168 



NATURE FOR ITS OWN SAKE 



The gorge. 



Following 

 the brook. 



mountain to ocean. The water cuts its bed 

 with rolling rocks, and the rocks themselves 

 that fall into the brook as bowlders are ground 

 to sand and silt before they reach the sea. The 

 stream is a grinding mill in every part of it, 

 and no wonder that the bed cuts back and cuts 

 deep in the glen where the current runs so 

 swiftly. 



The mountain-brook with its dash and flash, 

 its abrupt banks, its overhanging foliage so cool 

 and quiet in the heat of summer, is the most de- 

 lightful of all nature studies. Especially do we 

 find it so if we come upon it fresh from months 

 of living in the city and spend our first day of 

 vacation tracing the water to its source. Every 

 feature of it seems so fresh, so instinct with 

 life. The stream in its irregular bed twist- 

 ing about among bowlders, the rocky dripping 

 banks covered with mosses, twining vines, and 

 rank ferns, the break of sunlight through the 

 foliage, how very beautiful they all seem ! On 

 such a day, in such a place, the joy of being 

 alive of simply breathing, seeing, hearing, 

 touching is intense. How long we stand look- 

 ing at the shiver and tremble of the water run- 

 ning over a flat rock ! How long we sit beside 

 the waterfall watching the plunge of the brook 



