118 PICEZ, OR SPRUCE TREES 
fraternity. By the former it is described as White 
Deal, by the latter defined as Swiss Pine. Yet it 
was from these trees, rated at lewliest of value in 
the timber marts of the world, holding even the worst 
fame of creosoted esthte experiment, that a few 
square inches of surface measure, with a depth little 
more than that required for a thin plating of veneer, 
of a price value an unappreciable fraction of the 
lowest current coin of the realm, were. appointed to 
make history. It was from these trees, and in pre- 
ference to all other trees that grow, that were requisi- 
tioned nearly half the component parts of certain 
little musical instruments, made up from ‘‘ wood and 
string,” and destined often to draw four golden-figured 
prices from eager buyers. From these lightly re- 
garded Mountain Spruces, growing in their grandeur 
of loneliness, sometimes moved and stirred but never 
affrighted, as were the unrighteous people, told of 
by Solomon in his Book of Wisdom, by the portents 
that surrounded them, “ The whistling of the wind, 
the melodious noise of birds among branches, and 
the pleasing fall of waters running violently” ; from 
each as they were formed and created, these instru- 
ments of subtle shape and make, ordained at some 
long-distant day to enrich our galleries of Art, and 
make addition to delights of sound. 
From them the frontal part of the great violins, 
violas, and ‘cellos, of Brescian and Cremonese fame, 
and of all other earlier and later viols, viols diskant 
and tenor, viols bass and double bass, were nearly half 
constructed, and these were those articles of vertu 
that were ultimately fated to fetch fabulous prices 
from succeeding generations of collectors and players. 
When we think of the part played by the high- 
altitude-growing specimens of this tree, it conjures 
up many a picture to the fiddle lover. Of Antonius 
Stradivarius and Joseph Guarnarius Del Jesu—in 
