16 WILD ANIMALS OF GLACIER NATIONAL PARK. 



highest peaks, but some are too precipitous for even these skilled 

 climbers. The lower slopes of the mountains are generally covered 

 with soil, slide rock, or morainal deposits and, in each case, with 

 such growth of vegetation as the depth of soil will support. The 

 valleys and basins are rich and fertile, as is shown by dense forests 

 and brilliant flower gardens. 



Great melting snowbanks feed the foaming streams, while glaciers 

 grind and sift their floury silt from muddy to milky streams and 

 white to tinted lakes. Springs of purest water in countless numbers 

 break out from the mountain sides and unite into rivulets and creeks 

 and torrents as they descend the steep slopes, while the seepage of 

 underground waters feeds velvety meadows and dense fern-clad 

 glades. The whole region is enriched by its* bounteous humidity, 

 and the vintage of the heavy winter snows is poured out over the 

 thirst}^ valleys far and wide. 



Plant life is abundant and varied, and as the* endless combinations 

 of plant associations crowd and push for supremacy, those best fitted 

 for the existing local environment hold the main areas while the less 

 fitted are crowded back. Temperature, light, shade, moisture, depth 

 and nature of soil, wind, and fire have all been potent factors in the 

 present arrangement of the vegetation of the mountains, and all but 

 the last have added beauty and interest to the flora. Fortunately the 

 ravages of fire have not been extensive, and the grazing of domestic 

 stock has not injured the virgin beauty of the mountain meadows, 

 which are among the greatest attractions of the park. The flower- 

 ing of one set of plants after another spreads clouds of color over 

 the meadows and open slopes, where on one day a golden glow of 

 dogtooth violets holds the eye, and a week later the creamy white 

 of the west-wind flower is seen, only to be followed in rapid sequence 

 by the delicate purple of the vetchling and the deep blue of the gen- 

 tian ; and so on until the short summer is over. But each dominant 

 flower has its understudies of varied shape and color filling in every 

 available nook and corner, while each different type of soil or vary- 

 ing belt of soil-moisture holds its own sets of species, from beds of 

 purple and creamy heather above timberline down to the tall white 

 globes of beargrass on the open slopes below. Even the deep shade 

 of the forest is brightened b}- the white stars of the pine lily {CJlii- 

 tonia) and single-flowered wintergreen {Moneses) on carpets of false 

 mitrewort and lacelike Tiarelhu and by purple and white pyrolas 

 and Chimapliila^ scarlet painted-cups, magenta and yellow monkey 

 flowers (Mimulus), together with a host of other common flowers, 

 and occasionally some of the rare and exquisite wood orchids. 



The forests vary from deep and somber stands of closely set trunks 

 of pine, spruce, and fir, cedar, hemlock, and western tamarack, to the 

 open and straggling timberline belts, the Christmas-tree parks of 



