238 . PEARLS AND PEBBLES. 



Never idle were those vegetable miners, always digging 

 materials from the dark earth to add power and sub- 

 stance to the tree, hour by hour building up its wonder- 

 ful structure, taking and selecting only such particles as 

 were suited to increase the woody fibre and add to the 

 particular qualities of the tree, whether it be oak, or ash, 

 or maple, or the majestic pine. 



But while the tree had been receiving, it had also 

 year by year been giving back to earth and air, in an 

 altered state, something that it did not require for itself. 

 It had given back to the earth fresh matter, in the form 

 of leaves, decayed branches and effete bark and fruitful 

 seed. It had purified and changed the gases that it had 

 first inhaled, and deprived them of the properties that 

 were injurious to animal life. Something had gathered 

 up the fragments that had been thrown off; there had 

 been change, but not loss. 



Now, let us look more closely at the surface of this 

 fallen tree as it lies before us, a cumberer of the 

 ground. 



It is covered with variegated mosses, soft as piled 

 velvet, but far more lovely. Here on the mouldering 

 old wood are miniature forests, Hypnurns, Dicranuins, 

 Bryums, with many lichens of the tenderest hues, grey, 

 yellow or brown deepening to red, and, it may be, some 

 brilliant fungus of gorgeous scarlet or cardinal red, fawn 

 or gold, exquisite in form or in coloring, contrasting 

 richly with the green of the mosses. 



