Every Hidden Nook In The
Depths Of The Woods Is Searched And Refreshed, Leaving No Stagnant
Air; Beaver Meadows And Lake Basin And Low And Willowy Bogs, All Are
Kept Wholesome And Sweet The Year Round.
Cloud and sunshine alternate
in bracing, cheering succession, and health and abundance follow the
storms.
The outer sea margin is sublimely dashed and drenched with
ocean brine, the spicy scud sweeping at times far inland over the
bending woods, the giant trees waving and chanting in hearty accord as
if surely enjoying it all.
Heavy, long-continued rains occur in the winter months. Then every
leaf, bathed and brightened, rejoices. Filtering drops and currents
through all the shaggy undergrowth of the woods go with tribute to the
small streams, and these again to the larger. The rivers swell, but
there are no devastating floods; for the thick felt of roots and
mosses holds the abounding waters in check, stored in a thousand
thousand fountains. Neither are there any violent hurricanes here, At
least, I never have heard of any, nor have I come upon their tracks.
Most of the streams are clear and cool always, for their waters are
filtered through deep beds of mosses, and flow beneath shadows all the
way to the sea. Only the streams from the glaciers are turbid and
muddy. On the slopes of the mountains where they rush from their
crystal caves, they carry not only small particles of rock-mud, worn
off the sides and bottoms of the channels of the glaciers, but grains
of sand and pebbles and large boulders tons in weight, rolling them
forward on their way rumbling and bumping to their appointed places at
the foot of steep slopes, to be built into rough bars and beds, while
the smaller material is carried farther and outspread in flats,
perhaps for coming wheat fields and gardens, the finest of it going
out to sea, floating on the tides for weeks and months ere it finds
rest on the bottom.
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