Nature As A Woodcarver

Through the ages tellers of tales have left us legends of certain mythical characters whose spirits have been imprisoned in the bark-clad forms of trees.

THE MEN OF THE MANZANITA ROOT...

Artists of varying degrees of imagination and skill have attempted to picture these for us, but few have achieved anything of more striking appeal than the bit of work dashed off by Nature in one of her whimsical moods on a broken fragment of manzanita root about four inches in length and a couple of inches across. The root was picked up along the trail on the top of Mount Wilson.

When the piece is held upright by the slender end, we see a striking likeness to one of those fairy creatures whom the ancients liked to imagine as sporting with agile-limbed nymphs in woodland places.

...AS CARVED BY NATURE'S CHISEL

Turning it to a horizontal position we see an entirely different sort of person; this time such a one as might have been the leading spirit in some old Indian legend, whose action took place in the very mountains where the object was found.

Views of both faces show the piece exactly as it was discovered, untouched by anything but the hand of time.