. American forestry. Forests and forestry. THE TREE OF LEGEND AND ROMANCE 81 with the rising tide. To hear these tales, one might rea- sonably be led to believe that the abalone, though nothing but a group of muscles encased in a shell, was possessed of the agility of the cat rather than the sluggish move- ment that is typical of his species. I personally have never been able to reconcile my instinctive incredulity to the tales of drowning fishermen imprisoned by the fero- cious abalone, knowing, as I do, that the average tourist whose shoes have been wetted by an unexpected wave is prone to d
. American forestry. Forests and forestry. THE TREE OF LEGEND AND ROMANCE 81 with the rising tide. To hear these tales, one might rea- sonably be led to believe that the abalone, though nothing but a group of muscles encased in a shell, was possessed of the agility of the cat rather than the sluggish move- ment that is typical of his species. I personally have never been able to reconcile my instinctive incredulity to the tales of drowning fishermen imprisoned by the fero- cious abalone, knowing, as I do, that the average tourist whose shoes have been wetted by an unexpected wave is prone to describe his experience as a miraculous escape from a tidal wave of the Pacific. The fact remains, however, that should one unwittingly allow his fingers to re- main beneath the edge of an abalone shell long enough to allow the tremendous clamp- ing power to crush down upon them, he would undoubtedly be either imprisoned or lose his fingers. The practice amongst the fishermen who supply the cannery is to carry a long steel bar, with which they pry the aba- lone from the rocks in a manner that is aston- ishingly prosaic for a creature the permanent abode of which is so beautiful. The Carmel I!ay, in which the abalones are most plentiful, is the little sister of the Mon- terey Bay, just to the north, and the bits of kelp which dot its sur- face, combined with the strange exotic charac- ter of the trees and promontories that bound it, lend an aspect to the land- scape that suggests tropical scenery of the islands that lie beyond the horizon. With a good cigar, and even an indii¥erent book, one may spend a happy afternoon in the shade of the cypress, and find at each upward glance with the turning of a page an entirely new setting, with a foreign drop upon the ever-changing stage that con- fronts his western gaze. At his feet is an inlet that begins with purjjle and ends with gold. Against the sky is silhouetted the squat and sturdy cypress, every line of which expresses tenacity a
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectforestsandforestry
