ii8 PICEiE, OR SPRUCE TREES 



fraternity. By the former it is described as White 

 Deal, by the latter defined as Swiss Pine. Yet it 

 was from these trees, rated at lowliest of value in 

 the timber marts of the world, holding even the worst 

 fame of creosoted estate experiment, that a few 

 square inches of surface measure, with a depth little 

 more than that required for a thin plating of veneer, 

 of a price value an unappreciable fraction of the 

 lowest current coin of the realm, were appointed to 

 make history. It was from these trees, and in pre- 

 ference to all other trees that grow, that were requisi- 

 tioned nearly half the component parts of certain 

 little musical instruments, made up from " wood and 

 string," and destined often to draw four golden-figured 

 prices from eager buyers. From these lightly re- 

 garded Mountain Spruces, growing in their grandeur 

 of loneliness, sometimes moved and stirred but never 

 affrighted, as were the unrighteous people, told of 

 by Solomon in his Book of Wisdom, by the portents 

 that surrounded them, " The whistling of the wind, 

 the melodious noise of birds among branches, and 

 the pleasing fall of waters running violently " ; from 

 each as they were formed and created, these instru- 

 ments of subtle shape and make, ordained at some 

 long-distant day to enrich our galleries of Art, and 

 make addition to delights of sound. 



From them the frontal part of the great violins, 

 violas, and 'cellos, of Brescian and Cremonese fame, 

 and of all other earlier and later viols, viols diskant 

 and tenor, viols bass and double bass, were nearly half 

 constructed, and these were those articles of vertu 

 that were ultimately fated to fetch fabulous prices 

 from succeeding generations of collectors and players. 

 When we think of the part played by the high- 

 altitude-growing specimens of this tree, it conjures 

 up many a picture to the fiddle lover. Of Antonius 

 Stradivarius and Joseph Guarnarius Del Jesu — in 



