Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1879-11-29

The coast and island forests of the south end
OF A aska wear grayish brownish color in tn !.
foreg round, black in the middle ground and
dark blue In the distance. The gray and brown
Is derived from lichens that depend from the
branche' and form MOSES that grow not only
o. the bOleS. but from large neSt-like masses on
the hi rizOntal palmate portions of the main
branches fifty or even a hundred feet above the
g6unc. 1t Is only where snow and rock
ayalanehes have occurred that bright grass
green is seen.
Landing almost anywhere to take a walk in
these woods you have first to fight your way
tangled-rubus, hucklebery, dogwood, willow,
elder, etc, and strange looking, woody plant
about six feet high, with timber, rope like stems
and head OF broad leaves spread out horizon;
leaves are covered with green spires, so that It
is impossible to grasp it anywhere without get
ting multitude Of thorns in the flesh. This is
ech3nOidndI ho1ridn, popularity known as the
Devils Club, and used by the Indians to thrash
W1tcheS-the most truly diaDOliCal thraShfng in
strument conceivable. 1t Is the only plant that
seems out Of place here. 1t seems, rather, from
its vine-like leaning stems and heads Of ample
translucent leaves, to belong to the tropics.
Back In the shady deeps Of the woods the ground
roughened with bushes of any kind and not a
Tack will you see Of bird beast or man on this
yellow, elastic carpet, not even those OF the
deer or bear that inhabIt these woods; for on &C
trunks and a network of bullying roots, the
animals follow the waterways, leaving the
WOOuS FlTSln. But Wnen from any cause they
are traversed no visible track is left, any more
than II they had walked in the air.
From the universal distribution Of the woods
one would be led at first sight to suppose that
Alaska was an old country; considered with
reference to its regeneration at the close of the
glacial period, and that 1t had been long ex-
posed to the disintegrating action of pOSt-glacal
forces, and had thus been covered with soil and
then planted with trees. But, on the contrary
Alaska Is very young country, and its forests
are mostly set on solid rock that had but Just
emerged from beneath the ice sheet. The exist
ence of forests on so bare surface is possible
only in wet and temperate climate like this.
ASSOon as the Ice leaves the rock, 1t is covered
with moss, deep, bOSSy blanket of it, in which
the tree-seedS find lOdgment, and grow and
weave their roots together into sod, SO that
one supports the other, and thus with little
anchorage here and there in assured spots they
are enabled to stand on steep slopes even, with
out any soil about their roots, or covering of
any sort save the damp MOSES. On the very
SteepeSt and SmoOtheSt declivities the whole
sod OF trees will at times give way and slip
down in heap to the foot OF the wall. But on
the ruins another and another growth is built,
until the whole is covered. One has only to go
to the banks of the existing glaciers to see this
forest work done.
Give to Alaska the climate Of California, and
these evergreen Islands and shores would be
treelesS, Sun-beaten rocks.-[JO1lp Muir, in San
Francisco Bulletin.