est breath; yet is it strong to meet the wildest
onsets of the gale,--strong not in resistance, but compliance, bowing,
snow-laden, to the ground, gracefully accepting burial month after month
in the darkness beneath the heavy mantle of winter.

When the first soft snow begins to fall, the flakes lodge in the leaves,
weighing down the branches against the trunk. Then the axis bends yet
lower and lower, until the slender top touches the ground, thus forming
a fine ornamental arch. The snow still falls lavishly, and the whole
tree is at length buried, to sleep and rest in its beautiful grave as
though dead. Entire groves of young trees, from ten to forty feet high,
are thus buried every winter like slender grasses. But, like the violets
and daisies which the heaviest snows crush not, they are safe. It is as
though this were only Nature's method of putting her darlings to sleep
instead of leaving them exposed to the biting storms of winter.

Thus warmly wrapped they await the summer resurrection. The snow becomes
soft in the sunshine, and freezes at night, making the mass hard and
compact, like ice, so that during the months of April and May you can
ride a horse over the prostrate groves without catching sight of a
single leaf. At length the down-pouring sunshine sets them free. First
the elastic tops of the arches begin to appear, then one branch after
another, each springing loose with a gentle rustling sound, and at
length the whole tree, with the assistance of the winds, gradually
unbends and rises and settles back into its place in the warm air, as
dry and feathery and fresh as young ferns just out of the coil.

Some of the finest groves I have yet found are on the southern slopes of
Lassen's Butte. There are also many charming companies on the head
waters of the Tuolumne, Merced, and San Joaquin, and, in general, the
species is so far from being rare that you can scarcely fail to find
groves of considerable extent in crossing the range, choose what pass
you may. The Mountain Pine grows beside it, and more frequently the
two-leaved species; but there are many beautiful groups, numbering 1000
individuals, or more, without a single intruder.

I wish I had space to write more of the surpassing beauty of this
favorite spruce. Every tree-lover is sure to regard it with special
admiration; apathetic mountaineers, even, seeking only game or gold,
stop to gaze on first meeting it, and mutter to themselves: "That's a
mighty