MY FARTHEST NORTH 241 



great living rugs of strange textures and oriental tones; 

 broad carpets there are of gray and green; long luxuri- 

 ous lanes, with lilac mufflers under foot, great beds of 

 a moss so yellow chrome, so spangled with intense red 

 sprigs, that they might, in clumsy hands, look raw. 

 There are knee-deep breadths of polytrichum, which 

 blends in the denser shade into a moss of delicate crim- 

 son plush that baffles description. 



Down between the broader masses are bronze-green 

 growths that run over each slight dip and follow down 



Lichens and moss forma 



the rock crannies like streams of molten brass. Thus 

 the whole land is overlaid with a living, corrosive 

 mantle of activities as varied as its hues. 



For ages these toil on, improving themselves, and 

 improving the country by filing down the granite and 

 strewing the dust around each rock. 



The frost, too, is at work, breaking up the granite 

 lumps; on every ridge there is evidence of that — ^low, 

 rounded piles of stone which plainly are the remnants 

 of a boulder, shattered by the cold. Thus, lichen, moss, 

 and frost are toiling to grind the granite surfaces to 

 dust. 



Much of this powdered rock is washed by rain into 

 the lakes and ponds; in time these cut their exits 



