life." And does he not have part in this general eulogy by Mr. Emerson? Many hamlets sought I then, But men of bone, and good at need. Their talismans are ploughs and carts; With sweet hay the wild swamp adorn, Drain sweet maple juice in vats. No fish, in river or in lake, But their long hands it thence will take; And the country's flinty face, Like wax, their fashioning skill betrays, To fill the hollows, sink the hills, Bridge gulfs, drain swamps, build dams and mills, And fit the bleak and howling place For gardens of a finer race. There is a tradition that an Indian maniac once stood on the Giant's Grave, and swinging a blazing pitch-pine torch, which he had kindled at a tree struck by lightning, shouted in the storm the prophecy, The Great Spirit whispered in my ear Fabyan's large hotel, built at the foot of the Giant's Grave, has been burned to the ground. Two public-houses on the mound itself have been destroyed; the meadow has been ravaged by freshets; and 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 of 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 perpetual 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. Edward 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; As if a sunbeam showed the place, The chapter which follows has been prepared by Prof. Tuckerman for these pages. 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 like 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) * A. De Cand. Geogr. Bot. I. p. 249. † 3 Ibid. 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 |