Identifier: sciencerecordcom1874beac (find matches)
Title: The Science record; a compendium of scientific progress and discovery
Year: 1872 (1870s)
Authors: Beach, Alfred Ely, 1826-1896
Subjects: Technology Industrial arts
Publisher: New York, Munn
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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ve an at-tractive variety and a beautiful contrast of colors rarelyseen elsewhere. On all sides of Mount Shasta, the woods are full of dif-ferent species of bear and deer, and the more elevated por-tions are frequented by a kind of wild mountain sheep,which in its size, habits, and general appearance, stronglyresembles the chamois of the Alps. These sheep are soremarkably swift, timorous, and keen of scent, that thebest shots of that region find it almost impossible to getwithin range of them. The last of the few streams run-ning down the sides of Shasta is found at an elevation of11,500 feet and is the limit of vegetation. Thus far thetrail up the mountain is perfectly safe and practicable forhorses, but from here upward the shaded portions of themountain are perpetually covered with snow and ice. Thesurface generally is composed of loose volcanic trachyteand dark-red, mud-like, ragged clumps of lava, throughwhich the melted snow percolates and sink to subterrane- 5i8 SCIENCE RECORD.
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an outlets. The desolation is occasionally relieved by thedwarfed pinus fiexilus, which finds a difficult existence atthis height. The half-prostrate attitude of this tree—whichnever grows upright on account of the weight of snows GEOGRAPHY. 519 and the fierceness of the storms—suggests the fancy thatit is craving its existence of the furious elements. Thesesmall trees are dead, and yet their branches do not whitenor decay as in less elevated locations. Frost and cold maykill them, but frost and cold embalm them in a never-de-caying death. In size this tree is very insignificant, but asfuel it fully maintains the inflammable reputation of thepine family, burning very fiercely and with great purityof light. We gathered several armfuls of this wood atour camping-ground—a labor very exhausting to musclesand lungs, on account of the greatness of the elevationand the rarity of the atmosphere, although the fuel wasnot far away. Armed with alpenstocks, and disencumber-ed of all extra b

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