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two hotels at the gate of the Notch have also been consumed by fire. Were these fires kindled by sparks from the dusky prophet's torch? We are happy that we can leave this question with those cf our readers who love the atmosphere of wild traditions around mountains, better than the evening light that glows on their tops, or the rare flowers and plants that climb their ravines.

And we must not forget to speak of the range, before we lose sight of it here, as a soaring garden of plants, a vast conservatory of Flora. We are told that the distinct zones of vegetation on this range are scarcely surpassed on the flanks of Mount Etna or the Pyrenees.. Mount Washington is a gigantic thermometer of botanic life, and the creative forces, enfeebled as they ascend towards the zero of perpet ual snow, pass by degrees entirely out of the temperate lines, and indicate by plant, lichen, or moss, the levels of Lapland, Siberia, and Labrador.

But let us not anticipate any of the valuable details of the chapter on the vegetation of the mountains from a thoroughly competent hand, with which we are able to enrich this volume. Prof. Elward Tuckerman, of Amherst College, has been for many years a lover of the scenery, an explorer of the wildest glens and gorges, and a student of the botanic riches of the Mount Washington range. Mr. Emerson's description of a forest seer may be well applied to him.

A lover true, who knew by heart

Each joy the mountain dales impart;
It seemed that Nature could not raise
A plant in any secret place,
In quaking bog, or snowy hill,
Beneath the grass that shades the rill,
Under the snow, between the rocks,
In damp fields known to bird and fox,
But he would come in the very hour
It opened in its virgin bower,
As if a sunbeam showed the place,
And tell its long descended race.

The chapter which follows has been prepared by Prof. Tuckerman for these pages.

32

THE VEGETATION OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS.

THE predominant LIFE in mountains is always Vegetable Life. This, in itself, or in its manifold bearings on the landscape, is sure to be beheld and felt,-and studied, too, by those who seek the inner truth of the outward,

Unfolded still the more, more visible,

The more we know.

In the higher, alpine tracts, there is little beside this. A hare, two or three birds, and a very few insects, are all the animals as yet certainly known to inhabit the highest region of the White Hills." But that region is furnished with a peculiar and interesting vegetation; and the relations of this vegetation to that of the lower parts of the mountains, and of the low country, may first occupy, very briefly, our attention.

No one can observe carefully the plants of a high mountain, without seeing that those which occur in the higher parts are, to a considerable degree, different from those at the foot; and still further that this difference presents itself, with more or less evident distinctness, as a series of zones, each with vegetable features of its own. And these distinct zones of vegetation on mountains have been found by botanists to correspond with a like succession in the low country, one set of plants being followed here, in йike manner, by another, as we go northward, and that which characterizes the highest mountain

"Fourteen species of insects" were caught by Dr. J. W. Robbins on the summit of Mount Adams, and some water insects in the little alpine lake under the peak, towards Mount Madison. And he saw on the summit a small quadruped, " probably a mouse," (MS. journal.) Gray squirrels have more than once been seen on the rocky summit of Mount Washington. Several butterflies, two of them of much rarity, occur, about the upper regions.

region, below perpetual snow, occurring again in the low country. as soon as we reach a sufficiently northern latitude. It is thus that an alp may offer a reduced, but on that very account more easily estimated picture of a number of differing (perhaps vast) districts of vegetable life, or be compared, as it is by Mr. A. De Candolle, to a series of degrees of latitude condensed; in which the same phenomena which are dilated, so to say, in the plain country over hundreds of leagues, are compressed within certain hundreds of yards.* The study of these remarkable conditions of plant life has been pursued with much attention in Europe, and has furnished, or at least suggested, a large part of the most important knowledge that we have, of Botanical Geography; but the limitation of the region has complicated as well as facilitated inquiry, and a great deal, therefore, still remains to be done, even where the questions at issue have been longest considered.†

Here, the succession of zones was observed by Cutler in 1784, and its more general features stated at length by Bigelow in 1816;— but an approximate determination of the superior and inferior limits of species has yet to be accomplished.‡ and will doubtless require, as it will reward, the observation of many years.

The immediate base of the highest group of the White Mountains has an elevation at the Giant's Grave, on the west side, and at the Glen House, on the east, of about sixteen hundred feet. This height increases, as we approach the base of Mount Clinton, at the gate of the Notch, where it exceeds eighteen hundred feet, and probably falls off on the north side. Many trees, and other plants, are thus excluded. The linden appears only as a very rare (possibly introduced)

p. 249.

† 3 Ibid.

* A. De Cand. Geogr. Bot. I. Even in Europe these limits have been well verified as yet, in only a very small number of species. Ibid. I. p. 268. It is evident that the above remarks apply only to mountains of a certain height; and that mountains in warmer latitudes must be proportionally higher, to exhibit the interesting phenomena of which mention has been made. The few hundred feet by which the highest summits of the Carolina mountains surpass Mount Washington, are far from sufficient to give them the same importance in Botanical Geography.

tree on the warm burnt lands of Mount Crawford. The sumachs are wanting The vine is unknown, as are the hawthorns, and the Canada plum. There is no sassafras; nor slippery elm; nor hackberry; nor buttonwood; nor hickory; and the butternut comes no nearer than ten or fifteen miles off. Only the red oak occurs, and that below the Notch. The chestnut is wanting. Beech begins only below the Notch on the west side, but is found a little higher on the east. The black birch is unknown, as is pitch pine. Red pine occurs about Mount Crawford, but not beyond, northward, till we pass the mountains. The larch, the arbor vitæ, and the junipers, occur scarcely at all, except at the outskirts.

Other trees and herbs approach near to the mountains, but cease before we ascend them. Such are white maple, along the rivers; red maple, in swampy lands not far from the mountains on the west side, and coming still nearer on the east; black cherry, in the intervals, with the choke cherry; juneberry, as a tree (called sugar-tree), at the foot of Mount Crawford; the white and the black ash; the American elm, following the rivers, and ascending the Ammonoosuc three or four miles above Giant's Grave; the red oak, reaching perhaps highest in the woods between the Notch and Mount Crawford; the hornbeam, in the intervals, not far from Mount Crawford; the black birch, so far as it occurs in the immediate neighborhood of the hills; and the balsam (and perhaps also the balm of Gilead) poplar.

And this brings us to the ascent. The country people recognize loosely two of the zones of which mention has been made above,— distinguishing the hard wood, or green growth, which is the lower forest from the black growth, or upper forest, in which evergreens are predominant; and beside these, botanists designate the highest, bald district, with the heads of ravines descending from it, as the alpine region, and have sometimes spoken of a small tract, intermediate between the last two, but still very imperfectly characterized, as the subalpine region. Let us traverse these regions. The place where we enter, with its elevation and other features, will determine the character of the forest at the very foot. If it be a cold moun

tain swamp, as between Giant's Grave and Mount Clinton, there will be less variety of trees, and the evergreens will play a larger part, even at the base. But as we ascend, these differences become less striking, and at length greatly disappear. Sovereign of trees of the lower forest was the white pine. Douglas, the author of "The Present State of the British Settlements in North America," 1749-1753, speaks of a white pine cut near Dunstable in 1736, "straight and sound, seven feet eight inches in diameter at the butt."* Before the Revolution, all these trees, excepting those growing in townships granted before 1722, were accounted the King's property in New Hampshire, (as they were also in Maine,) and the books of the royal contractors for masts furnished Douglas and Belknap with some interesting items of the size and value of the sticks thus sent home. The dimensions of those mentioned by Belknap as exported by Mark Hunking Wentworth, Esq., run from 25 to 37 inches through; and Colonel Partridge, it appears, sent home a few of 38 inches, and two of 42 inches; these being all hewn before they were measured. And Dr. Dwight heard from a gentleman of Lancaster that he had seen a white pine which measured two hundred and sixty-four feet in height. Straight columns of this princely tree rise here and there, and spread the few strong limbs which make its crown, above the lower forest; but the day of its pride, still witnessed to by the enduring stumps ("it is a common saying that no man ever cut down a pine, and lived to see the stump rotten "") has long gone by. Beside the white pine, the first class of forest trees is made up of the rock maple, the beech, and the hemlock, at the foot; and, ascending a little higher, the white birch, the yellow birch, and the spruce. The fir, white spruce, the two aspens, the witch hazel, and the mountain ash make the second class. Of these the hemlock is perhaps second in size. It loves low, moist lands, but often ascends

* Belknap, N. H. III. p. 80.

† Travels, II. p. 34. Williamson says: "Has been seen six feet in diameter at the butt, and two hundred and forty feet in height." Hist. of Maine, II. p. 110.

Belknap, III. p. 81.

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