50 
Strassburg. Think also of the time required for the growth of such a living 
pillar in the temple of nature, of the amount of food requisite to keep the 
evergreen crown fresh and luxuriant up in the burning sunlight. Often 
have I discovered at the gold-fields, at a depth of 100 feet, tender spongioles 
threading their way between slate, quartz and iron ore to the soft, moist, 
argillaceous veins, in order to obtain nourishment to send upwards to trees 
flourishing far above. And is this not also a fairy-world ? Down .there 
in the dark depths, not dreaming of the glorious world high above and the 
golden sunlight, work and toil the tender roots, and defiantly force their 
way through. the narrowest chink of the hard rock, ever seeking moisture 
and food and sending them upwards for the growth and the maintainance 
of such gigantic monuments of the vegetable world. And does ever the 
crown rocking herself high up in the air and bathing herself in the glorious 
sunlight dream of the silent doings and strivings of that hobgoblin world 
of roots ? Scarcely! Proudly she looks down upon everything that is 
beneath her and scarcely beholds that tiny human being who far below 
from her gigantic roots looks up awe-struck, to bow then still lower 
before the glorious works of Almighty power! 
"At length we had again reached the height with its view of the wooded 
ridges of near and distant mountain chains, and I was astonished to meet 
here with huts and stirring life. Several men, all Germans, were busy 
lopping off the branches of recently felled trees and cutting them into 
planks. Gigantic trees were lying on the ground furnishing the necessary 
material for the building of a house, of which the foundation line was 
already occupying almost the top of the mountain. The master was a 
powerful young man whose occupation was likewise that of felling trees 
and splitting them into shingles. He told us that when the new house 
with its larger dimensions was ready he should bring home his sweetheart 
and therefore was he building it so grandly. He pointed across to another 
mountain ridge and drew our attention to an apparently small bare spot 
with a bright point : this, he explained to us, was also a settlement, and 
there also lived a German "Landsinann." 
" The sun and the climbing had made us feel ^ arm and we longed for a 
draught of water. Our fellow-countryman took us about fifty paces down, 
drew asido the branches of a bush, thickly covered with flowers, and we 
stood before a splendid spring with ice-cold water, forming a stream that 
gently murmuring and overshadowed by luxuriant bushes flowed down into 
the valley beneath. 
" The man had chosen his place well. The clearing around him did not 
