HEART OF THE SOUTHERN CATSKILLS 43 



Here on the top of the mountain we over- 

 took spring, which had been gone from the val- 

 ley nearly a month. Red clover was opening 

 in the valley below and wild strawberries just 

 ripening; on the summit the yellow birch was 

 just hanging out its catkins, and the claytonia, 

 or spring beauty, was in bloom. The leaf-buds 

 of the trees were just bursting, making a faint 

 mist of green, which, as the eye swept down- 

 ward, gradually deepened until it became a 

 dense, massive cloud in the valleys. At the 

 foot of the mountain the clintonia, or northern 

 careen lily, and the low shad-bush were showing 

 their berries, but long before the top was reached 

 th^y were found in bloom. I had never before 

 stood amid blooming claytonia, a flower of 

 April, and looked down upon a field that held 

 ripening strawberries. Every thousand feet ele- 

 vation seemed to make about ten days' differ- 

 ence in the vegetation, so that the season Avas 

 a month or more later on the top of the moun- 

 tain than at its base. A very pretty flower 

 which we began to meet with well up on the 

 mountain-side was the painted trillium, the pet- 

 als white, veined with pink. 



The low, stunted growth of spruce and fir 

 which clothes the top of Slide has been cut 

 away over a small space on the highest point, 

 laying open the view on nearly all sides. Here 

 we sat down and enjoyed our triumph. We 

 saw the world as the hawk or the balloonist 

 sees it when he is 3,000 feet in the air. How 

 soft and flowing all the outlines of the hills and 



