and differences of altitude concur in producing the graduation and unbounded variety of botanical specimens. Trees are also present in great abundance and variety, increasing the enchantment of the view with their leafy clothing, which, by partly concealing, adds charm of mystery to the prospect. There are specimens of noble chestnuts and walnuts, grand old oaks, larches, and gigantic pines. The walnut-trees disappear at a height of twenty-five hundred feet; chestnuts and beeches cover the slopes a little higher; to these succeed the firs, which seem to have sown themselves in a luxuriant way, some standing alone in green gracefulness, others growing in pretty little miniature groves; then the knotted oaks, holding by their strong roots to the precipitous sides; and the burly pines that flourish at far greater altitudes than either, seeming to require scarcely any earth, but grasping with their strong, rough roots the frozen rock, out of which, somehow, they contrive to draw moisture. Some of the ancient pines on the Jungfrau are supposed to have stood the blasts of winter for a thousand years; they are affirmed to be as high as one hundred and sixty feet, and to measure twenty-four feet in circumference. It is their peculiar conical form which enables them to bow to, and thus resist the force of, the storm. The pine is the king of the mountains; he strikes his club-foot deep into the cleft of the rocks, or grasps its span with conscious power; there he lifts his haughty front, like the warrior monarch that he is,--no flinching about the pine, let the time be ever so stormy. His throne is the crag and his crown is a good way up in the heavens, and as for the clouds, he tears them asunder sometimes and uses them for robes. Then the stern, deep, awfully deep roar that he makes in a storm. When he has aroused his energies to meet the storm, the battle-cry he sends down the wind is heard above all the roar and artillery of thunder, and when the tempest leaves him, how quietly he settles to his repose,--the scented breeze of a soft evening breathes upon him and the grim warrior king wakes his murmuring lute, and through his dusky boughs float sweet and soothing sounds. Higher still than the pine are the larches, a wood highly valued; and at last comes the creeping pine, struggling against the wind and cold: it is the highest climber among Alpine trees, and is the immediate neighbor of the glacier.