166 
NATURE FOR ITS OWN SAKE 
The Moun- 
tain Track, 
Brooks, 
more than a brook. And a brook is, or at 
least may be, a river in miniature. It usuaity 
comes from the hills, but it may come from an 
upland lake and creep across a flat meadow in a 
stupid way, lying lazily under bridges and mak- 
ing pools for cattle and ducks at every bend. 
Again, it may wind down through some heavily 
timbered country, its passage impeded by drift- 
wood and fallen Jogs (like so many of the Adi- 
rondack streams), with little beauty to com- 
mend it save its golden-brown coloring taken 
from decayed vegetation. Still again, it may 
come off the moors and flow through the peat- 
beds of Scotland on its way to some loch, pass- 
ing by great bowlders in the bed and scrub- 
timber on the banks, without being strikingly 
beautiful save in the ale-like hue of the water 
after a heavy rain. 
But none of these brooks quite realizes our 
idea of a mountain-stream. The true brook is 
to be found in the Catskills, in the Berkshires, 
sometimes in the Alleghanies, the Blue Ridge, 
or the Rocky Mountains. The local commu- 
nity usually gives it the commonplace but de- 
scriptive name of ‘Clear Brook” or “ Stony 
Brook.” At its mouth it often joins the river, 
much as the river joins the sea—that is, with 
