PARK AND CCMCTCRY. 
165 
question of friction in the pipe is also an important 
one where the grade is very light. 
Considerable knowledge of engineering is nec- 
essary in the general improvement work of cemeter- 
ies, especially in the larger ones, and many well 
known superintendents have affiliations with that 
profession. But where this is lacking and in the 
matter of constructing drainage, it might be well to 
suggest to superintendents to procure specifications 
of some system of pipe sewerage and glean there- 
from all the available information on the subject of 
workmanship applicable to the case in hand. Ac- 
cess to such specifications can be usually had in 
the city hall of any town where any public im- 
provements are contemplated or have been car- 
ried out. 
Lichen and Mosses. 
We have found beauty in the tree yielding fruit, 
and in the herb yielding seed. How of the herb 
yielding no seed, the fruitless, flowerless lichen of 
the rock? (The reader must remember always that 
my work is concerning the aspects of things only: 
— of course a lichen has seeds just as other plants 
have, but not effectually or visibly for man.) 
Lichen, and mosses, though these last in their lux- 
uriance are deep and rich as herbage, yet both for 
the most part humblest of the green things that 
live, — how of these? Meek creatures! the first 
mercy of the earth, veiling with hushed softness its 
dintless rocks; creatures full of pity, covering with 
strange and tender honor the scarred disgrace of 
ruin, — laying quiet finger on the trembling stones, 
to teach them rest. No words that I know of, will 
say what these mosses are. None are delicate 
enough, none perfect enough, none rich enough. 
How is one to tell of the rounded bosses of furred 
and beaming green, — the starred divisions of rubied 
bloom, fine-filmed, as if the Rock Spirits could 
spin porphyry as we do glass, — the traceries of in- 
tricate silver, and fringes of amber, lustrous, 
arborescent, burnished through every fibre into fit- 
ful brightness and glossy traverses of silken change, 
yet all subdued and pensive, and framed for sim- 
plest, sweetest offices of grace. They will not be 
gathered, like the flowers, for chaplet or love token; 
but of these the wild bird will make its nest, and 
the wearied child his pillow. 
And, as the earth’s first mercy, so they are its 
last gift to us. When all other service is vain, from 
plant and tree, the soft mosses and gray lichen take 
up their watch by the headstone. The woods, the 
blossoms, the gift bearing grasses, have done their 
parts for a time, but these do service for ever. 
Trees for the builders yard, flowers for the bride’s 
chamber, corn for the granary, moss for the grave. 
Yet as in one sense the humblest in another 
they are the most honored of the earth-children. Un- 
fading as motionless, the worm frets them not, and 
the autumn wastes not. Strong in lowliness, they 
neither blanch in heat nor pine in frost. To them, 
slow-fingered, constant-hearted, is entrusted the 
weaving of the dark eternal tapestries of the hills; 
to them slow-pencilled, iris-dyed, the tender fram- 
ing of their endless imagery. Sharing the stillness 
of the unimpassioned rock, they share also its en- 
durance; and while the winds of departing spring 
scatter the white hawthorn blossoms like drifted 
snow, and summer dims on the parched meadow 
the drooping of its cowslip-gold, — far above, 
among the mountains, the silver lichen-spots rest, 
star-like, on the stone; and the gathering orange- 
stain upon the edge of yonder western peak reflects 
the sunsets of a thousand years. 
^ ■ 
I never have had time to examine and throw into 
classes the varieties of the mosses which grow on 
the two kinds of rock, nor have I been able to 
ascertain whether there are really numerous difier- 
ences between the species, or whether they only 
grow more luxuriantly on the crystallines than on 
the coherents. But this is certain, that on the 
broken rocks of the foreground in the crys- 
talline groups the mosses seem to set themselves 
consentfully and deliberately to the task of produc- 
ing the most exquisite harmonies of color in their 
power. They will not conceal the form of the rock, 
but will gather over it in little brown bosses, like 
small cushions of velvet made of mixed threads of 
dark ruby silk and gold, rounded over more sub- 
dued films of white and grey, with lightly crisped 
and curled edges like hoar frost on fallen leaves, 
and minute clusters of upright orange stalks with 
pointed caps, and fibres of deep green, and gold, and 
faint purple passing into black, all woven together, 
and following with unimaginable fineness of gentle 
growth the undulation of the stone they cherish, 
until it is charged with color so that it can receive 
no more; and instead of looking rugged, or cold 
or stern, as any thing that a rock is held to be at 
heart, it seems to be clothed with a soft, dark leop- 
ard skin, embroidered with arabesque of purple 
and silver. But in the lower ranges this is not so. 
The mosses grow in more independent spots, not 
in such a clinging and tender way over the whole 
surface; the lichens are far poorer and fewer; and 
the color of the stone itself is seen more frequently; 
altered, if at all, only into a little chiller grey than 
when it is freshly broken. So that a limestone 
landscape is apt to be dull and cold in general tone, 
with some aspect even of barrenness . — John Ruskin. 
