PUGET SOUND 



rents through all the shaggy undergrowth of the 

 woods go with tribute to the small streams, and 

 these again to the larger. The rivers swell, but 

 there are no devastating floods; for the thick 

 felt of roots and mosses holds the abounding 

 waters in check, stored in a thousand thous- 

 and fountains. Neither are there any violent 

 hurricanes here. At least, I never have heard 

 of any, nor have I come upon then* tracks. 

 Most of the streams are clear and cool always, 

 for their waters are filtered through deep beds 

 of mosses, and flow beneath shadows all the 

 way to the sea. Only the streams from the 

 glaciers are turbid and muddy. On the slopes 

 of the mountains where they rush from their 

 crystal caves, they carry not only small par- 

 ticles of rock-mud, worn off the sides and bot- 

 toms of the channels of the glaciers, but grains 

 of sand and pebbles and large boulders tons 

 in weight, rolling them forward on their way 

 rumbling and bumping to their appointed 

 places at the foot of steep slopes, to be built 

 into rough bars and beds, while the smaller 

 material is carried farther and outspread in 

 flats, perhaps for coming wheat-fields and gar- 

 dens, the finest of it going out to sea, floating 

 on the tides for weeks and months ere it finds 

 rest on the bottom. 



Snow seldom falls to any great depth on the 



225 



