EXPLORATIONS ON THE NORTHERN SLOPES 



From Wilkeson to the river the way is all through 

 a belt of forest, where the conditions of growth are very 

 favorable. The fir trees are massive, straight and free 

 from limbs to a great height. The larger ones, eight 

 to twelve feet in diameter on a level with a man's 

 head, carry their size upward, tapering very grad- 

 ually, till near the top they shoot out a thick mat of 

 foliage and the trunk in a few feet diminishes to a 

 point. One such was measured ; it stands like a huge 

 obelisk 180 feet, without a limb, supporting a crown of 

 but forty feet more. The more slender trees are, 

 curiously enough, the taller ; straight, clear shafts 

 rise 100 to 150 feet, topped with foliage whose highest 

 needles would look down on Trinity spire. Cedars, 

 hemlocks, spruce and white fir mingle with these giants, 

 but they do not compete with them in height ; they fill 

 in the spaces in the vast colonnades. Below is the car- 

 pet of deep golden green moss and glossy ferns, and the 

 tangle of vines and bushes that cover the fallen trunks 

 of the fathers of the forest. 



The silence of these mountains is awesome, the soli- 

 tude oppressive. The deer, the bear, the panther are 

 seldom met ; they see and hear first and silently slip 

 away, leaving only their tracks to prove their num- 

 bers. There are very few birds. Blue jays, and their 

 less showy gray, but equally impudent, cousins, the 

 "whiskey jacks," assemble about a camp; but in pass- 

 ing through the forest one may wander a whole day 

 and see no living thing save a squirrel, whose shrill 

 chatter is startling amid the silence. The wind plays in 

 the tree tops far overhead, but seldom stirs the branches 

 of the smaller growth. The great tree trunks stand 

 immovable. The more awful is it when a gale roars 

 through the timber ; when the huge columns sway in 

 unison and groan with voices strangely human. It is 

 fearful to lie in the utter darkness of a stormy night, 

 listening to the pulsating rush of the wind, the moan 

 of the forest and the crash of uprooted giants upon 



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