the sky. Innumerable
lakes are shining like eyes beneath heavy rock brows, bare or tree
fringed, or imbedded in black forests. Meadow openings in the woods seem
as numerous as the lakes or perhaps more so. Far up the moraine-covered
slopes and among crumbling rocks I found many delicate hardy plants,
some of them still in flower. The best gains of this trip were the
lessons of unity and interrelation of all the features of the landscape
revealed in general views. The lakes and meadows are located just where
the ancient glaciers bore heaviest at the foot of the steepest parts of
their channels, and of course their longest diameters are approximately
parallel with each other and with the belts of forests growing in long
curving lines on the lateral and medial moraines, and in broad
outspreading fields on the terminal beds deposited toward the end of the
ice period when the glaciers were receding. The domes, ridges, and spurs
also show the influence of glacial action in their forms, which
approximately seem to be the forms of greatest strength with reference
to the stress of oversweeping, past-sweeping, down-grinding ice-streams;
survivals of the most resisting masses, or those most favorably
situated. How interesting everything is! Every rock, mountain, stream,
plant, lake, lawn, forest, garden, bird, beast, insect seems to call
and invite us to come and learn something of its history and
relationship. But shall the poor ignorant scholar be allowed to try the
lessons they offer? It seems too great and good to be true. Soon I'll be
going to the lowlands. The bread camp must soon be removed. If I had a
few sacks of flour, an axe, and some matches, I would build a cabin of
pine logs, pile up plenty of firewood about it and stay all winter to
see the grand fertile snow-storms, watch the birds and animals that
winter thus high, how they live, how the forests look snow-laden or
buried, and how the avalanches look and sound on their way down the
mountains. But now I'll have to go, for there is nothing to spare in the
way of provisions. I'll surely be back, however, surely I'll be back. No
other place has ever so overwhelmingly attracted me as this hospitable,
Godful wilderness.

[Illustration: ONE OF THE HIGHEST MOUNT RITTER FOUNTAINS]

_September 2._ A grand, red, rosy, crimson day,--a perfect glory of a
day. What it means I don't know. It is the first marked change from
tranquil sunshine with purple mornings and evenings and