THE VIRGIN FOREST 



covered comb-like fronds sway in the breeze, and in the silence 

 one seems to hear a music as of aeolian harps. 



I sat on a fallen tree-trunk and gazed long at the interwoven 

 intricacies of the tropical forest. Flooded with sunlight, it was not 

 the same for a moment. The high-lights flashing from the leaves 

 were constantly shifting ; suddenly the edge of a bough would be 

 plunged into shadow, and now, blazing in the sun, the red blossoms 

 of a Bromelia would seem to come palpably nearer. Soon the slowly- 

 moving shaft of sunlight set some other miracle ablaze ; now higher, 

 now lower, some fresh beauty attracted the eye; it was as though 

 the forest, in all its recesses, were every second engendering some- 

 thing new. In the silence this life and movement was almost uncanny ; 

 one was made conscious of the great "Becoming" of Nature. 



What a contrast to this glittering life is offered by the virgin forest 

 of our German mountains, as I saw it at Kubany in the Bohmerwald 

 in August 1925 (Plate 14) ! Spruces, intermingled with fir, beech, 

 mountain-ash and elder give this woodland its individual character. 

 Here the twilight of the virgin forest falls upon the boggy soil, 

 covered with the great leaves of the plantain, amidst which, here 

 and there, lie outstretched the green and mossy trunks of fallen 

 giants. A more solemn picture than that offered by this forest cannot 

 be imagined ; it speaks of death rather than of life ; the fallen trunks 

 are eloquent of the transitory nature of earthly things ; and where 

 behind the reddish-yellow timber of a shattered trunk the spruces 

 whisper and move in the shade, their needle-like foliage reminds 

 one of rain or falling tears. 



In the virgin forest of Kubany the prostrate trunks are the most 

 individual and conspicuous feature of the scene; and the same may 

 be said of the fallen oaks of the Oldenburg forest, which lie on the 

 ground for decades without suffering any visible change. For the 

 renewal of the forest they are of inestimable value ; in the Kubany 

 forest whole rows of young spruces grow upon them ; they thrive 

 better in this elevated position, and they are not covered with snow 

 for weeks at a time. It has been reckoned that in the Russian forests 

 95 per cent, of the spruces grow in this manner. 



In the tropical forest the struggle for the light does not seem to 

 play the same part in the life of the wood as in Europe. It is, 

 of course, darker in the forest than on the open plains; this the 

 photographer soon realizes, for he can make only time exposures. 



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