shows that a century or more has passed since the
last master flood came to awaken everything movable to go swirling and
dancing on wonderful journeys. These floods may occur during the summer,
when heavy thunder-showers, called "cloud-bursts," fall on wide, steeply
inclined stream basins furrowed by converging channels, which suddenly
gather the waters together into the main trunk in booming torrents of
enormous transporting power, though short lived.

One of these ancient flood boulders stands firm in the middle of the
stream channel, just below the lower edge of the pool dam at the foot of
the fall nearest our camp. It is a nearly cubical mass of granite about
eight feet high, plushed with mosses over the top and down the sides to
ordinary high-water mark. When I climbed on top of it to-day and lay
down to rest, it seemed the most romantic spot I had yet found--the one
big stone with its mossy level top and smooth sides standing square and
firm and solitary, like an altar, the fall in front of it bathing it
lightly with the finest of the spray, just enough to keep its moss cover
fresh; the clear green pool beneath, with its foam-bells and its half
circle of lilies leaning forward like a band of admirers, and flowering
dogwood and alder trees leaning over all in sun-sifted arches. How
soothingly, restfully cool it is beneath that leafy, translucent
ceiling, and how delightful the water music--the deep bass tones of the
fall, the clashing, ringing spray, and infinite variety of small low
tones of the current gliding past the side of the boulder-island, and
glinting against a thousand smaller stones down the ferny channel! All
this shut in; every one of these influences acting at short range as if
in a quiet room. The place seemed holy, where one might hope to see God.

After dark, when the camp was at rest, I groped my way back to the altar
boulder and passed the night on it,--above the water, beneath the leaves
and stars,--everything still more impressive than by day, the fall seen
dimly white, singing Nature's old love song with solemn enthusiasm,
while the stars peering through the leaf-roof seemed to join in the
white water's song. Precious night, precious day to abide in me forever.
Thanks be to God for this immortal gift.

_June 15._ Another reviving morning. Down the long mountain-slopes the
sunbeams pour, gilding the awakening pines, cheering every needle,
filling every living thing with joy. Robins are singin