STEEP TRAILS 



And it is upon these flood-beds of moraine soil, 

 thus suddenly and simultaneously laid down 

 and joined edge to edge, that the flowery chap- 

 arral is growing. 



Thus, by forces seemingly antagonistic and 

 destructive. Nature accomphshes her benefi- 

 cent designs — now a flood of fire, now a flood 

 of ice, now a flood of water; and again in the 

 fullness of time an outburst of organic life — 

 forest and garden, with all their wealth of fruit 

 and flowers, the air stirred into one universal 

 hum with rejoicing insects, a milky way of 

 wings and petals, girdling the new-born moun- 

 tain like a cloud, as if the vivifying sunbeams 

 beating against its sides had broken into a 

 foam of plant-bloom and bees. 



But with such grand displays as Nature is 

 making here, how grand are her reservations, 

 bestowed only upon those who devotedly seek 

 them! Beneath the smooth and snowy surface 

 the fountain fires are still aglow, to blaze forth 

 afresh at their appointed times. The glaciers, 

 looking so still and small at a distance, repre- 

 sented by the artist with a patch of white paint 

 laid on by a single stroke of his brush, are still 

 flowing onward, unhalting, with deep crys- 

 tal currents, sculpturing the mountain with 

 stern, resistless energy. How many caves and 

 fountains that no eye has yet seen lie with all 

 36 



