ks of withered bracken and
moss. I heard trees falling for hours at the rate of one every two or
three minutes; some uprooted, partly on account of the loose,
water-soaked condition of the ground; others broken straight across,
where some weakness caused by fire had determined the spot. The gestures
of the various trees made a delightful study. Young Sugar Pines, light
and feathery as squirrel-tails, were bowing almost to the ground; while
the grand old patriarchs, whose massive boles had been tried in a
hundred storms, waved solemnly above them, their long, arching branches
streaming fluently on the gale, and every needle thrilling and ringing
and shedding off keen lances of light like a diamond. The Douglas
Spruces, with long sprays drawn out in level tresses, and needles massed
in a gray, shimmering glow, presented a most striking appearance as they
stood in bold relief along the hilltops. The madronos in the dells, with
their red bark and large glossy leaves tilted every way, reflected the
sunshine in throbbing spangles like those one so often sees on the
rippled surface of a glacier lake. But the Silver Pines were now the
most impressively beautiful of all. Colossal spires 200 feet in height
waved like supple golden-rods chanting and bowing low as if in worship,
while the whole mass of their long, tremulous foliage was kindled into
one continuous blaze of white sun-fire. The force of the gale was such
that the most steadfast monarch of them all rocked down to its roots
with a motion plainly perceptible when one leaned against it. Nature was
holding high festival, and every fiber of the most rigid giants thrilled
with glad excitement.

I drifted on through the midst of this passionate music and motion,
across many a glen, from ridge to ridge; often halting in the lee of a
rock for shelter, or to gaze and listen. Even when the grand anthem had
swelled to its highest pitch, I could distinctly hear the varying tones
of individual trees,--Spruce, and Fir, and Pine, and leafless Oak,--and
even the infinitely gentle rustle of the withered grasses at my feet.
Each was expressing itself in its own way,--singing its own song, and
making its own peculiar gestures,--manifesting a richness of variety to
be found in no other forest I have yet seen. The coniferous woods of
Canada, and the Carolinas, and Florida, are made up of trees that
resemble one another about as nearly as blades of grass, and grow close
together in much the