But, in
exceptional cases, beautiful lawns formed with great deliberation are
overwhelmed and obliterated at once by the action of land-slips,
earthquake avalanches, or extraordinary floods, just as lakes are.
In those glacier meadows that take the places of shallow lakes which
have been fed by feeble streams, glacier mud and fine vegetable humus
enter largely into the composition of the soil; and on account of the
shallowness of this soil, and the seamless, water-tight, undrained
condition of the rock-basins, they are usually wet, and therefore
occupied by tall grasses and sedges, whose coarse appearance offers a
striking contrast to that of the delicate lawn-making kind described
above. These shallow-soiled meadows are oftentimes still further
roughened and diversified by partially buried moraines and swelling
bosses of the bed-rock, which, with the trees and shrubs growing upon
them, produce a striking effect as they stand in relief like islands in
the grassy level, or sweep across in rugged curves from one forest wall
to the other.
Throughout the upper meadow region, wherever water is sufficiently
abundant and low in temperature, in basins secure from flood-washing,
handsome bogs are formed with a deep growth of brown and yellow sphagnum
picturesquely ruined with patches of kalmia and ledum which ripen masses
of beautiful color in the autumn.
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