36 FOREST TREES OF CALIFORNIA. 



now more radiantly reflective than ever, reminds us of that 

 other "fir tree set in the desert of the deserted" — sacred em- 

 blem of perceptive scientific truth of a superior order. As 

 the wind-waves leave their own beautiful rippling records 

 on the highland sands, so do the water-waves theirs along 

 the shore; they also sing a similar song, the emblematic sig- 

 nificance of which is nearly alike the same, for saith not the 

 poet truly? 



•• The fir grove murmurs with a sea-like sound." 



Hence it is that hearts nicely attuned to nature's harmony 

 in the great forestal variety, full oft catch the grand orches- 

 tral chant that swells sublime in the mountain heights or 

 sweetly dies along the gale, and even the tacit echoes from 

 some far off song, perchance, comes softly swelling on the 

 listening ear when a still small voice of silence is all about — 

 above, below — and not a leaf astir among the boughs. 



As tor the serener haunts of the hermit mountain bird and 

 the merry pine squirrel, the fir trees are their house — a 

 velvety bed and board forever spread in silvered emerald. 

 The beams of these temples are as the goodly cedars, and their 

 rafters of fir, decked in gold and royal purple pillars, as it 

 were, of the heaven's tent and table, silver-lined, balsam- 

 perfumed, their airs are pure and sweet as the breath of lilies. 

 Lordly shadows and secure shelters are they, where the weary 

 pilgrim is wont to rest or repose in Eden sleep, on a virgin 

 bed of boughs. 



Dr. Englemann remarks : " Leaves of the young tree flat, 

 scarcely grooved, never, I believe, notched; fibrous bundles 

 in twos. On full grown trees, and especially on fertile 

 branches, the leaves are one fourth wider than thick, or even 

 perfectly square ; the resin-ducts in these leaves, placed equi- 

 distant from the edges and keel, separated from the epider- 

 mis by a layer of hypoderm cells, externally indicated by a 

 green stripe dividing the bands of stomata, so that these 

 leaves show four lower white bands. Cones six to eight 

 inches long, two and one half to three and one quarter thick, 

 purple : bracts lanceolate, shorter than the broad scale, wing 

 of the slender seed very oblique, wider than long; the only 

 seed examined had ten cotyledons." The scales flat and set 

 horizontally or not bent, so as to cup the cone. 



The texture of the timber apparently like cedar — darker 

 heart: makes excellent firewood ; has been accredited valua- 

 ble by some writers, but we have no personal experience or 

 observation of its applied utility ; said to have been exten- 

 sively used in some localities, but from our observation of 

 fallen trees in the forest it seems to us liable to speedy decay 

 when left exposed to the weather. 





