wild and chaotic. With 

 her manifold sounds what has she to 

 compare with the symphony orches- 

 tra? The use of color as an abstract 

 form of expression has not kept pace 

 with the use of sound. We are still 

 children groping for the keys, our 

 hearts filled with a longing for which 

 we cannot find utterance. It is the old, 

 the eternal urge." 



He Loves the Stormiest and Wildest. 



Perrine remained upon the cliffs, to 

 live with them and to study as no 

 other man has studied them, in all their 

 moods, the stormiest and wildest of 

 these being meat and drink to him. For 

 the savage which lurks in the breast of 

 every man is strongly marked in the 

 nature of this most representative 

 painter of the Palisades. He lives a 

 lonely life in a little chalet half-way 

 down the steep and rugged old ferry 

 road that runs from Englewood Cliffs 

 to the river margin opposite Spuyten 

 Duyvil. There are two large rooms 

 in the house — one on the first floor 



and the other on the slope-ceiled upper 

 story. In the wide-windowed upper 

 room Perrine works. It was here that 

 he painted that striking Palisades Cliff 

 scene which hangs in the White House, 

 the notable rock piece "Getting Fire- 

 wood" owned by the New Gallery, to- 

 gether with many other pictures, 

 among them "The Robbers," owned 

 by the Carnegie Institute. It was here 

 that the late Richard Watson Gilder 

 and other writers have come to visit 

 him and hear him talk in his ecstatic 

 way about the Palisades. 



When the cold winds have stripped 

 bare the trees and the faces of the 

 crags peer out in the thin winter sun- 

 light, that is when Perrine does most 

 of his work. He loves to paint the 

 black clouds that lower above the cliffs, 

 and nothing suits him better than a 

 great storm, when the pines and cedars 

 are bending like tortured wraiths be- 

 fore the wind. With Perrine, as with 

 all true artists, painting is worship. He 

 speaks with the reverence of the as- 

 cetic of the wonderful work of Nature 

 in and about his airy demesne. — Bailey 

 Milliard in "The Bookman." 



Volcanic Ashes Damage Marine 

 Vegetation. 



The expedition sent by the United 

 States Bureau of Soils to study the 

 seaweeds of the Alaskan coast as a 

 possible source of potash, reports ser- 

 ious damage to marine vegetation from 

 the eruption of the volcano Katmai, in 

 June of 1912. 



In many places, the ash from the 

 eruption covered the sea bottom to a 

 depth of a foot and a half to two feet, 

 and in certain spots even to more 

 than four feet. This layer of loose 

 ash either smothers the sea plants, or 

 covers tueir anchorage on the firm 

 rocks so that they get no hold on the 

 bottom from which to grow. 



In addition, great fields of pumice 

 float on the surface and are carried 

 hither and thither by wind and tide. 

 Some of these fields are a hundred 

 yards across and a foot thick ; so that a 

 small vessel can hardly force its way 

 through them, and in places, a man 

 can walk on the surface. As these 

 rafts move about, the floating lumps 

 bruise and grind the seaweeds, until 

 over considerable areas, the rocks are 

 >coured nearlv clean. 



