In the Sierra 



bleached spars, the ground beneath them 

 covered with a young even growth. Fire can 



*un in these woods, not only because the 

 thin bark of the trees is dripping with resin, 

 but because the growth is close, and the 

 comparatively rich soil produces good crops 

 of tall broad-leaved grasses on which fire 

 can travel, even when the weather is calm. 

 Besides these fire-killed patches there are a 

 good many fallen uprooted trees here and 

 there, some with the bark and needles still 

 on, as if they had lately been blown down in 

 some thunder-storm blast. Saw a large black- 

 tailed deer, a buck with antlers like the up- 

 turned roots of a fallen pine. 



After a long ramble through the dense 

 encumbered woods I emerged upon a smooth 

 meadow full of sunshine like a lake of light, 



ibout a mile and a half long, a quarter to 

 half a mile wide, and bounded by tall arrowy 

 pines. The sod, like that of all the glacier 

 meadows hereabouts, is made of silky agros- 

 tis and calamagrostis chiefly; their panicles 

 [ 273 ] 



