THE SUMMIT OF THE YEARS 



tradiction that in their outlines old mountains look 

 young, and young mountains look old. The only 

 youthful feature about young mountains is that 

 they carry their heads very high, and the only old 

 feature about old mountains is that they have a 

 look of repose and calmness and peace. All the 

 gauntness, leanness, angularity, and crumbling de- 

 crepitude are with the young mountains; all the 

 smoothness, plumpness, graceful, flowing lines of 

 youth are with the old mountains. Not till the rocks 

 are clothed with soil made out of their own decay 

 are outlines softened and life made possible. Youth- 

 ful mountains like the Alps are battle-marked by 

 the elements, and their proud heads are continually 

 being laid low by frost, wind, and snow; they are 

 scarred and broken by avalanches the season 

 through. Old mountains, such as the Appalachian 

 System, wear an armor of soil and verdure over 

 their rounded forms on which the arrows of Time 

 have little effect. The turbulent and noisy and stiff- 

 necked period of youth is far behind them. 



Hundreds of dairy-farms nestle in the laps of the 

 Catskills; and their huge, grassy aprons, only a 

 little wrinkled here and there, hold as many grazing 

 herds. Woodchuck Lodge is well upon the knee of 

 one of the ranges, and the fields we look upon are 

 like green drapery lying in graceful curves and 

 broad, smooth masses over huge extended limbs. 

 Patches of maple forest here and there bend over 

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