What a weird scene! Here for ages has been the line of battle between the woods and the weather. At most timber-lines the high winds blow chiefly from one direction. Many of the trees possess a long, vertical fringe of limbs to leeward, being limbless and barkless to stormward. Each might serve as an impressive symbolic statue of a wind-storm. Permanently, their limbs stream to leeward together, with fixed bends and distortions, as if cast in metal at the height of a storm. Many present an unconquerable and conscious appearance, like tattered pennants or torn, triumphant battle-flags of the victorious forest! Some trees are several inches in diameter and only a few inches in height; others are creeping away from the direction of the storms, retreating from life's awful battle. All beauty and nobleness of appearance are lost. But the trees have done their best. Timber-line is not stationary. In most places it is advancing, climbing the heights. This advance is confined mainly to moist territory. In a few dry places the ranks are losing ground--are being driven back down the slopes; but these advances and retreats are extremely slow. The altitude of timber-line varies with locality. On Mount Orizaba, in Mexico, it is a little over thirteen thousand feet; in the San Juan Mountains, in Colorado, a little above twelve thousand; in the Sierras and the Rockies, between eleven thousand and thirteen thousand; in the Cascades and the Alps, about sixty-five hundred feet; on Mount Washington, at forty-five hundred feet. It is lower with increased distance from the Equator, and at last is only a stone's throw above sea-level, finally showing its line in the lowlands of the Farthest North. Among the trees that maintain the front ranks at timber-line are pines, spruces, firs, aspens, birches, and willows. Many beautiful flowers are found at timber-line, along with bees, butterflies, birds, chipmunks, and foxes. Timber-line is a strangely interesting, arousing place. As I have said in "The Rocky Mountain Wonderland":-- The powerful impressions received at timber-line lead many visitors to return for a better acquaintance, and from each visit the visitor goes away more deeply impressed; for timber-line is not only novel and strange, it is touched with pathos and poetry and has a life-story that is heroic. Its scenes are among the most primeval, interesting, and thought-compelling to be found upon the globe. 2. ABOVE THE TIMBER-LINE The treeless moorlands and the crags that fill the sky above the limits of tree-growth form an extensive mountain-top world all by itself, a realm of plateaus and sky prairies, which only a few have explored. These regions stand out like islands in the sky; they are singular treeless expanses above the surrounding forest sea.