332 



shadowed evergreens, the sight awakes in me a feel- 

 ing like the opening chords of Chopin's grand Marche 

 Funebre, or the wonderful music of the Valhalla 

 motive full of an uplifting majesty that bears the 

 soul to silent communion with the solemn mysteries 

 of the eternal. There is surely something in this. 

 The bright dancing flash of sunlit birch leaves is a 

 scherzo, and the dark shadows of the full-clothed ever- 

 green are those deep bass chords that go way down 

 in you and rock the foundations of your soul. But 

 to come back to our spruce. You see that the leaves 

 are distinctly four-sided, and that they are set singly 

 on the branch, completely surrounding it so that they 

 point in every direction. The cones of this tree are 

 small, about three inches long, cylindrical, of a soft, 

 dull brown. The cone-scales are thin, pliant, and clasp 

 over each other loosely. These cone scales are rounded 

 at the ends, but the ends, if you look at them closely, 

 are slightly uneven along the edges. The small cigar- 

 like cones are usually covered with resin of a frosty 

 white, and hang in thick bunches at the ends of the 

 branches. This tree, in its perfect development, is 

 indeed beautiful. It is a native of the Black Sea where 

 it grows to a height of seventy-five feet. It is of com- 

 pact foliage and of a distinctly conical form of growth. 

 Pinus ponderosa. (Western Yellow Pine. No. 26.) 

 Back of McGowan's Pass Tavern, a little to the south- 

 east, on the ground embraced by the encircling walk, 

 you will see two large pine trees. They are between 

 thirty and forty feet high, with board-reaching boughs. 

 If you can get near enough to them to count the leaves 



