62 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



snow ; sifting, hurtling through the leaves and 

 branches, choking the streams, covering the 

 ground, crushing bushes and ferns, rapidly deep- 

 ening, packing around the trees and breaking 

 them, rising higher until the topmost boughs of 

 the giants were buried, leaving not a leaf or twig 

 in sight, so complete was the desolation. At last 

 the volcanic storm began to abate, the fiery soil 

 settled; mud floods and boulder floods passed 

 over it, enriching it, cooling it; rains fell and 

 mellow sunshine, and it became fertile and ready 

 for another crop. Birds, and the winds, and 

 roaming animals brought seeds from more fortu- 

 nate woods, and a new forest grew up on the top 

 of the buried one. Centuries of genial growing 

 seasons passed. The seedling trees became giants, 

 and with strong outreaching branches spread a 

 leafy canopy over the gray land. 



The sleeping subterranean fires again awake 

 and shake the mountains, and every leaf trem- 

 bles. The old craters, with perhaps new ones, are 

 opened, and immense quantities of ashes, pumice, 

 and cinders are again thrown into the sky. The 

 sun, shorn of his beams, glows like a dull red 

 ball, until hidden in sulphurous clouds. Volcanic 

 snow, hail, and floods fall on the new forest, 

 burying it alive, like the one beneath its roots. 

 Then come another noisy band of mud floods 

 and boulder floods, mixing, settling, enriching 

 the new ground, more seeds, quickening sun- 



