Part 12

“I recollect no grass on the plain. The spaces between the rocks in the second zone and on the plain are filled with spruce and fir, which, perhaps, have been growing ever since the deluge; and yet many of them have not attained a greater height than three or four inches; but their spreading tops are so thick and strong as to support the weight of a man without yielding in the slightest degree. In many places on the sides we could get glades of this growth some rods in extent, when we could, by sitting down on our feet, slide the whole length. The tops of the growth of wood were so thick and firm as to bear us currently a considerable distance before we arrived at the utmost boundaries, which were almost as well defined as the water on the shore of a pond. The tops of the wood had the appearance of having been shorn off, exhibiting a smooth surface from their upper limits to a great distance down the mountains.”

On the summit of Mount Washington there is usually little or no snow. That which is so long visible in the regions below is blown from the summit, and the north-western side, and lies only on the southern and south-eastern, where it is defended from every cold wind by the precipice above, and exposed through June, July, and sometimes a part of August, to the full strength of the sun.