Tree Life 



mass produces a thousand shimmerings of light and 

 shade, ever grateful to the eye, as compared with the 

 characterless type of leaf in the sour gum, sassafras, and 

 osage orange. Although a leaf is not as important as a 

 tree's other features for showing its character, a little 

 observation convinces one that none other exhibits more 

 peculiar and interesting differences. Nothing will create 

 such an instant respect for this atom of vegetation as 

 the accurate drawing of half a dozen kinds. 



The most ponderous volume ever published is the 

 ancient record of this earth, compiled during thousands 

 of years, and imprinted in the rocks deep-buried in the 

 dust of ages, which here and there protrude their leafy 

 edges. If all the pages shall ever become accessible, 

 and their chirography legible, the massive work will ex- 

 cite the profoundest interest probably the one record 

 capable of surviving the ultimate wreck of earthly litera- 

 ture. An interesting page of that long history is the 

 testimony of fossil trees rhododendron, oak, sweet gum, 

 persimmon, etc. as to the climatic changes that have 

 swept again and again over the world, alternately exter- 

 minating and fostering the various forms of animal and , 

 vegetable life. 



In this account we read that magnolias, now a sub- 

 tropical growth, once adorned the landscape of Green- 

 land. It is hard to conceive of the present flora of 

 Virginia as having ever flourished far up within the icy 

 regions of the arctic circle. What vicissitudes vegeta- 

 tion has experienced in by -gone ages! Now banished by 



27 



