CHAP. IV.] FOREST TREES. 63 



torn of the narrow valley of the Saco, listening with pleasure to 

 the river as it foamed and roared over its stony bed, and admir 

 ing two water-falls, broken into sheets of white foam in their de 

 scent. The scene became more grand as we entered the defile 

 called the Notch, where, although the sun was high, the lofty 

 crags threw dark shadows across our path. On either hand were 

 wild and nearly perpendicular precipices, the road, on the side 

 overhanging the Saco, being usually protected by parapets of 

 stone or timber. A steep ascent led us up to a kind of pass or 

 water-shed, where there was an inn kept by one of the Crawford 

 family, well known in this region, which reminded me of some 

 of those hotels perched in similar wild situations in the Alps, as 

 on the Simplon and Grimsel. We learned that snow had fallen 

 here in the second week of September, and the higher hills had 

 been whitened for a time ; but they are now again uncovered. 

 Already the elevation has produced a marked change in the veg 

 etation the hemlock, the spruce, the balm of Gilead fir (Pinus 

 bahamea), and the white pine, beginning to form, with the birch, 

 a large proportion of the forest trees. The white pine, called in 

 England the Weymouth pine (Pinus strobus), is the most mag 

 nificent in size. It sometimes attains a diameter of five feet, and 

 a height of 150 feet, both here and in other parts of New Hamp 

 shire and Maine ; but it is very rare to meet with such trees 

 now, the finest having been burnt down in the great fires which 

 have every where devastated the woods. I observed the boughs 

 of the spruce hung with a graceful white lichen, called Old 

 Man s Beard (Usnea barbata), a European species. The com 

 mon fern (Pteris aquilina), now covers the moist ground under 

 the dark shade of the woods, and all the rotting trunks of fallen 

 trees are matted over with a beautiful green carpet of moss, 

 formed almost entirely of the feathery leaves of one of the most 

 elegant of the tribe, also occurring in Scotland (Hypnum Crista 

 castremis). Several kinds of club moss (Lycopodium], which, 

 like the Hypnum, were in full fructification, form also a con 

 spicuous part of the herbage ; especially one species, standing 

 erect like a miniature tree, whence its name, L. dendroideum, 

 from six to eight inches high. 



