A TASTE OF MAINE BIRCH 123 



appalling cracks and fissures, the rent bowlders, the 

 smitten granite floors, gave one a new sense of the 

 power of heat and frost. In one place we noticed 

 several deep parallel grooves, made by the old gla- 

 ciers. In the depressions on the summit there was 

 a hard, black, peaty-like soil that looked indescrib- 

 ably ancient and unfamiliar. Out of this mould, 

 which might have come from the moon or the inter- 

 planetary spaces, were growing mountain cranber- 

 ries and blueberries or huckleberries. We were 

 soon so absorbed in gathering the latter that we 

 were quite oblivious of the grandeurs about us. It 

 is these blueberries that attract the bears. In eat- 

 ing them, Uncle Nathan said, they take the bushes 

 in their mouths, and by an upward movement strip 

 them clean of both leaves and berries. We were 

 constantly on the lookout for the bears, but failed 

 to see any. Yet a few days afterward, when two 

 of our party returned here and encamped upon the 

 mountain, they saw five during their stay, but failed 

 to get a good shot. The rifle was in the wrong 

 place each time. The man with the shotgun saw 

 an old bear and two cubs lift themselves from be- 

 hind a rock and twist their noses around for his 

 scent, and then shrink away. They were too far 

 off for his buckshot. I must not forget the superb 

 view that lay before us, a wilderness of woods and 

 waters stretching away to the horizon on every 

 hand. Nearly a dozen lakes and ponds could be 

 seen, and in a clearer atmosphere the foot of Moose- 

 head Lake would have been visible. The highest 



