158 SNOWY RANGE EXPEDITION. 
making at least one department attractive ; and 
Taxidermy , as a fine art , subservient to science , 
became the work of her life. 
f RS. MAXWELL’S next work, after securing the 
siredons, and a variety of other objects of 
interest, at Gold Lake, was in a region very dif- 
ferent from any we have yet described, namely : 
that portion of the Snowy Range which lies 
above timber-line. 
Although the plains are almost perfectly tree- 
less, the Rocky Mountains are well wooded; 
their sides and gorges, in most places, being 
covered with pine, spruce, cedar, and fir trees. 
These are of such persistent growth, they appear 
almost up to the limit of perpetual snow, growing 
even where the drifts lie deep about their roots 
nine or ten months in the year. Still, as this 
altitude is approached, their size gradually grows 
less, their trunks are twisted and gnarled ; and, 
as the fierce northwest winds prevent branches 
appearing upon that side, the other side is densely 
covered by preposterously long ones. Finally, 
dwindled to mere shrubs, their branches parallel 
with the ground and nearly upon it, they disap- 
pear. This extreme limit of tree-growth is called 
timber-line. 
Almost the only vegetation found above it is 
