THE FORESTS AND MEADOWS OF MT. SHASTA. 



" Enter this « wood, and v 



At the northern boundary of the Sierra Nevadas, 

 Mount Shasta, the peak of eternal snows, looks 

 proudly down from its elevation of 14,440 

 feet above the sea level. Vast armies of noble 

 forest-trees rally at its base, or clamber up its vol- 

 canic slopes, to the limit of perpetual snow, as 

 though in defense of their hoary-headed monarch. 

 Mile after mile they stretch away in all their 

 primeval grandeur, clothing valleys and sunny up- 

 lands, fringing long ranges of purple mountains, 

 and finding their limit only where they meet the 

 alkali plains, covered with juniper and sage-bush ; 

 or where the leveling axe has thinned their ranks to 

 give place to broad, fertile farms and picturesque 

 villages ; or to feed the relentless iron horse, which 

 shrieks and whistles through echoing canons and 

 romantic gorges, where the Indian once held undis- 

 puted sway, and the bear and the deer roamed 

 free and unmolested. 



Loftiest of the woodland sentinels is the tower- 

 ing sugar pine {P. Lambcrtiand), tallest of its tribe, 

 its average height being over 200 feet. The foli- 

 age is of a delicate character, and the cones are oft- 

 en more than a foot in length. Its trunk exudes 

 a sweet yellowish gum, which granulates on reach- 

 ing the outside air, forming a deposit of sugar, 

 slightly resinous to the taste. Groves of hardy 

 yellow-pines abound on every side, symmetrical, 

 graceful, straight as masts, the haunt of the clam- 

 orous blue-jay and the fleet-footed squirrel ; the 



iew the haunts of nattire 



store-house of the provident and artistic wood- 

 pecker. Both trees furnish valuable timber for 

 building purposes. Among other species are the 

 swamp-pine, a tree of medium height, flourishing 

 in marshy situations, the cembra-pine {P. flcxilis 

 albicaidis ?), a stunted tree with a white trunk, found 

 near the summit of the mountain ; and Fremont's 

 nut-pine, the cones of which yield large nuts, much 

 prized as food by the Digger Indians. 



Beside these are also the odorous junipers, the 

 red, black and silver firs, and mighty cedars, hung 

 with mistletoe, stretching their gaunt, gnarled limbs 

 in air, as though weary with the weight of years ; 

 the hemlock-spruce, the cypress, groups of ever- 

 green oaks, wind-swept scrub-oaks, the black and 

 the white oaks. 



Here are decayed trees, mantled with Spanish 

 moss ; others bent and mis-shapen with Ihe bur- 

 den of December snows or blasted from crest to 

 root by shafts of lightning. Here, again the fire 

 fiend has been at work, destroying in a few hours 

 the growth of centuries, leaving charred stumps, 

 smouldering logs, withered boughs, ashes, and 

 blackened ruins in its wake. 



Prostrate upon the springing aromatic floor, be- 

 strewn with patches of " squaw's-carpet," a tough, 

 tenacious little vine, with tiny, serrated leaves, lie 

 giant trunks, four or five feet in diamater, half 

 buried in pine-cones, with bare dry roots and split- 

 ting bark, their hollow interiors affording cosy 



