28 n tbe Stu&s of Natural Scenery, 



which plants lodge, and grow, and blossom. High up, just 

 below the everlasting snow, we find the sunny slopes gayly 

 decked with innumerable, brightly colored, or sometimes 

 pure white flowers. 



Isolated blocks in rocky woods often afford shelter and 

 protection for a very diverse flora of vines, creepers, and 

 herbaceous plants, under whose masses they jut forth gray, 

 mossy corners. They are often split and broken by the 

 action of frost on water collecting in the fissures. In the 

 wide openings the bramble plants its little seed, and soon 

 grows up to cover the whole mass with its wealth of leaves 

 and flowers ; or a grapevine may have been introduced in 

 some way or other, and in that case the effect is very pic- 

 turesque and beautiful. 



Here and there, these erratic blocks are so numerous 

 as to completely cover the surface, and if the ground is low 

 they soon become imbedded in a tufted growth of ling and 

 grass. Rocks and water in combination form the most 

 picturesque and beautiful scenery, not only in the manner 

 already pointed out, but in many other ways; here, tre- 

 mendous precipices, there, grottos and caves in which a 

 peculiar flora of mosses and filmy ferns finds an ideal 

 home, growing in tufted masses in deep shady crevices and 

 continually covered with dew. 



So everywhere, from the deep dungeons of the cavern to 

 the bright cliffs bathing in light and sunshine, the rocks 

 support an innumerable host of flowers of delicate forms 

 and colors, and beautiful enough to interest the most 

 indifferent. 



No landscape of one character is separated abruptly and 



