THE AMERICAN FORESTS 333 



maple, chestnut and beech, ilex and locust, touch- 

 ing limb to limb, spread a leafy translucent can- 

 opy along the coast of the Atlantic over the 

 wrinkled folds and ridges of the Alleghanies, — 

 a green billowy sea in summer, golden and purple 

 in autumn, pearly gray like a steadfast frozen 

 mist of interlacing branches and sprays in leaf- 

 less, restful winter. 



To the southward stretched dark, level-topped 

 cypresses in knobby, tangled swamps, grassy 

 savannas in the midst of them like lakes of light, 

 groves of gay, sparkling spice-trees, magnolias 

 and palms, glossy-leaved and blooming and shin- 

 ing continually. To the northward, over Maine 

 and Ottawa, rose hosts of spiry, rosiny ever- 

 greens, — white pine and spruce, hemlock and 

 cedar, shoulder to shoulder, laden with purple 

 cones, their myriad needles sparkling and shim- 

 mering, covering hills and swamps, rocky head- 

 lands and domes, ever bravely aspiring and 

 seeking the sky ; the ground in their shade now 

 snow-clad and frozen, now mossy and flowery ; 

 beaver meadows here and there, full of lilies and 

 grass ; lakes gleaming like eyes, and a silvery 

 embroidery of rivers and creeks watering and 

 brightening all the vast glad wilderness. 



Thence westward were oak and elm, hickory 

 and tupelo, gum and liriodendron, sassafras 

 and ash, linden and laurel, spreading on ever 

 wider in glorious exuberance over the great fer- 



