NATURE FOR ITS OWN SAKE 
The gorge. 
Following 
the brook, 
mountain to ocean. The water cuts its bed 
with rolling rocks, and the rocks themselves 
that fall into the brook as bowlders are ground 
to sand and silt before they reach the sea. The 
stream is a grinding mill in every part of it, 
and no wonder that the bed cuts back and cuts 
deep in the glen where the current runs so 
swiftly. 
The mountain-brook with its dash and flash, 
its abrupt banks, its overhanging foliage so cool 
and quiet in the heat of summer, is the most de- 
lightful of all nature studies. Especially do we 
find it so if we come upon it fresh from months 
of living in the city and spend our first day of 
vacation tracing the water to its source. Every 
feature of it seems so fresh, so instinct with 
life. The stream in its irregular bed twist- 
ing about among bowlders, the rocky dripping 
banks covered with mosses, twining vines, and 
rank ferns, the break of sunlight through the 
foliage, how very beautiful they all seem! On 
such a day, in such a place, the joy of being 
alive—of simply breathing, seeing, hearing, 
touching—is intense. Tow long we stand look- 
ing at the shiver and tremble of the water run- 
ning over a flat rock! How long we sit beside 
the waterfall watching the plunge of the brook 
