THE GLACIER MEADOWS 137 



timber line to the bottom of a canon or lake basin, 

 descending in fine, fluent lines like cascades, break 

 ing here and there into a kind of spray on large 

 boulders, or dividing and flowing around on either 

 side of some projecting islet. Sometimes a noisy 

 stream goes brawling down through them, and 

 again, scarcely a drop of water is in sight. They 

 owe their existence, however, to streams, whether 

 visible or invisible, the wildest specimens being 

 found where some perennial fountain, as a glacier or 

 snowbank or moraine spring sends down its waters 

 across a rough sheet of soil in a dissipated web 

 of feeble, oozing rivulets. These conditions give 

 rise to a meadowy vegetation, whose extending roots 

 still more obstruct the free flow of the waters, and 

 tend to dissipate them out over a yet wider area. 

 Thus the moraine soil and the necessary moisture 

 requisite for the better class of meadow plants are 

 at times combined about as perfectly as if smoothly 

 outspread on a level surface. Where the soil hap 

 pens to be composed of the finer qualities of glacial 

 detritus and the water is not in excess, the nearest 

 approach is made by the vegetation to that of the 

 lake-meadow. But where, as is more commonly the 

 case, the soil is coarse and bouldery, the vegetation 

 is correspondingly rank. Tall, wide-leaved grasses 

 take their places along the sides, and rushes and 

 nodding carices in the wetter portions, mingled 

 with the most beautiful and imposing flowers, 

 orange lilies and larkspurs seven or eight feet high, 

 lupines, senecios, aliums, painted-cups, many species 

 of mimulus and pentstemon, the ample boat-leaved 

 veratrum alba, and the magnificent alpine columbine, 



