24 THE PLANT WORLD 



5215 feet. Here a cairn, constructed of loose stones, marks the highest 

 point. The fog, which promised to lift when we reached the table-land, 

 still hung about the top of the mountain. The great South Basin was 

 completely hidden from sight and yawned at our feet, more awful, 

 because veiled in mist. Thoreau* admirably describes just such a fog 

 as the writer and Joe Cripps were in on the summit of Mt. Ktaadn, on 

 August 1, 1900, in the following quotation frem his book, " The Maine 

 Woods :" "At length I entered within the skirts of the cloud which 

 seemed forever drifting over the summit, and yet would forever be gone, 

 but was generated out of that pure air as fast as it flowed away. Now 

 the wind would blow me out a yard of clear sunlight, wherein I stood; 

 then a gray, dawning light was all it could accomplish, the cloud-line 

 ever rising and falling with the wind's intensity. Sometimes it seemed 

 as if the summit would be cleared in a few moments, and smile in 

 sunshine ; but what was gained on one side was lost in another. It was 

 like sitting in a chimney and waiting for the smoke to blow away. It 

 was, in fact, a cloud factory — these were the cloud-works, and the wind 

 turned them off done from the cool, bare rocks. Occasionally, when 

 the windy columns broke in to me, I caught sight of a dark, damp crag 

 to the right or the left ; the mist driving ceaselessly between it and me. 

 It reminded me of the creations of the old epic and dramatic poets, of 

 Atlas, Vulcan, the Cyclops, and Prometheus. Such was Caucasus and 

 the rock where Prometheus was bound. It was vast, Titanic, and such 

 as man never inhabits." 



The fog threatening to remain all day, the guide and the writer 

 retraced their steps down the mountain, but not without a feeling of 

 regret at having missed the magnificent view that unfolds itself when 

 the clouds lift. A considerable number of alpine plants were gathered 

 under such unpropitious conditions. These were carried back to the 

 bark camp, where we had left our outfit in essaying the mountain top, 

 and together with the plants collected on the slopes and ridges below 

 form the basis of the botanical description of the trip. Leaving camp 

 after a hurried lunch, the river was reached after an exhausting tramp 

 of twelve miles through the wdlderness. Night was spent opposite Abol 

 Brook in a deserted log cabin, fitted up with two bunks and a large cook 

 stove. In the morning of August the second, 1901, Benny Harris's 

 Camp was passed and McPlieeter's settlement was reached in the after- 

 noon of the same day, after three days' absence, to the astonishment of 

 everyone. Fortunately, the steamer was delayed by about an hour in 

 the loading of timber, so that hurriedly packing the plants collected in 

 an empty starch box, the writer was in time to reach the railroad and 



*Thoreau, Maine Woods, p. 84. 



