File:A tour through the Pyrenees (1875) (14796380253).jpg

Identifier: tourthroughpyren00tain (find matches)
Title: A tour through the Pyrenees
Year: 1875 (1870s)
Authors: Taine, Hippolyte, 1828-1893 Fiske, John Safford, 1838-1907, (from old catalog) tr Dore, Gustave, 1832-1883, (from old catalog) illus
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Publisher: New York, H. Holt and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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. Everything inthe plant is calculated ^vith a view to utility: itthinks only of lasting and resisting; it has neitherornaments, elegance, nor richness ; it expends itssap only in solid tissues, in dull colors, in durablehbres. It is an economical and active housewife,the only thing capable of vegetating iii the quag-mires that it fills. If you continue to ascend, the trees begin to fail.The brush-fir creeps in a carpet of turf. Therhododendrons grow in tufts and crown the moun-tain with rosy clusters. The heather crowds itswhite bunches, sniall, open, vase-shaped flowers,from which springs a crown of garnet stamens. Inthe sheltered hollows, the blue campanulas swingtheir pretty bells ; the least wind lays them low ; theylive for all that and smile, trembling and graceful.But, among all these flowers nourished with lightand pure air, the most precious is the thornlessrose. Never did petals form a frailer and loveliercorolla ; never did a vermilion so vivid color a moredelicate tissue.
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Chap. VIII. PLANTS AND ANIMALS. 375 IV. At the summit grow the mosses. Battered bythe wind, dried by the • sun, they lose the freshgreen tint they wear in the valleys and on the brinkof the springs. They are reddened with tawny hues,and their smooth filaments have the reflexes of awolfs fur. Others, yellowed and pale, cover withtheir sickly colors the bleeding crevices. Thenthere are gray ones, almost white, which grow likeremnants of hair upon the bald rocks. Far away,upon the back of the mountain, all these tints aremingled, and the shaded fur emits a wild o-leamThe last growths are reddish crusts, stuck to thewalls of rock, seeming to form part of the stone, andwhich you might take, not for a plant, but for ascurf Cold, dryness, and the height have by de-grees transformed or killed vegetation. V. The climate shapes and produces animals as wellas plants. The bear is a serious beast, a thorough moun-taineer, curious to behold in his great-coat of feltedhair, yellowish or grayish in

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