ON THE TIMBER LINE OF HIGH MOUNTAINS. 567 



that was five feet in circumference at three feet from the ground, and was per- 

 haps forty feet high. The places destitute of trees were the steep decHvities, — 

 while those on which the trees were growing were of a more level character. 

 Further down the mountain sides the steep inclines would be clothed with forest 

 growth, as well as those of a more gradual ascent. It is of the summit only that 

 the differences in inclination presented different forest aspects. But in the spaces 

 clear of " Balsam " as the Abies Frazeri is popularly known, an occasional one of 

 good size would be seen. In the close Balsam woods, both on the summit and 

 lower down the mountain sides, crops of young plants would be found under the 

 mature trees, but, what was very remarkable, there had evidently been no young 

 trees started till the parents were near maturity. A large area with trees thirty 

 or forty feet high would have an undergrowth of young ones a foot or so high, 

 while other areas of younger trees, would have innumerable small seedlings grow- 

 ing among the damp moss beneath them, and it was further interesting to note 

 that in most cases the crops of young plants in each area were about the same 

 age in each case, as if the seeds in the several locations had all started to grow 

 together in some one particular year, and probably at no other time. On the 

 naked places, where few or no trees were now found, the surface would be closely 

 covered by a matted growth of a grass almost peculiar to that region, Danthonia 

 compressa, but a close examination of the surface showed occasional tracts of deep 

 vegetable mold which had been formed by ages of decaying Hypnum or Sphag- 

 num moss, and the evident remains of roots, just as we now find under the Bal- 

 sam trees, and there is no doubt from these facts that these steep upper declivities 

 were once clothed with trees and mosses, to which the grass previously named^ 

 succeeded. 



With these facts in mind he examined the arboreal features of the White 

 Mountains in New Hampshire. On Mount Washington which is a little over 

 6,000 feet, the timber runs up to about 4,000 feet; while Mount Webster, a 

 mountain forming the southern peak of the same chain, and about 4,000 feet 

 high, has little timber above 3,000 feet. Clearly, climatic reasons will not ac- 

 count for these peculiarities. On Mount Washington there is much of the same 

 character as distinguishes the forest of the Rocky Mountains. As already noted 

 the timber line becomes marked at about 4,000 feet. For at least another thou- 

 sand feet we meet with scrubby bushes of Abies Balsamea, Abies nigra, and Abies 

 alba, with some Betula papyracea. Beyond this, and almost to the summit, an 

 occasional specimen of one or another of the coniferse may be seen. As noted 

 in regard to the Colorado scrubby growth, none of these had ever produced seed ;. 

 nor was it at all probable, from a careful survey of the locations, that many of 

 the areas could have been seeded by the winds, however strong, bringing the 

 seeds up these mountain heights. Moreover, there were many cases where there 

 were intermediate areas clear of all scrubby spruce plants, and where seeds could 

 be brought by winds in these modern times much easier than to the heights above. 

 Besides this, it was evident that many of these dwarfed specimens were of im- 

 mense age. Some that he examined were certainly fifty years old, though the- 



