THE GLACIEK MEADOWS 135 



Furthermore, owing to the weathering to which the 

 adjacent rocks are subjected, material of the finer 

 sort, susceptible of transportation by rains and or 

 dinary floods, is more abundant during the meadow 

 period than during the lake period. Yet doubtless 

 many a fine meadow favorably situated exists in al 

 most prime beauty for thousands of years, the pro 

 cess of extinction being exceedingly slow, as we 

 reckon time. This is especially the case with mea 

 dows circumstanced like the one we have described 

 embosomed in deep woods, with the ground ris 

 ing gently away from it all around, the network of 

 tree-roots in which all the ground is clasped pre 

 venting any rapid torrential washing. But, in ex 

 ceptional cases, beautiful lawns formed with great 

 deliberation are overwhelmed and obliterated at 

 once by the action of land-slips, earthquake ava 

 lanches, or extraordinary floods, just as lakes are. 

 In those glacier meadows that take the places of 

 shallow lakes which have been fed by feeble streams, 

 glacier mud and fine vegetable humus enter largely 

 into the composition of the soil ; and on account of 

 the shallowness of this soil, and the seamless, water 

 tight, undrained condition of the rock-basins, they 

 are usually wet, and therefore occupied by tall 

 grasses and sedges, whose coarse appearance offers 

 a striking contrast to that of the delicate lawn-mak 

 ing kind described above. These shallow-soiled 

 meadows are oftentimes still further roughened and 

 diversified by partially buried moraines and swell 

 ing bosses of the bed-rock, which, with the trees and 

 shrubs growing upon them, produce a striking effect 



