The Chorus of the Forest 



against the sky could be seen the finely-toothed 

 cutting and waxy gold-green leaf that only could 

 mean beech, and I marveled. Could beech branches 

 be waving there ? That tree of low habit and A 

 spreading limb ! I called my guide's attention Tree Harp 

 to it, and he made a road, and then cleared space 

 for me to focus. Where trees were so numerous 

 it was impossible to get away far enough to in- 

 clude the entire subject. This mighty wind instru- 

 ment of the forest was fourteen feet in circum- 

 ference and fifty feet to the branching. We could 

 secure no leaves, but they were large and appeared 

 especially waxy. The trunk was the most beauti- 

 ful I ever have seen save the purple beeches of 

 Southern Indiana. Those are low, of widely- 

 spreading branch, and their trunks are like pur- 

 plish-gray moleskin. This forest beech had patches 

 of moleskin, then gray and green spaces, the fore- 

 runners of lichens, and then the lichens themselves 

 in big circles with exquisite gradations of gray, 

 white, and green colors. 



At its base grew a fern with fronds two feet 

 long, and the mottled brown carpet spread beneath 

 it was deep layers of dead leaves. Then we began 

 to watch for its kindred through the forest, and 

 found many, giants all of them. One thing we 

 noted in particular. Xot a beech ever leaned or 

 curved, but in a noble column all of them aspired 

 straight toward heaven, and among their stiff, 

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