THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA

BY

JOHN MUIR

[Illustration: HOOFED LOCUSTS. ]

1894

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

 I THE SIERRA NEVADA II THE GLACIERS III THE SNOW IV A NEAR VIEW OF THE HIGH SIERRA V THE PASSES VI THE GLACIER LAKES VII THE GLACIER MEADOWSVIII THE FORESTS IX THE DOUGLAS SQUIRREL X A WIND-STORM IN THE FORESTS XI THE RIVER FLOODS XII SIERRA THUNDER-STORMSXIII THE WATER-OUZEL XIV THE WILD SHEEP XV IN THE SIERRA FOOT-HILLS XVI THE BEE-PASTURES

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

HOOFED LOCUSTSMOUNT TAMALPAIS--NORTH OF THE GOLDEN GATEMOUNT SHASTA, LOOKING SOUTHWESTMOUNT HOODMOUNT RAINIER FROM PARADISE VALLEY--NISQUALLY GLACIERMAP OF THE YOSEMITE VALLEYMAP OF THE YOSEMITE VALLEY, SHOWING PRESENT RESERVATION BOUNDARYVIEW OF THE MONO PLAIN FROM THE FOOT OF BLOODY CAÑONLAKE TENAYA, ONE OF THE YOSEMITE FOUNTAINSTHE DEATH OF A LAKELAKE STARR KINGVIEW IN THE SIERRA FORESTEDGE OF THE TIMBER LINE ON MOUNT SHASTAVIEW IN THE MAIN PINE BELT OF THE SIERRA FORESTNUT PINETHE GROVE FORMLOWER MARGIN OF THE MAIN PINE BELT, SHOWING OPEN CHARACTER OF WOODSSUGAR PINE ON EXPOSED RIDGEYOUNG SUGAR PINE BEGINNING TO BEAR CONESFOREST OF SEQUOIA, SUGAR PINE, AND DOUGLAS SPRUCEPINUS PONDEROSASILVER PINE 210 FEET HIGHINCENSE CEDAR IN ITS PRIMEFOREST OF GRAND SILVER FIRSVIEW OF FOREST OF THE MAGNIFICENT SILVER FIRSILVER-FIR FOREST GROWING ON MORAINES OF THE HOFFMAN AND TENAYA GLACIERSJUNIPER, OR RED CEDARSTORM-BEATEN HEMLOCK SPRUCE, FORTY FEET HIGHGROUP OF ERECT DWARF PINESA DWARF PINEOAK GROWING AMONG YELLOW PINESTRACK OF DOUGLAS SQUIRREL ONCE DOWN AND UP A PINE-TREE WHEN SHOWING OFF TO A SPECTATORSEEDS, WINGS, AND SCALE OF SUGAR PINETRYING THE BOWA WIND-STORM IN THE CALIFORNIA FORESTSWATER-OUZEL DIVING AND FEEDINGONE OF THE LATE-SUMMER FEEDING-GROUNDS OF THE OUZELOUZEL ENTERING A WHITE CURRENTTHE OUZEL AT HOMEYOSEMITE BIRDS, SNOW-BOUND AT THE FOOT OF INDIAN CANONSNOW-BOUND ON MOUNT SHASTAHEAD OF THE MERINO RAMHEAD OF ROCKY MOUNTAIN WILD SHEEPCROSSING A CAÑON STREAMWILD SHEEP JUMPING OVER A PRECIPICEINDIANS HUNTING WILD SHEEPA BEE-RANCH IN LOWER CALIFORNIAWILD BEE GARDENIN THE SAN GABRIEL VALLEY. --WHITE SAGEA BEE-RANCH ON A SPUR OF THE SAN GABRIEL RANGE. --CARDINAL FLOWERWILD BUCKWHEAT. --A BEE-RANCH IN THE WILDERNESSA BEE-PASTURE ON THE MORAINE DESERT. --SPANISH BAYONETA BEE-KEEPER'S CABIN

CHAPTER I

THE SIERRA NEVADA

Go where you may within the bounds of California, mountains are ever insight, charming and glorifying every landscape. Yet so simple andmassive is the topography of the State in general views, that the maincentral portion displays only one valley, and two chains of mountainswhich seem almost perfectly regular in trend and height: the Coast Rangeon the west side, the Sierra Nevada on the east. These two ranges comingtogether in curves on the north and south inclose a magnificent basin, with a level floor more than 400 miles long, and from 35 to 60 mileswide. This is the grand Central Valley of California, the waters ofwhich have only one outlet to the sea through the Golden Gate. But withthis general simplicity of features there is great complexity of hiddendetail. The Coast Range, rising as a grand green barrier against theocean, from 2000 to 8000 feet high, is composed of innumerableforest-crowned spurs, ridges, and rolling hill-waves which inclose amultitude of smaller valleys; some looking out through long, forest-lined vistas to the sea; others, with but few trees, to theCentral Valley; while a thousand others yet smaller are embosomed andconcealed in mild, round-browed hills, each, with its own climate, soil, and productions. 

Making your way through the mazes of the Coast Range to the summit ofany of the inner peaks or passes opposite San Francisco, in the clearspringtime, the grandest and most telling of all California landscapesis outspread before you. At your feet lies the great Central Valleyglowing golden in the sunshine, extending north and south farther thanthe eye can reach, one smooth, flowery, lake-like bed of fertile soil. Along its eastern margin rises the mighty Sierra, miles in height, reposing like a smooth, cumulous cloud in the sunny sky, and sogloriously colored, and so luminous, it seems to be not clothed withlight, but wholly composed of it, like the wall of some celestial city. Along the top, and extending a good way down, you see a pale, pearl-graybelt of snow; and below it a belt of blue and dark purple, marking theextension of the forests; and along the base of the range a broad beltof rose-purple and yellow, where lie the minor's gold-fields and thefoot-hill gardens. All these colored belts blending smoothly make a wallof light ineffably fine, and as beautiful as a rainbow, yet firm asadamant. 

When I first enjoyed this superb view, one glowing April day, from thesummit of the Pacheco Pass, the Central Valley, but little trampled orplowed as yet, was one furred, rich sheet of golden compositae, and theluminous wall of the mountains shone in all its glory. Then it seemed tome the Sierra should be called not the Nevada, or Snowy Range, but theRange of Light. And after ten years spent in the heart of it, rejoicingand wondering, bathing in its glorious floods of light, seeing thesunbursts of morning among the icy peaks, the noonday radiance on thetrees and rocks and snow, the flush of the alpenglow, and a thousanddashing waterfalls with their marvelous abundance of irised spray, itstill seems to me above all others the Range of Light, the most divinelybeautiful of all the mountain-chains I have ever seen. 

The Sierra is about 500 miles long, 70 miles wide, and from 7000 tonearly 15, 000 feet high. In general views no mark of man is visible onit, nor anything to suggest the richness of the life it cherishes, orthe depth and grandeur of its sculpture. None of its magnificentforest-crowned ridges rises much above the general level to publish itswealth. No great valley or lake is seen, or river, or group ofwell-marked features of any kind, standing out in distinct pictures. Even the summit-peaks, so clear and high in the sky, seem comparativelysmooth and featureless. Nevertheless, glaciers are still at work in theshadows of the peaks, and thousands of lakes and meadows shine and bloombeneath them, and the whole range is furrowed with cañons to a depth offrom 2000 to 5000 feet, in which once flowed majestic glaciers, and inwhich now flow and sing a band of beautiful rivers. 

Though of such stupendous depth, these famous cañons are not raw, gloomy, jagged-walled gorges, savage and inaccessible. With roughpassages here and there they still make delightful pathways for themountaineer, conducting from the fertile lowlands to the highest icyfountains, as a kind of mountain streets full of charming life andlight, graded and sculptured by the ancient glaciers, and presenting, throughout all their courses, a rich variety of novel and attractivescenery, the most attractive that has yet been discovered in themountain-ranges of the world. 

In many places, especially in the middle region of the western flank ofthe range, the main cañons widen into spacious valleys or parks, diversified like artificial landscape-gardens, with charming groves andmeadows, and thickets of blooming bushes, while the lofty, retiringwalls, infinitely varied in form and sculpture, are fringed with ferns, flowering-plants of many species, oaks, and evergreens, which findanchorage on a thousand narrow steps and benches; while the whole isenlivened and made glorious with rejoicing streams that come dancing andfoaming over the sunny brows of the cliffs to join the shining riverthat flows in tranquil beauty down the middle of each one of them. 

The walls of these park valleys of the Yosemite kind are made up ofrocks mountains in size, partly separated from each other by narrowgorges and side-cañons; and they are so sheer in front, and so compactlybuilt together on a level floor, that, comprehensively seen, the parksthey inclose look like immense halls or temples lighted from above. Every rock seems to glow with life. Some lean back in majestic repose;others, absolutely sheer, or nearly so, for thousands of feet, advancetheir brows in thoughtful attitudes beyond their companions, givingwelcome to storms and calms alike, seemingly conscious yet heedless ofeverything going on about them, awful in stern majesty, types ofpermanence, yet associated with beauty of the frailest and most fleetingforms; their feet set in pine-groves and gay emerald meadows, theirbrows in the sky; bathed in light, bathed in floods of singing water, while snow-clouds, avalanches, and the winds shine and surge and wreatheabout them as the years go by, as if into these mountain mansions Naturehad taken pains to gather her choicest treasures to draw her lovers intoclose and confiding communion with her. 

[Illustration: MOUNT TAMALPAIS--NORTH OF THE GOLDEN GATE. ]

Here, too, in the middle region of deepest cañons are the grandestforest-trees, the Sequoia, king of conifers, the noble Sugar and YellowPines, Douglas Spruce, Libocedrus, and the Silver Firs, each a giant ofits kind, assembled together in one and the same forest, surpassing allother coniferous forests in the world, both in the number of its speciesand in the size and beauty of its trees. The winds flow in melodythrough their colossal spires, and they are vocal everywhere with thesongs of birds and running water. Miles of fragrant ceanothus andmanzanita bushes bloom beneath them, and lily gardens and meadows, anddamp, ferny glens in endless variety of fragrance and color, compellingthe admiration of every observer. Sweeping on over ridge and valley, these noble trees extend a continuous belt from end to end of the range, only slightly interrupted by sheer-walled cañons at intervals of aboutfifteen and twenty miles. Here the great burly brown bears delight toroam, harmonizing with the brown boles of the trees beneath which theyfeed. Deer, also, dwell here, and find food and shelter in the ceanothustangles, with a multitude of smaller people. Above this region ofgiants, the trees grow smaller until the utmost limit of the timber lineis reached on the stormy mountain-slopes at a height of from ten totwelve thousand feet above the sea, where the Dwarf Pine is so lowly andhard beset by storms and heavy snow, it is pressed into flat tangles, over the tops of which we may easily walk. Below the main forest beltthe trees likewise diminish in size, frost and burning drought repressingand blasting alike. 

The rose-purple zone along the base of the range comprehends nearly allthe famous gold region of California. And here it was that miners fromevery country under the sun assembled in a wild, torrent-like rush toseek their fortunes. On the banks of every river, ravine, and gully theyhave left their marks. Every gravel- and boulder-bed has beendesperately riddled over and over again. But in this region the pick andshovel, once wielded with savage enthusiasm, have been laid away, andonly quartz-mining is now being carried on to any considerable extent. The zone in general is made up of low, tawny, waving foot-hills, roughened here and there with brush and trees, and outcropping masses ofslate, colored gray and red with lichens. The smaller masses of slate, rising abruptly from the dry, grassy sod in leaning slabs, look likeancient tombstones in a deserted burying-ground. In early spring, sayfrom February to April, the whole of this foot-hill belt is a paradiseof bees and flowers. Refreshing rains then fall freely, birds are busybuilding their nests, and the sunshine is balmy and delightful. But bythe end of May the soil, plants, and sky seem to have been baked in anoven. Most of the plants crumble to dust beneath the foot, and theground is full of cracks; while the thirsty traveler gazes with eagerlonging through the burning glare to the snowy summits looming like hazyclouds in the distance. 

The trees, mostly _Quercus Douglasii_ and _Pinus Sabiniana_, thirty to forty feet high, with thin, pale-green foliage, stand farapart and cast but little shade. Lizards glide about on the rocksenjoying a constitution that no drought can dry, and ants in amazingnumbers, whose tiny sparks of life seem to burn the brighter with theincreasing heat, ramble industriously in long trains in search of food. Crows, ravens, magpies--friends in distress--gather on the groundbeneath the best shade-trees, panting with drooping wings and bills wideopen, scarce a note from any of them during the midday hours. Quails, too, seek the shade during the heat of the day about tepid pools in thechannels of the larger mid-river streams. Rabbits scurry from thicket tothicket among the ceanothus bushes, and occasionally a long-eared hareis seen cantering gracefully across the wider openings. The nights arecalm and dewless during the summer, and a thousand voices proclaim theabundance of life, notwithstanding the desolating effect of dry sunshineon the plants and larger animals. The hylas make a delightfully pure andtranquil music after sunset; and coyotes, the little, despised dogs ofthe wilderness, brave, hardy fellows, looking like withered wisps ofhay, bark in chorus for hours. Mining-towns, most of them dead, and afew living ones with bright bits of cultivation about them, occur atlong intervals along the belt, and cottages covered with climbing roses, in the midst of orange and peach orchards, and sweet-scented hay-fieldsin fertile flats where water for irrigation may be had. But they aremostly far apart, and make scarce any mark in general views. 

Every winter the High Sierra and the middle forest region get snow inglorious abundance, and even the foot-hills are at times whitened. Thenall the range looks like a vast beveled wall of purest marble. The roughplaces are then made smooth, the death and decay of the year is coveredgently and kindly, and the ground seems as clean as the sky. And thoughsilent in its flight from the clouds, and when it is taking its place onrock, or tree, or grassy meadow, how soon the gentle snow finds a voice!Slipping from the heights, gathering in avalanches, it booms and roarslike thunder, and makes a glorious show as it sweeps down themountain-side, arrayed in long, silken streamers and wreathing, swirlingfilms of crystal dust. 

The north half of the range is mostly covered with floods of lava, anddotted with volcanoes and craters, some of them recent and perfect inform, others in various stages of decay. The south half is composed ofgranite nearly from base to summit, while a considerable number ofpeaks, in the middle of the range, are capped with metamorphic slates, among which are Mounts Dana and Gibbs to the east of Yosemite Valley. Mount Whitney, the culminating point of the range near its southernextremity, lifts its helmet-shaped crest to a height of nearly 14, 700feet. Mount Shasta, a colossal volcanic cone, rises to a height of14, 440 feet at the northern extremity, and forms a noble landmark forall the surrounding region within a radius of a hundred miles. Residualmasses of volcanic rocks occur throughout most of the granitic southernportion also, and a considerable number of old volcanoes on the flanks, especially along the eastern base of the range near Mono Lake andsouthward. But it is only to the northward that the entire range, frombase to summit, is covered with lava. 

From the summit of Mount Whitney only granite is seen. Innumerable peaksand spires but little lower than its own storm-beaten crags rise ingroups like forest-trees, in full view, segregated by cañons oftremendous depth and ruggedness. On Shasta nearly every feature in thevast view speaks of the old volcanic fires. Far to the northward, inOregon, the icy volcanoes of Mount Pitt and the Three Sisters rise abovethe dark evergreen woods. Southward innumerable smaller craters andcones are distributed along the axis of the range and on each flank. Ofthese, Lassen's Butte is the highest, being nearly 11, 000 feet abovesea-level. Miles of its flanks are reeking and bubbling with hotsprings, many of them so boisterous and sulphurous they seem over readyto become spouting geysers like those of the Yellowstone. 

The Cinder Cone near marks the most recent volcanic eruption in theSierra. It is a symmetrical truncated cone about 700 feet high, coveredwith gray cinders and ashes, and has a regular unchanged crater on itssummit, in which a few small Two-leaved Pines are growing. These showthat the age of the cone is not less than eighty years. It standsbetween two lakes, which a short time ago were one. Before the cone wasbuilt, a flood of rough vesicular lava was poured into the lake, cuttingit in two, and, overflowing its banks, the fiery flood advanced into thepine-woods, overwhelming the trees in its way, the charred ends of someof which may still be seen projecting from beneath the snout of thelava-stream where it came to rest. Later still there was an eruption ofashes and loose obsidian cinders, probably from the same vent, which, besides forming the Cinder Cone, scattered a heavy shower over thesurrounding woods for miles to a depth of from six inches to severalfeet. 

The history of this last Sierra eruption is also preserved in thetraditions of the Pitt River Indians. They tell of a fearful time ofdarkness, when the sky was black with ashes and smoke that threatenedevery living thing with death, and that when at length the sun appearedonce more it was red like blood. 

Less recent craters in great numbers roughen the adjacent region; someof them with lakes in their throats, others overgrown with trees andflowers, Nature in these old hearths and firesides having literallygiven beauty for ashes. On the northwest side of Mount Shasta there is asubordinate cone about 3000 feet below the summit, which, has beenactive subsequent to the breaking up of the main ice-cap that oncecovered the mountain, as is shown by its comparatively unwasted craterand the streams of unglaciated lava radiating from it. The main summitis about a mile and a half in diameter, bounded by small crumbling peaksand ridges, among which we seek in vain for the outlines of the ancientcrater. 

These ruinous masses, and the deep glacial grooves that flute the sidesof the mountain, show that it has been considerably lowered and wastedby ice; how much we have no sure means of knowing. Just below theextreme summit hot sulphurous gases and vapor issue from irregularfissures, mixed with spray derived from melting snow, the last feebleexpression of the mighty force that built the mountain. Not in one greatconvulsion was Shasta given birth. The crags of the summit and thesections exposed by the glaciers down the sides display enough of itsinternal framework to prove that comparatively long periods ofquiescence intervened between many distinct eruptions, during which thecooling lavas ceased to flow, and became permanent additions to the bulkof the growing mountain. With alternate haste and deliberation eruptionsucceeded eruption till the old volcano surpassed even its presentsublime height. 

[Illustration: MOUNT SHASTA, LOOKING SOUTHWEST. ]

Standing on the icy top of this, the grandest of all the fire-mountainsof the Sierra, we can hardly fail to look forward to its next eruption. Gardens, vineyards, homes have been planted confidingly on the flanks ofvolcanoes which, after remaining steadfast for ages, have suddenlyblazed into violent action, and poured forth overwhelming floods offire. It is known that more than a thousand years of cool calm haveintervened between violent eruptions. Like gigantic geysers spoutingmolten rock instead of water, volcanoes work and rest, and we have nosure means of knowing whether they are dead when still, or onlysleeping. 

Along the western base of the range a telling series of sedimentaryrocks containing the early history of the Sierra are now being studied. But leaving for the present these first chapters, we see that only avery short geological time ago, just before the coming on of thatwinter of winters called the glacial period, a vast deluge of moltenrocks poured from many a chasm and crater on the flanks and summit ofthe range, filling lake basins and river channels, and obliteratingnearly every existing feature on the northern portion. At length theseall-destroying floods ceased to flow. But while the great volcanic conesbuilt up along the axis still burned and smoked, the whole Sierra passedunder the domain of ice and snow. Then over the bald, featureless, fire-blackened mountains, glaciers began to crawl, covering them fromthe summits to the sea with a mantle of ice; and then with infinitedeliberation the work went on of sculpturing the range anew. Thesemighty agents of erosion, halting never through unnumbered centuries, crushed and ground the flinty lavas and granites beneath their crystalfolds, wasting and building until in the fullness of time the Sierra wasborn again, brought to light nearly as we behold it today, with glaciersand snow-crushed pines at the top of the range, wheat-fields andorange-groves at the foot of it. 

This change from icy darkness and death to life and beauty was slow, aswe count time, and is still going on, north and south, over all theworld wherever glaciers exist, whether in the form of distinct rivers, as in Switzerland, Norway, the mountains of Asia, and the Pacific Coast;or in continuous mantling folds, as in portions of Alaska, Greenland, Franz-Joseph-Land, Nova Zembla, Spitzbergen, and the lands about theSouth Pole. But in no country, as far as I know, may these majesticchanges be studied to better advantage than in the plains and mountainsof California. 

Toward the close of the glacial period, when the snow-clouds became lessfertile and the melting waste of sunshine became greater, the lowerfolds of the ice-sheet in California, discharging fleets of icebergsinto the sea, began to shallow and recede from the lowlands, and thenmove slowly up the flanks of the Sierra in compliance with the changesof climate. The great white mantle on the mountains broke up into aseries of glaciers more or less distinct and river-like, with manytributaries, and these again were melted and divided into still smallerglaciers, until now only a few of the smallest residual topmost branchesof the grand system exist on the cool slopes of the summit peaks. 

Plants and animals, biding their time, closely followed the retiringice, bestowing quick and joyous animation on the new-born landscapes. Pine-trees marched up the sun-warmed moraines in long, hopeful files, taking the ground and establishing themselves as soon as it was readyfor them; brown-spiked sedges fringed the shores of the newborn lakes;young rivers roared in the abandoned channels of the glaciers; flowersbloomed around the feet of the great burnished domes, --while with quickfertility mellow beds of soil, settling and warming, offered food tomultitudes of Nature's waiting children, great and small, animals aswell as plants; mice, squirrels, marmots, deer, bears, elephants, etc. The ground burst into bloom with magical rapidity, and the young forestsinto bird-song: life in every form warming and sweetening and growingricher as the years passed away over the mighty Sierra so latelysuggestive of death and consummate desolation only. 

It is hard without long and loving study to realize the magnitude of thework done on these mountains during the last glacial period by glaciers, which are only streams of closely compacted snow-crystals. Careful studyof the phenomena presented goes to show that the pre-glacial conditionof the range was comparatively simple: one vast wave of stone in which athousand mountains, domes, cañons, ridges, etc. , lay concealed. And inthe development of these Nature chose for a tool not the earthquake orlightning to rend and split asunder, not the stormy torrent or erodingrain, but the tender snow-flowers noiselessly falling through unnumberedcenturies, the offspring of the sun and sea. Laboring harmoniously inunited strength they crushed and ground and wore away the rocks in theirmarch, making vast beds of soil, and at the same time developed andfashioned the landscapes into the delightful variety of hill and daleand lordly mountain that mortals call beauty. Perhaps more than a milein average depth has the range been thus degraded during the lastglacial period, --a quantity of mechanical work almost inconceivablygreat. And our admiration must be excited again and again as we toil andstudy and learn that this vast job of rockwork, so far-reaching in itsinfluences, was done by agents so fragile and small as are these flowersof the mountain clouds. Strong only by force of numbers, they carriedaway entire mountains, particle by particle, block by block, and castthem into the sea; sculptured, fashioned, modeled all the range, anddeveloped its predestined beauty. All these new Sierra landscapes wereevidently predestined, for the physical structure of the rocks on whichthe features of the scenery depend was acquired while they lay at leasta mile deep below the pre-glacial surface. And it was while thesefeatures were taking form in the depths of the range, the particles ofthe rocks marching to their appointed places in the dark with referenceto the coming beauty, that the particles of icy vapor in the skymarching to the same music assembled to bring them to the light. Then, after their grand task was done, these bands of snow-flowers, thesemighty glaciers, were melted and removed as if of no more importancethan dew destined to last but an hour. Few, however, of Nature's agentshave left monuments so noble and enduring as they. The great granitedomes a mile high, the cañons as deep, the noble peaks, the Yosemitevalleys, these, and indeed nearly all other features of the Sierrascenery, are glacier monuments. 

Contemplating the works of these flowers of the sky, one may easilyfancy them endowed with life: messengers sent down to work in themountain mines on errands of divine love. Silently flying through thedarkened air, swirling, glinting, to their appointed places, they seemto have taken counsel together, saying, "Come, we are feeble; let ushelp one another. We are many, and together we will be strong. Marchingin close, deep ranks, let us roll away the stones from these mountainsepulchers, and set the landscapes free. Let us uncover these clusteringdomes. Here let us carve a lake basin; there, a Yosemite Valley; here, achannel for a river with fluted steps and brows for the plunge ofsongful cataracts. Yonder let us spread broad sheets of soil, that manand beast may be fed; and here pile trains of boulders for pines andgiant Sequoias. Here make ground for a meadow; there, for a garden andgrove, making it smooth and fine for small daisies and violets and bedsof heathy bryanthus, spicing it well with crystals, garnet feldspar, andzircon. " Thus and so on it has oftentimes seemed to me sang and plannedand labored the hearty snow-flower crusaders; and nothing that I canwrite can possibly exaggerate the grandeur and beauty of their work. Like morning mist they have vanished in sunshine, all save the few smallcompanies that still linger on the coolest mountainsides, and, asresidual glaciers, are still busily at work completing the last of thelake basins, the last beds of soil, and the sculpture of some of thehighest peaks. 

[Illustration: MOUNT HOOD. ]

CHAPTER II

THE GLACIERS

Of the small residual glaciers mentioned in the preceding chapter, Ihave found sixty-five in that portion of the range lying betweenlatitude 36° 30' and 39°. They occur singly or in small groups on thenorth sides of the peaks of the High Sierra, sheltered beneath broadfrosty shadows, in amphitheaters of their own making, where the snow, shooting down from the surrounding heights in avalanches, is mostabundant. Over two thirds of the entire number lie between latitude 37°and 38°, and form the highest fountains of the San Joaquin, Merced, Tuolumne, and Owen's rivers. 

The glaciers of Switzerland, like those of the Sierra, are mere wastingremnants of mighty ice-floods that once filled the great valleys andpoured into the sea. So, also, are those of Norway, Asia, and SouthAmerica. Even the grand continuous mantles of ice that still coverGreenland, Spitsbergen, Nova Zembla, Franz-Joseph-Land, parts of Alaska, and the south polar region are shallowing and shrinking. Every glacierin the world is smaller than it once was. All the world is growingwarmer, or the crop of snow-flowers is diminishing. But in contemplatingthe condition of the glaciers of the world, we must bear in mind whiletrying to account for the changes going on that the same sunshine thatwastes them builds them. Every glacier records the expenditure of anenormous amount of sun-heat in lifting the vapor for the snow of whichit is made from the ocean to the mountains, as Tyndall strikingly shows. 

The number of glaciers in the Alps, according to the Schlagintweitbrothers, is 1100, of which 100 may be regarded as primary, and thetotal area of ice, snow, and _névé_ is estimated at 1177 squaremiles, or an average for each glacier of little more than one squaremile. On the same authority, the average height above sea-level at whichthey melt is about 7414 feet. The Grindelwald glacier descends below4000 feet, and one of the Mont Blanc glaciers reaches nearly as low apoint. One of the largest of the Himalaya glaciers on the head waters ofthe Ganges does not, according to Captain Hodgson, descend below 12, 914feet. The largest of the Sierra glaciers on Mount Shasta descends towithin 9500 feet of the level of the sea, which, as far as I haveobserved, is the lowest point reached by any glacier within the boundsof California, the average height of all being not far from 11, 000 feet. 

The changes that have taken place in the glacial conditions of theSierra from the time of greatest extension is well illustrated by theseries of glaciers of every size and form extending along the mountainsof the coast to Alaska. A general exploration of this instructive regionshows that to the north of California, through Oregon and Washington, groups of active glaciers still exist on all the high volcanic cones ofthe Cascade Range, --Mount Pitt, the Three Sisters, Mounts Jefferson, Hood, St. Helens, Adams, Rainier, Baker, and others, --some of them ofconsiderable size, though none of them approach the sea. Of thesemountains Rainier, in Washington, is the highest and iciest. Itsdome-like summit, between 14, 000 and 15, 000 feet high, is capped withice, and eight glaciers, seven to twelve miles long, radiate from it asa center, and form the sources of the principal streams of the State. The lowest-descending of this fine group flows through beautiful foreststo within 3500 feet of the sea-level, and sends forth a river laden withglacier mud and sand. On through British Columbia and southeasternAlaska the broad, sustained mountain-chain, extending along the coast, is generally glacier-bearing. The upper branches of nearly all the maincañons and fiords are occupied by glaciers, which gradually increase insize, and descend lower until the high region between Mount Fairweatherand Mount St. Elias is reached, where a considerable number dischargeinto the waters of the ocean. This is preëminently the ice-land ofAlaska and of the entire Pacific Coast. 

Northward from here the glaciers gradually diminish in size andthickness, and melt at higher levels. In Prince William Sound and Cook'sInlet many fine glaciers are displayed, pouring from the surroundingmountains; but to the north of latitude 62° few, if any, glaciersremain, the ground being mostly low and the snowfall light. Betweenlatitude 56° and 60° there are probably more than 5000 glaciers, notcounting the smallest. Hundreds of the largest size descend through theforests to the level of the sea, or near it, though as far as my ownobservations have reached, after a pretty thorough examination of theregion, not more than twenty-five discharge icebergs into the sea. Allthe long high-walled fiords into which these great glaciers of the firstclass flow are of course crowded with icebergs of every conceivableform, which are detached with thundering noise at intervals of a fewminutes from an imposing ice-wall that is thrust forward into deepwater. But these Pacific Coast icebergs are small as compared with thoseof Greenland and the Antarctic region, and only a few of them escapefrom the intricate system of channels, with which this portion of thecoast is fringed, into the open sea. Nearly all of them are swashed anddrifted by wind and tide back and forth in the fiords until finallymelted by the ocean water, the sunshine, the warm winds, and the copiousrains of summer. Only one glacier on the coast, observed by Prof. Russell, discharges its bergs directly into the open sea, at Icy Cape, opposite Mount St. Elias. The southernmost of the glaciers that reachthe sea occupies a narrow, picturesque fiord about twenty miles to thenorthwest of the mouth of the Stikeen River, in latitude 56° 50'. Thefiord is called by the natives "Hutli, " or Thunder Bay, from the noisemade by the discharge of the icebergs. About one degree farther norththere are four of these complete glaciers, discharging at the heads ofthe long arms of Holkam Bay. At the head of the Tahkoo Inlet, stillfarther north, there is one; and at the head and around the sides ofGlacier Bay, trending in a general northerly direction from Cross Soundin latitude 58° to 59°, there are seven of these complete glacierspouring bergs into the bay and its branches, and keeping up an eternalthundering. The largest of this group, the Muir, has upward of 200tributaries, and a width below the confluence of the main tributaries ofabout twenty-five miles. Between the west side of this icy bay and theocean all the ground, high and low, excepting the peaks of theFairweather Range, is covered with a mantle of ice from 1000 to probably3000 feet thick, which discharges by many distinct mouths. 

[Illustration: MOUNT RAINIER FROM PARADISE VALLEY--NISQUALLY GLACIER. ]

This fragmentary ice-sheet, and the immense glaciers about Mount St. Elias, together with the multitude of separate river-like glaciers thatload the slopes of the coast mountains, evidently once formed part of acontinuous ice-sheet that flowed over all the region hereabouts, andonly a comparatively short time ago extended as far southward as themouth of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, probably farther. All the islandsof the Alexander Archipelago, as well as the headlands and promontoriesof the mainland, display telling traces of this great mantle that arestill fresh and unmistakable. They all have the forms of the greateststrength with reference to the action of a vast rigid press ofoversweeping ice from the north and northwest, and their surfaces have asmooth, rounded, overrubbed appearance, generally free from angles. Theintricate labyrinth of canals, channels, straits, passages, sounds, narrows, etc. Between the islands, and extending into the mainland, ofcourse manifest in their forms and trends and general characteristicsthe same subordination to the grinding action of universal glaciation asto their origin, and differ from the islands and banks of the fiordsonly in being portions of the pre-glacial margin of the continent moredeeply eroded, and therefore covered by the ocean waters which flowedinto them as the ice was melted out of them. The formation and extensionof fiords in this manner is still going on, and may be witnessed in manyplaces in Glacier Bay, Yakutat Bay, and adjacent regions. That thedomain of the sea is being extended over the land by the wearing away ofits shores, is well known, but in these icy regions of Alaska, and evenas far south as Vancouver Island, the coast rocks have been so short atime exposed to wave-action they are but little wasted as yet. In theseregions the extension of the sea effected by its own action inpost-glacial time is scarcely appreciable as compared with that effectedby ice-action. 

Traces of the vanished glaciers made during the period of greaterextension abound on the Sierra as far south as latitude 36°. Even thepolished rock surfaces, the most evanescent of glacial records, arestill found in a wonderfully perfect state of preservation on the upperhalf of the middle portion of the range, and form the most striking ofall the glacial phenomena. They occur in large irregular patches in thesummit and middle regions, and though they have been subjected to theaction of the weather with its corroding storms for thousands of years, their mechanical excellence is such that they still reflect the sunbeamslike glass, and attract the attention of every observer. The attentionof the mountaineer is seldom arrested by moraines, however regular andhigh they may be, or by cañons, however deep, or by rocks, however noblein form and sculpture; but he stoops and rubs his hands admiringly onthe shining surfaces and trios hard to account for their mysterioussmoothness. He has seen the snow descending in avalanches, but concludesthis cannot be the work of snow, for he finds it where no avalanchesoccur. Nor can water have done it, for he sees this smoothness glowingon the sides and tops of the highest domes. Only the winds of all theagents he knows seem capable of flowing in the directions indicated bythe scoring. Indians, usually so little curious about geologicalphenomena, have come to me occasionally and asked me, "What makeum theground so smooth at Lake Tenaya?" Even horses and dogs gaze wonderinglyat the strange brightness of the ground, and smell the polished spacesand place their feet cautiously on them when they come to them for thefirst time, as if afraid of sinking. The most perfect of the polishedpavements and walls lie at an elevation of from 7000 to 9000 feet abovethe sea, where the rock is compact silicious granite. Small dim patchesmay be found as low as 3000 feet on the driest and most enduringportions of sheer walls with a southern exposure, and on compactswelling bosses partially protected from rain by a covering of largeboulders. On the north half of the range the striated and polishedsurfaces are less common, not only because this part of the chain islower, but because the surface rocks are chiefly porous lavas subject tocomparatively rapid waste. The ancient moraines also, though wellpreserved on most of the south half of the range, are nearly obliteratedto the northward, but then material is found scattered anddisintegrated. 

A similar blurred condition of the superficial records of glacial actionobtains throughout most of Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, andAlaska, due in great part to the action of excessive moisture. Even insoutheastern Alaska, where the most extensive glaciers on the continentare, the more evanescent of the traces of their former greaterextension, though comparatively recent, are more obscure than those ofthe ancient California glaciers whore the climate is drier and the rocksmore resisting. 

These general views of the glaciers of the Pacific Coast will enable myreaders to see something of the changes that have taken place inCalifornia, and will throw light on the residual glaciers of the HighSierra. 

Prior to the autumn of 1871 the glaciers of the Sierra were unknown. InOctober of that year I discovered the Black Mountain Glacier in ashadowy amphitheater between Black and Rod Mountains, two of the peaksof the Merced group. This group is the highest portion of a spur thatstraggles out from the main axis of the range in the direction ofYosemite Valley. At the time of this interesting discovery I wasexploring the _névé_ amphitheaters of the group, and tracing thecourses of the ancient glaciers that once poured from its amplefountains through the Illilouette Basin and the Yosemite Valley, notexpecting to find any active glaciers so far south in the land ofsunshine. 

Beginning on the northwestern extremity of the group, I explored thechief tributary basins in succession, their moraines, roches moutonnées, and splendid glacier pavements, taking them in regular successionwithout any reference to the time consumed in their study. The monumentsof the tributary that poured its ice from between Red and BlackMountains I found to be the most interesting of them all; and when I sawits magnificent moraines extending in majestic curves from the spaciousamphitheater between the mountains, I was exhilarated with the work thatlay before me. It was one of the golden days of the Sierra Indiansummer, when the rich sunshine glorifies every landscape however rockyand cold, and suggests anything rather than glaciers. The path of thevanished glacier was warm now, and shone in many places as if washedwith silver. The tall pines growing on the moraines stood transfiguredin the glowing light, the poplar groves on the levels of the basin weremasses of orange-yellow, and the late-blooming goldenrods added gold togold. Pushing on over my rosy glacial highway, I passed lake after lakeset in solid basins of granite, and many a thicket and meadow watered bya stream that issues from the amphitheater and links the lakes together;now wading through plushy bogs knee-deep in yellow and purple sphagnum;now passing over bare rock. The main lateral moraines that bounded theview on either hand are from 100 to nearly 200 feet high, and about asregular as artificial embankments, and covered with a superb growth ofSilver Fir and Pine. But this garden and forest luxuriance was speedilyleft behind. The trees were dwarfed as I ascended; patches of the alpinebryanthus and cassiope began to appear, and arctic willows pressed intoflat carpets by the winter snow. The lakelets, which a few miles downthe valley were so richly embroidered with flowery meadows, had here, atan elevation of 10, 000 feet, only small brown mats of carex, leavingbare rocks around more than half their shores. Yet amid this alpinesuppression the Mountain Pine bravely tossed his storm-beaten brancheson the ledges and buttresses of Red Mountain, some specimens being over100 feet high, and 24 feet in circumference, seemingly as fresh andvigorous as the giants of the lower zones. 

Evening came on just as I got fairly within the portal of the mainamphitheater. It is about a mile wide, and a little less than two mileslong. The crumbling spurs and battlements of Red Mountain bound it onthe north, the somber, rudely sculptured precipices of Black Mountain onthe south, and a hacked, splintery _col_, curving around frommountain to mountain, shuts it in on the east. 

I chose a camping-ground on the brink of one of the lakes where athicket of Hemlock Spruce sheltered me from the night wind. Then, aftermaking a tin-cupful of tea, I sat by my camp-fire reflecting on thegrandeur and significance of the glacial records I had seen. As thenight advanced the mighty rock walls of my mountain mansion seemed tocome nearer, while the starry sky in glorious brightness stretchedacross like a ceiling from wall to wall, and fitted closely down intoall the spiky irregularities of the summits. Then, after a long firesiderest and a glance at my note-book, I cut a few leafy branches for a bed, and fell into the clear, death-like sleep of the tired mountaineer. 

Early next morning I set out to trace the grand old glacier that haddone so much for the beauty of the Yosemite region back to its farthestfountains, enjoying the charm that every explorer feels in Nature'suntrodden wildernesses. The voices of the mountains were still asleep. The wind scarce stirred the pine-needles. The sun was up, but it was yettoo cold for the birds and the few burrowing animals that dwell here. Only the stream, cascading from pool to pool, seemed to be wholly awake. Yet the spirit of the opening day called to action. The sunbeams camestreaming gloriously through the jagged openings of the _col_, glancing on the burnished pavements and lighting the silvery lakes, while every sun-touched rock burned white on its edges like melting ironin a furnace. Passing round the north shore of my camp lake I followedthe central stream past many cascades from lakelet to lakelet. Thescenery became more rigidly arctic, the Dwarf Pines and Hemlocksdisappeared, and the stream was bordered with icicles. As the sun rosehigher rocks were loosened on shattered portions of the cliffs, and camedown in rattling avalanches, echoing wildly from crag to crag. 

The main lateral moraines that extend from the jaws of the amphitheaterinto the Illilouette Basin are continued in straggling masses along thewalls of the amphitheater, while separate boulders, hundreds of tons inweight, are left stranded here and there out in the middle of thechannel. Here, also, I observed a series of small terminal morainesranged along the south wall of the amphitheater, corresponding in sizeand form with the shadows cast by the highest portions. The meaning ofthis correspondence between moraines and shadows was afterward madeplain. Tracing the stream back to the last of its chain of lakelets, Inoticed a deposit of fine gray mud on the bottom except where the forceof the entering current had prevented its settling. It looked like themud worn from a grindstone, and I at once suspected its glacial origin, for the stream that was carrying it came gurgling out of the base of araw moraine that seemed in process of formation. Not a plant orweather-stain was visible on its rough, unsettled surface. It is from 60to over 100 feet high, and plunges forward at an angle of 38°. Cautiously picking my way, I gained the top of the moraine and wasdelighted to see a small but well characterized glacier swooping downfrom the gloomy precipices of Black Mountain in a finely graduated curveto the moraine on which I stood. The compact ice appeared on all thelower portions of the glacier, though gray with dirt and stones embeddedin it. Farther up the ice disappeared beneath coarse granulated snow. The surface of the glacier was further characterized by dirt bands andthe outcropping edges of the blue veins, showing the laminated structureof the ice. The uppermost crevasse, or "bergschrund, " where the_névé_ was attached to the mountain, was from 12 to 14 feet wide, and was bridged in a few places by the remains of snow avalanches. Creeping along the edge of the schrund, holding on with benumbedfingers, I discovered clear sections where the bedded structure wasbeautifully revealed. The surface snow, though sprinkled with stonesshot down from the cliffs, was in some places almost pure, graduallybecoming crystalline and changing to whitish porous ice of differentshades of color, and this again changing at a depth of 20 or 30 feet toblue ice, some of the ribbon-like bands of which were nearly pure, andblended with the paler bands in the most gradual and delicate mannerimaginable. A series of rugged zigzags enabled me to make my way downinto the weird under-world of the crevasse. Its chambered hollows werehung with a multitude of clustered icicles, amid which pale, subduedlight pulsed and shimmered with indescribable loveliness. Water drippedand tinkled overhead, and from far below came strange, solemn murmuringsfrom currents that were feeling their way through veins and fissures inthe dark. The chambers of a glacier are perfectly enchanting, notwithstanding one feels out of place in their frosty beauty. I wassoon cold in my shirt-sleeves, and the leaning wall threatened to engulfme; yet it was hard to leave the delicious music of the water and thelovely light. Coming again to the surface, I noticed boulders of everysize on their journeys to the terminal moraine--journeys of more than ahundred years, without a single stop, night or day, winter or summer. 

The sun gave birth to a network of sweet-voiced rills that rangracefully down the glacier, curling and swirling in their shiningchannels, and cutting clear sections through the porous surface-ice intothe solid blue, where the structure of the glacier was beautifullyillustrated. 

The series of small terminal moraines which I had observed in themorning, along the south wall of the amphitheater, correspond in everyway with the moraine of this glacier, and their distribution withreference to shadows was now understood. When the climatic changes cameon that caused the melting and retreat of the main glacier that filledthe amphitheater, a series of residual glaciers were left in the cliffshadows, under the protection of which they lingered, until they formedthe moraines we are studying. Then, as the snow became still lessabundant, all of them vanished in succession, except the one justdescribed; and the cause of its longer life is sufficiently apparent inthe greater area of snow-basin it drains, and its more perfectprotection from wasting sunshine. How much longer this little glacierwill last depends, of course, on the amount of snow it receives fromyear to year, as compared with melting waste. 

After this discovery, I made excursions over all the High Sierra, pushing my explorations summer after summer, and discovered that what atfirst sight in the distance looked like extensive snow-fields, wore ingreat part glaciers, busily at work completing the sculpture of thesummit-peaks so grandly blocked out by their giant predecessors. 

On August 21, I set a series of stakes in the Maclure Glacier, nearMount Lyell, and found its rate of motion to be little more than an incha day in the middle, showing a great contrast to the Muir Glacier inAlaska, which, near the front, flows at a rate of from five to ten feetin twenty-four hours. Mount Shasta has three glaciers, but MountWhitney, although it is the highest mountain in the range, does not nowcherish a single glacier. Small patches of lasting snow and ice occur onits northern slopes, but they are shallow, and present no well markedevidence of glacial motion. Its sides, however, are scored and polishedin many places by the action of its ancient glaciers that flowed eastand west as tributaries of the great glaciers that once filled thevalleys of the Kern and Owen's rivers. 

CHAPTER III

THE SNOW

The first snow that whitens the Sierra, usually falls about the end ofOctober or early in November, to a depth of a few inches, after monthsof the most charming Indian summer weather imaginable. But in a fewdays, this light covering mostly melts from the slopes exposed to thesun and causes but little apprehension on the part of mountaineers whomay be lingering among the high peaks at this time. The first generalwinter storm that yields snow that is to form a lasting portion of theseason's supply, seldom breaks on the mountains before the end ofNovember. Then, warned by the sky, cautions mountaineers, together withthe wild sheep, deer, and most of the birds and bears, make haste to thelowlands or foot-hills; and burrowing marmots, mountain beavers, wood-rats, and such people go into winter quarters, some of them notagain to see the light of day until the general awakening andresurrection of the spring in June or July. The first heavy fall isusually from about two to four feet in depth. Then, with intervals ofsplendid sunshine, storm succeeds storm, heaping snow on snow, untilthirty to fifty feet has fallen. But on account of its settling andcompacting, and the almost constant waste from melting and evaporation, the average depth actually found at any time seldom exceeds ten feet inthe forest region, or fifteen feet along the slopes of the summit peaks. 

Even during the coldest weather evaporation never wholly ceases, and thesunshine that abounds between the storms is sufficiently powerful tomelt the surface more or less through all the winter months. Waste frommelting also goes on to some extent on the bottom from heat stored up inthe rocks, and given off slowly to the snow in contact with them, as isshown by the rising of the streams on all the higher regions after thefirst snowfall, and their steady sustained flow all winter. 

The greater portion of the snow deposited around the lofty summits ofthe range falls in small crisp flakes and broken crystals, or, whenaccompanied by strong winds and low temperature, the crystals, insteadof being locked together in their fall to form tufted flakes, are beatenand broken into meal and fine dust. But down in the forest region thegreater portion comes gently to the ground, light and feathery, some ofthe flakes in mild weather being nearly an inch in diameter, and it isevenly distributed and kept from drifting to any great extent by theshelter afforded by the large trees. Every tree during the progress ofgentle storms is loaded with, fairy bloom at the coldest and darkesttime of year, bending the branches, and hushing every singing needle. But as soon as the storm is over, and the sun shines, the snow at oncebegins to shift and settle and fall from the branches in miniatureavalanches, and the white forest soon becomes green again. The snow onthe ground also settles and thaws every bright day, and freezes atnight, until it becomes coarsely granulated, and loses every trace ofits rayed crystalline structure, and then a man may walk firmly over itsfrozen surface as if on ice. The forest region up to an elevation of7000 feet is usually in great part free from snow in June, but at thistime the higher regions are still heavy-laden, and are not touched byspring weather to any considerable extent before the middle or end ofJuly. 

One of the most striking effects of the snow on the mountains is theburial of the rivers and small lakes. 

 As the snow fa's in the river A moment white, then lost forever, sang Burns, in illustrating the fleeting character of human pleasure. The first snowflakes that fall into the Sierra rivers vanish thussuddenly; but in great storms, when the temperature is low, theabundance of the snow at length chills the water nearly to thefreezing-point, and then, of course, it ceases to melt and consume thesnow so suddenly. The falling flakes and crystals form, cloud-likemasses of blue sludge, which are swept forward with the current andcarried down to warmer climates many miles distant, while some arelodged against logs and rocks and projecting points of the banks, andlast for days, piled high above the level of the water, and show whiteagain, instead of being at once "lost forever, " while the riversthemselves are at length lost for months during the snowy period. Thesnow is first built out from the banks in bossy, over-curling drifts, compacting and cementing until the streams are spanned. They then flowin the dark beneath a continuous covering across the snowy zone, whichis about thirty miles wide. All the Sierra rivers and their tributariesin these high regions are thus lost every winter, as if another glacialperiod had come on. Not a drop of running water is to be seen exceptingat a few points where large falls occur, though the rush and rumble ofthe heavier currents may still be heard. Toward spring, when the weatheris warm during the day and frosty at night, repeated thawing andfreezing and new layers of snow render the bridging-masses dense andfirm, so that one may safely walk across the streams, or even lead ahorse across them without danger of falling through. In June thethinnest parts of the winter ceiling, and those most exposed tosunshine, begin to give way, forming dark, rugged-edged, pit-like sinks, at the bottom of which the rushing water may be seen. At the end of Juneonly here and there may the mountaineer find a secure snow-bridge. Themost lasting of the winter bridges, thawing from below as well as fromabove, because of warm currents of air passing through the tunnels, arestrikingly arched and sculptured; and by the occasional freezing of theoozing, dripping water of the ceiling they become brightly andpicturesquely icy. In some of the reaches, where there is a free margin, we may walk through them. Small skylights appearing here and there, these tunnels are not very dark. The roaring river fills all the archingway with impressively loud reverberating music, which is sweetened attimes by the ouzel, a bird that is not afraid to go wherever a streammay go, and to sing wherever a stream sings. 

All the small alpine pools and lakelets are in like manner obliteratedfrom the winter landscapes, either by being first frozen and thencovered by snow, or by being filled in by avalanches. The firstavalanche of the season shot into a lake basin may perhaps find thesurface frozen. Then there is a grand crashing of breaking ice anddashing of waves mingled with the low, deep booming of the avalanche. Detached masses of the invading snow, mixed with fragments of ice, driftabout in sludgy, island-like heaps, while the main body of it forms atalus with its base wholly or in part resting on the bottom of thebasin, as controlled by its depth and the size of the avalanche. Thenext avalanche, of course, encroaches still farther, and so on with eachin succession until the entire basin may be filled and its water spongedup or displaced. This huge mass of sludge, more or less mixed with sand, stones, and perhaps timber, is frozen to a considerable depth, and muchsun-heat is required to thaw it. Some of these unfortunate lakelets arenot clear of ice and snow until near the end of summer. Others are neverquite free, opening only on the side opposite the entrance of theavalanches. Some show only a narrow crescent of water lying between theshore and sheer bluffs of icy compacted snow, masses of which breakingoff float in front like icebergs in a miniature Arctic Ocean, while theavalanche heaps leaning back against the mountains look like smallglaciers. The frontal cliffs are in some instances quite picturesque, and with the berg-dotted waters in front of them lighted with sunshineare exceedingly beautiful. It often happens that while one side of alake basin is hopelessly snow-buried and frozen, the other, enjoyingsunshine, is adorned with beautiful flower-gardens. Some of the smallerlakes are extinguished in an instant by a heavy avalanche either ofrocks or snow. The rolling, sliding, ponderous mass entering on one sidesweeps across the bottom and up the opposite side, displacing the waterand even scraping the basin clean, and shoving the accumulated rocks andsediments up the farther bank and taking full possession. The dislodgedwater is in part absorbed, but most of it is sent around the front ofthe avalanche and down the channel of the outlet, roaring and hurryingas if frightened and glad to escape. 

SNOW-BANNERS

The most magnificent storm phenomenon I ever saw, surpassing in showygrandeur the most imposing effects of clouds, floods, or avalanches, wasthe peaks of the High Sierra, back of Yosemite Valley, decorated withsnow-banners. Many of the starry snow-flowers, out of which thesebanners are made, fall before they are ripe, while most of those that doattain perfect development as six-rayed crystals glint and chafe againstone another in their fall through the frosty air, and are broken intofragments. This dry fragmentary snow is still further prepared for theformation of banners by the action of the wind. For, instead of findingrest at once, like the snow which falls into the tranquil depths of theforests, it is rolled over and over, beaten against rock-ridges, andswirled in pits and hollows, like boulders, pebbles, and sand in thepot-holes of a river, until finally the delicate angles of the crystalsare worn off, and the whole mass is reduced to dust. And wheneverstorm-winds find this prepared snow-dust in a loose condition on exposedslopes, where there is a free upward sweep to leeward, it is tossed backinto the sky, and borne onward from peak to peak in the form of bannersor cloudy drifts, according to the velocity of the wind and theconformation of the slopes up or around which it is driven. While thusflying through the air, a small portion makes good its escape, andremains in the sky as vapor. But far the greater part, after beingdriven into the sky again and again, is at length locked fast in bossydrifts, or in the wombs of glaciers, some of it to remain silent andrigid for centuries before it is finally melted and sent singing downthe mountainsides to the sea. 

Yet, notwithstanding the abundance of winter snow-dust in the mountains, and the frequency of high winds, and the length of time the dust remainsloose and exposed to their action, the occurrence of well-formed bannersis, for causes we shall hereafter note, comparatively rare. I have seenonly one display of this kind that seemed in every way perfect. This wasin the winter of 1873, when the snow-laden summits were swept by a wild"norther. " I happened at the time to be wintering in Yosemite Valley, that sublime Sierra temple where every day one may see the grandestsights. Yet even here the wild gala-day of the north wind seemedsurpassingly glorious. I was awakened in the morning by the rocking ofmy cabin and the beating of pine-burs on the roof. Detached torrents andavalanches from the main wind-flood overhead were rushing wildly downthe narrow side cañons, and over the precipitous walls, with loudresounding roar, rousing the pines to enthusiastic action, and makingthe whole valley vibrate as though it were an instrument being played. 

But afar on the lofty exposed peaks of the range standing so high in thesky, the storm was expressing itself in still grander characters, whichI was soon to see in all their glory. I had long been anxious to studysome points in the structure of the ice-cone that is formed every winterat the foot of the upper Yosemite fall, but the blinding spray by whichit is invested had hitherto prevented me from making a sufficiently nearapproach. This morning the entire body of the fall was torn into gauzyshreds, and blown horizontally along the face of the cliff, leaving thecone dry; and while making my way to the top of an overlooking ledge toseize so favorable an opportunity to examine the interior of the cone, the peaks of the Merced group came in sight over the shoulder of theSouth Dome, each waving a resplendent banner against the blue sky, asregular in form, and as firm in texture, as if woven of fine silk. Sorare and splendid a phenomenon, of course, overbore all otherconsiderations, and I at once let the ice-cone go, and began to force myway out of the valley to some dome or ridge sufficiently lofty tocommand a general view of the main summits, feeling assured that Ishould find them bannered still more gloriously; nor was I in the leastdisappointed. Indian Cañon, through which I climbed, was choked withsnow that had been shot down in avalanches from the high cliffs oneither side, rendering the ascent difficult; but inspired by the roaringstorm, the tedious wallowing brought no fatigue, and in four hours Igained the top of a ridge above the valley, 8000 feet high. And there inbold relief, like a clear painting, appeared a most imposing scene. Innumerable peaks, black and sharp, rose grandly into the dark blue sky, their bases set in solid white, their sides streaked and splashed withsnow, like ocean rocks with foam; and from every summit, all free andunconfused, was streaming a beautiful silky silvery banner, from half amile to a mile in length, slender at the point of attachment, thenwidening gradually as it extended from the peak until it was about 1000or 1500 feet in breadth, as near as I could estimate. The cluster ofpeaks called the "Crown of the Sierra, " at the head of the Merced andTuolumne rivers, --Mounts Dana, Gibbs, Conness, Lyell, Maclure, Ritter, with their nameless compeers, --each had its own refulgent banner, wavingwith a clearly visible motion in the sunglow, and there was not a singlecloud in the sky to mar their simple grandeur. Fancy yourself standingon this Yosemite ridge looking eastward. You notice a strange garishglitter in the air. The gale drives wildly overhead with a fierce, tempestuous roar, but its violence is not felt, for you are lookingthrough a sheltered opening in the woods as through a window. There, inthe immediate foreground of your picture, rises a majestic forest ofSilver Fir blooming in eternal freshness, the foliage yellow-green, andthe snow beneath the trees strewn with their beautiful plumes, pluckedoff by the wind. Beyond, and extending over all the middle ground, aresomber swaths of pine, interrupted by huge swelling ridges and domes;and just beyond the dark forest you see the monarchs of the High Sierrawaving their magnificent banners. They are twenty miles away, but youwould not wish them nearer, for every feature is distinct, and the wholeglorious show is seen in its right proportions. After this general view, mark how sharply the dark snowless ribs and buttresses and summits ofthe peaks are defined, excepting the portions veiled by the banners, andhow delicately their sides are streaked with snow, where it has come torest in narrow flutings and gorges. Mark, too, how grandly the bannerswave as the wind is deflected against their sides, and how trimly eachis attached to the very summit of its peak, like a streamer at amasthead; how smooth and silky they are in texture, and how finely theirfading fringes are penciled on the azure sky. See how dense and opaquethey are at the point of attachment, and how filmy and translucenttoward the end, so that the peaks back of them are seen dimly, as thoughyou were looking through ground glass. Yet again observe how some of thelongest, belonging to the loftiest summits, stream perfectly free allthe way across intervening notches and passes from peak to peak, whileothers overlap and partly hide each other. And consider how keenly everyparticle of this wondrous cloth of snow is flashing out jets of light. These are the main features of the beautiful and terrible picture asseen from the forest window; and it would still be surpassingly gloriouswere the fore- and middle-grounds obliterated altogether, leaving onlythe black peaks, the white banners, and the blue sky. 

Glancing now in a general way at the formation of snow-banners, we findthat the main causes of the wondrous beauty and perfection of those wehave been contemplating were the favorable direction and great force ofthe wind, the abundance of snow-dust, and the peculiar conformation ofthe slopes of the peaks. It is essential not only that the wind shouldmove with great velocity and steadiness to supply a sufficiently copiousand continuous stream of snow-dust, but that it should come from thenorth. No perfect banner is ever hung on the Sierra peaks by a southwind. Had the gale that day blown from the south, leaving otherconditions unchanged, only a dull, confused, fog-like drift would havebeen produced; for the snow, instead of being spouted up over the topsof the peaks in concentrated currents to be drawn out as streamers, would have been shed off around the sides, and piled down into theglacier wombs. The cause of the concentrated action of the north wind isfound in the peculiar form of the north sides of the peaks, where theamphitheaters of the residual glaciers are. In general the south sidesare convex and irregular, while the north sides are concave both intheir vertical and horizontal sections; the wind in ascending thesecurves converges toward the summits, carrying the snow in concentratingcurrents with it, shooting it almost straight up into the air above thepeaks, from which it is then carried away in a horizontal direction. 

This difference in form between the north and south sides of the peakswas almost wholly produced by the difference in the kind and quantity ofthe glaciation to which they have been subjected, the north sides havingbeen hollowed by residual shadow-glaciers of a form that never existedon the sun-beaten sides. 

It appears, therefore, that shadows in great part determine not only theforms of lofty icy mountains, but also those of the snow-banners thatthe wild winds hang on them. 

CHAPTER IV

A NEAR VIEW OF THE HIGH SIERRA

Early one bright morning in the middle of Indian summer, while theglacier meadows were still crisp with frost crystals, I set out from thefoot of Mount Lyell, on my way down to Yosemite Valley, to replenish myexhausted store of bread and tea. I had spent the past summer, as manypreceding ones, exploring the glaciers that lie on the head waters ofthe San Joaquin, Tuolumne, Merced, and Owen's rivers; measuring andstudying their movements, trends, crevasses, moraines, etc. , and thepart they had played during the period of their greater extension in thecreation and development of the landscapes of this alpine wonderland. The time for this kind of work was nearly over for the year, and I beganto look forward with delight to the approaching winter with its wondrousstorms, when I would be warmly snow-bound in my Yosemite cabin withplenty of bread and books; but a tinge of regret came on when Iconsidered that possibly I might not see this favorite region againuntil the next summer, excepting distant views from the heights aboutthe Yosemite walls. 

To artists, few portions of the High Sierra are, strictly speaking, picturesque. The whole massive uplift of the range is one great picture, not clearly divisible into smaller ones; differing much in this respectfrom the older, and what may be called, riper mountains of the CoastRange. All the landscapes of the Sierra, as we have seen, were bornagain, remodeled from base to summit by the developing ice-floods of thelast glacial winter. But all those new landscapes were not brought forthsimultaneously; some of the highest, where the ice lingered longest, aretens of centuries younger than those of the warmer regions below them. In general, the younger the mountain-landscapes, --younger, I mean, withreference to the time of their emergence from the ice of the glacialperiod, --the less separable are they into artistic bits capable of beingmade into warm, sympathetic, lovable pictures with appreciable humanityin them. 

Here, however, on the head waters of the Tuolumne, is a group of wildpeaks on which the geologist may say that the sun has but just begun toshine, which is yet in a high degree picturesque, and in its mainfeatures so regular and evenly balanced as almost to appearconventional--one somber cluster of snow-laden peaks with graypine-fringed granite bosses braided around its base, the whole surgingfree into the sky from the head of a magnificent valley, whose loftywalls are beveled away on both sides so as to embrace it all withoutadmitting anything not strictly belonging to it. The foreground was nowaflame with autumn colors, brown and purple and gold, ripe in the mellowsunshine; contrasting brightly with the deep, cobalt blue of the sky, and the black and gray, and pure, spiritual white of the rocks andglaciers. Down through the midst, the young Tuolumne was seen pouringfrom its crystal fountains, now resting in glassy pools as if changingback again into ice, now leaping in white cascades as if turning tosnow; gliding right and left between granite bosses, then sweeping onthrough the smooth, meadowy levels of the valley, swaying pensively fromside to side with calm, stately gestures past dipping willows andsedges, and around groves of arrowy pine; and throughout its wholeeventful course, whether flowing fast or slow, singing loud or low, everfilling the landscape with spiritual animation, and manifesting thegrandeur of its sources in every movement and tone. 

Pursuing my lonely way down the valley, I turned again and again to gazeon the glorious picture, throwing up my arms to inclose it as in aframe. After long ages of growth in the darkness beneath the glaciers, through sunshine and storms, it seemed now to be ready and waiting forthe elected artist, like yellow wheat for the reaper; and I could nothelp wishing that I might carry colors and brushes with me on mytravels, and learn to paint. In the mean time I had to be content withphotographs on my mind and sketches in my note-books. At length, after Ihad rounded a precipitous headland that puts out from the west wall ofthe valley, every peak vanished from sight, and I pushed rapidly alongthe frozen meadows, over the divide between the waters of the Merced andTuolumne, and down through the forests that clothe the slopes of Cloud'sRest, arriving in Yosemite in due time--which, with me, is _any_time. And, strange to say, among the first people I met here were twoartists who, with letters of introduction, were awaiting my return. Theyinquired whether in the course of my explorations in the adjacentmountains I had ever come upon a landscape suitable for a largepainting; whereupon I began a description of the one that had so latelyexcited my admiration. Then, as I went on further and further intodetails, their faces began to glow, and I offered to guide them to it, while they declared that they would gladly follow, far or near, whithersoever I could spare the time to lead them. 

Since storms might come breaking down through the fine weather at anytime, burying the colors in snow, and cutting off the artists' retreat, I advised getting ready at once. 

I led them out of the valley by the Vernal and Nevada Falls, thence overthe main dividing ridge to the Big Tuolumne Meadows, by the old Monotrail, and thence along the upper Tuolumne River to its head. This wasmy companions' first excursion into the High Sierra, and as I was almostalways alone in my mountaineering, the way that the fresh beauty wasreflected in their faces made for me a novel and interesting study. Theynaturally were affected most of all by the colors--the intense azure ofthe sky, the purplish grays of the granite, the red and browns of drymeadows, and the translucent purple and crimson of huckleberry bogs; theflaming yellow of aspen groves, the silvery flashing of the streams, andthe bright green and blue of the glacier lakes. But the generalexpression of the scenery--rocky and savage--seemed sadly disappointing;and as they threaded the forest from ridge to ridge, eagerly scanningthe landscapes as they were unfolded, they said: "All this is huge andsublime, but we see nothing as yet at all available for effectivepictures. Art is long, and art is limited, you know; and here areforegrounds, middle-grounds, backgrounds, all alike; bare rock-waves, woods, groves, diminutive flecks of meadow, and strips of glitteringwater. " "Never mind, " I replied, "only bide a wee, and I will show yousomething you will like. "

At length, toward the end of the second day, the Sierra Crown began tocome into view, and when we had fairly rounded the projecting headlandbefore mentioned, the whole picture stood revealed in the flush of thealpenglow. Their enthusiasm was excited beyond bounds, and the moreimpulsive of the two, a young Scotchman, dashed ahead, shouting andgesticulating and tossing his arms in the air like a madman. Here, atlast, was a typical alpine landscape. 

After feasting awhile on the view, I proceeded to make camp in asheltered grove a little way back from the meadow, where pine-boughscould be obtained for beds, and where there was plenty of dry wood forfires, while the artists ran here and there, along the river-bends andup the sides of the cañon, choosing foregrounds for sketches. Afterdark, when our tea was made and a rousing fire had been built, we beganto make our plans. They decided to remain several days, at the least, while I concluded to make an excursion in the mean time to the untouchedsummit of Ritter. 

It was now about the middle of October, the springtime of snow-flowers. The first winter-clouds had already bloomed, and the peaks were strewnwith fresh crystals, without, however, affecting the climbing to anydangerous extent. And as the weather was still profoundly calm, and thedistance to the foot of the mountain only a little more than a day, Ifelt that I was running no great risk of being storm-bound. 

Mount Ritter is king of the mountains of the middle portion of the HighSierra, as Shasta of the north and Whitney of the south sections. Moreover, as far as I know, it had never been climbed. I had exploredthe adjacent wilderness summer after summer, but my studies thus far hadnever drawn me to the top of it. Its height above sea-level is about13, 300 feet, and it is fenced round by steeply inclined glaciers, andcañons of tremendous depth and ruggedness, which render it almostinaccessible. But difficulties of this kind only exhilarate themountaineer. 

Next morning, the artists went heartily to their work and I to mine. Former experiences had given good reason to know that passionate storms, invisible as yet, might be brooding in the calm sun-gold; therefore, before bidding farewell, I warned the artists not to be alarmed should Ifail to appear before a week or ten days, and advised them, in case asnow-storm should set in, to keep up big fires and shelter themselves asbest they could, and on no account to become frightened and attempt toseek their way back to Yosemite alone through the drifts. 

My general plan was simply this: to scale the cañon, wall, cross over tothe eastern flank of the range, and then make my way southward to thenorthern spurs of Mount Ritter in compliance with the interveningtopography; for to push on directly southward from camp through theinnumerable peaks and pinnacles that adorn this portion of the axis ofthe range, however interesting, would take too much time, besides beingextremely difficult and dangerous at this time of year. 

All my first day was pure pleasure; simply mountaineering indulgence, crossing the dry pathways of the ancient glaciers, tracing happystreams, and learning the habits of the birds and marmots in the grovesand rocks. Before I had gone a mile from camp, I came to the foot of awhite cascade that beats its way down a rugged gorge in the cañon wall, from a height of about nine hundred feet, and pours its throbbing watersinto the Tuolumne. I was acquainted with its fountains, which, fortunately, lay in my course. What a fine traveling companion it provedto be, what songs it sang, and how passionately it told the mountain'sown joy! Gladly I climbed along its dashing border, absorbing its divinemusic, and bathing from time to time in waftings of irised spray. Climbing higher, higher, now beauty came streaming on the sight: paintedmeadows, late-blooming gardens, peaks of rare architecture, lakes hereand there, shining like silver, and glimpses of the forested middleregion and the yellow lowlands far in the west. Beyond the range I sawthe so-called Mono Desert, lying dreamily silent in thick purplelight--a desert of heavy sun-glare beheld from a desert of ice-burnishedgranite. Here the waters divide, shouting in glorious enthusiasm, andfalling eastward to vanish in the volcanic sands and dry sky of theGreat Basin, or westward to the Great Valley of California, and thencethrough the Bay of San Francisco and the Golden Gate to the sea. 

Passing a little way down over the summit until I had reached anelevation of about 10, 000 feet, I pushed on southward toward a group ofsavage peaks that stand guard about Ritter on the north and west, groping my way, and dealing instinctively with every obstacle as itpresented itself. Here a huge gorge would be found cutting across mypath, along the dizzy edge of which I scrambled until some lessprecipitous point was discovered where I might safely venture to thebottom and then, selecting some feasible portion of the opposite wall, reascend with the same slow caution. Massive, flat-topped spursalternate with the gorges, plunging abruptly from the shoulders of thesnowy peaks, and planting their feet in the warm desert. These wereeverywhere marked and adorned with characteristic sculptures of theancient glaciers that swept over this entire region like one vastice-wind, and the polished surfaces produced by the ponderous flood arestill so perfectly preserved that in many places the sunlight reflectedfrom them is about as trying to the eyes as sheets of snow. 

God's glacial-mills grind slowly, but they have been kept in motion longenough in California to grind sufficient soil for a glorious abundanceof life, though most of the grist has been carried to the lowlands, leaving these high regions comparatively lean and bare; while thepost-glacial agents of erosion have not yet furnished sufficientavailable food over the general surface for more than a few tufts of thehardiest plants, chiefly carices and eriogonae. And it is interesting tolearn in this connection that the sparseness and repressed character ofthe vegetation at this height is caused more by want of soil than byharshness of climate; for, here and there, in sheltered hollows(countersunk beneath the general surface) into which a few rods ofwell-ground moraine chips have been dumped, we find groves of spruce andpine thirty to forty feet high, trimmed around the edges with willow andhuckleberry bushes, and oftentimes still further by an outer ring oftall grasses, bright with lupines, larkspurs, and showy columbines, suggesting a climate by no means repressingly severe. All the streams, too, and the pools at this elevation are furnished with little gardenswherever soil can be made to lie, which, though making scarce any showat a distance, constitute charming surprises to the appreciativeobserver. In these bits of leanness a few birds find grateful homes. Having no acquaintance with man, they fear no ill, and flock curiouslyabout the stranger, almost allowing themselves to be taken in the hand. In so wild and so beautiful a region was spent my first day, every sightand sound inspiring, leading one far out of himself, yet feeding andbuilding up his individuality. 

Now came the solemn, silent evening. Long, blue, spiky shadows crept outacross the snow-fields, while a rosy glow, at first scarce discernible, gradually deepened and suffused every mountain-top, flushing theglaciers and the harsh crags above them. This was the alpenglow, to meone of the most impressive of all the terrestrial manifestations of God. At the touch of this divine light, the mountains seemed to kindle to arapt, religious consciousness, and stood hushed and waiting like devoutworshipers. Just before the alpenglow began to fade, two crimson cloudscame streaming across the summit like wings of flame, rendering thesublime scene yet more impressive; then came darkness and the stars. 

Icy Ritter was still miles away, but I could proceed no farther thatnight. I found a good campground on the rim of a glacier basin about11, 000 feet above the sea. A small lake nestles in the bottom of it, from which I got water for my tea, and a storm-beaten thicket near byfurnished abundance of resiny fire-wood. Somber peaks, hacked andshattered, circled half-way around the horizon, wearing a savage aspectin the gloaming, and a waterfall chanted solemnly across the lake on itsway down from the foot of a glacier. The fall and the lake and theglacier were almost equally bare; while the scraggy pines anchored inthe rock-fissures were so dwarfed and shorn by storm-winds that youmight walk over their tops. In tone and aspect the scene was one of themost desolate I ever beheld. But the darkest scriptures of the mountainsare illumined with bright passages of love that never fail to makethemselves felt when one is alone. 

I made my bed in a nook of the pine-thicket, where the branches werepressed and crinkled overhead like a roof, and bent down around thesides. These are the best bedchambers the high mountains afford--snug assquirrel-nests, well ventilated, full of spicy odors, and with plenty ofwind-played needles to sing one asleep. I little expected company, but, creeping in through a low side-door, I found five or six birds nestlingamong the tassels. The night-wind began to blow soon after dark; atfirst only a gentle breathing, but increasing toward midnight to a roughgale that fell upon my leafy roof in ragged surges like a cascade, bearing wild sounds from the crags overhead. The waterfall sang inchorus, filling the old ice-fountain with its solemn roar, and seemingto increase in power as the night advanced--fit voice for such alandscape. I had to creep out many times to the fire during the night, for it was biting cold and I had no blankets. Gladly I welcomed themorning star. 

The dawn in the dry, wavering air of the desert was glorious. Everythingencouraged my undertaking and betokened success. There was no cloud inthe sky, no storm-tone in the wind. Breakfast of bread and tea was soonmade. I fastened a hard, durable crust to my belt by way of provision, in case I should be compelled to pass a night on the mountain-top; then, securing the remainder of my little stock against wolves and wood-rats, I set forth free and hopeful. 

How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains! To behold thisalone is worth the pains of any excursion a thousand times over. Thehighest peaks burned like islands in a sea of liquid shade. Then thelower peaks and spires caught the glow, and long lances of light, streaming through many a notch and pass, fell thick on the frozenmeadows. The majestic form of Ritter was full in sight, and I pushedrapidly on over rounded rock-bosses and pavements, my iron-shod shoesmaking a clanking sound, suddenly hushed now and then in rugs ofbryanthus, and sedgy lake-margins soft as moss. Here, too, in thisso-called "land of desolation, " I met cassiope, growing in fringes amongthe battered rocks. Her blossoms had faded long ago, but they were stillclinging with happy memories to the evergreen sprays, and still sobeautiful as to thrill every fiber of one's being. Winter and summer, you may hear her voice, the low, sweet melody of her purple bells. Noevangel among all the mountain plants speaks Nature's love more plainlythan cassiope. Where she dwells, the redemption of the coldest solitudeis complete. The very rocks and glaciers seem to feel her presence, andbecome imbued with her own fountain sweetness. All things were warmingand awakening. Frozen rills began to flow, the marmots came out of theirnests in boulder-piles and climbed sunny rocks to bask, and thedun-headed sparrows were flitting about seeking their breakfasts. Thelakes seen from every ridge-top were brilliantly rippled and spangled, shimmering like the thickets of the low Dwarf Pines. The rocks, too, seemed responsive to the vital heat--rock-crystals and snow-crystalsthrilling alike. I strode on exhilarated, as if never more to feelfatigue, limbs moving of themselves, every sense unfolding like thethawing flowers, to take part in the new day harmony. 

All along my course thus far, excepting when down in the cañons, thelandscapes were mostly open to me, and expansive, at least on one side. On the left were the purple plains of Mono, reposing dreamily and warm;on the right, the near peaks springing keenly into the thin sky withmore and more impressive sublimity. But these larger views were atlength lost. Rugged spurs, and moraines, and huge, projecting buttressesbegan to shut me in. Every feature became more rigidly alpine, without, however, producing any chilling effect; for going to the mountains islike going home. We always find that the strangest objects in thesefountain wilds are in some degree familiar, and we look upon them with avague sense of having seen them before. 

On the southern shore of a frozen lake, I encountered an extensive fieldof hard, granular snow, up which I scampered in fine tone, intending tofollow it to its head, and cross the rocky spur against which it leans, hoping thus to come direct upon the base of the main Ritter peak. Thesurface was pitted with oval hollows, made by stones and driftedpine-needles that had melted themselves into the mass by the radiationof absorbed sun-heat. These afforded good footholds, but the surfacecurved more and more steeply at the head, and the pits became shallowerand less abundant, until I found myself in danger of being shed off likeavalanching snow. I persisted, however, creeping on all fours, andshuffling up the smoothest places on my back, as I had often done onburnished granite, until, after slipping several times, I was compelledto retrace my course to the bottom, and make my way around the west endof the lake, and thence up to the summit of the divide between the headwaters of Rush Creek and the northernmost tributaries of the SanJoaquin. 

Arriving on the summit of this dividing crest, one of the most excitingpieces of pure wilderness was disclosed that I ever discovered in all mymountaineering. There, immediately in front, loomed the majestic mass ofMount Ritter, with a glacier swooping down its face nearly to my feet, then curving westward and pouring its frozen flood into a dark bluelake, whose shores were bound with precipices of crystalline snow; whilea deep chasm drawn between the divide and the glacier separated themassive picture from everything else. I could see only the one sublimemountain, the one glacier, the one lake; the whole veiled with one blueshadow--rock, ice, and water close together without a single leaf orsign of life. After gazing spellbound, I began instinctively toscrutinize every notch and gorge and weathered buttress of the mountain, with reference to making the ascent. The entire front above the glacierappeared as one tremendous precipice, slightly receding at the top, andbristling with spires and pinnacles set above one another in formidablearray. Massive lichen-stained battlements stood forward here and there, hacked at the top with angular notches, and separated by frosty gulliesand recesses that have been veiled in shadow ever since their creation;while to right and left, as far as I could see, were huge, crumblingbuttresses, offering no hope to the climber. The head of the glaciersends up a few finger-like branches through narrow _couloirs_; butthese seemed too steep and short to be available, especially as I had noax with which to cut steps, and the numerous narrow-throated gulliesdown which stones and snow are avalanched seemed hopelessly steep, besides being interrupted by vertical cliffs; while the whole front wasrendered still more terribly forbidding by the chill shadow and thegloomy blackness of the rocks. 

Descending the divide in a hesitating mood, I picked my way across theyawning chasm at the foot, and climbed out upon the glacier. There wereno meadows now to cheer with their brave colors, nor could I hear thedun-headed sparrows, whose cheery notes so often relieve the silence ofour highest mountains. The only sounds were the gurgling of small rillsdown in the veins and crevasses of the glacier, and now and then therattling report of falling stones, with the echoes they shot out intothe crisp air. 

I could not distinctly hope to reach the summit from this side, yet Imoved on across the glacier as if driven by fate. Contending withmyself, the season is too far spent, I said, and even should I besuccessful, I might be storm-bound on the mountain; and in thecloud-darkness, with the cliffs and crevasses covered with snow, howcould I escape? No; I must wait till next summer. I would only approachthe mountain now, and inspect it, creep about its flanks, learn what Icould of its history, holding myself ready to flee on the approach ofthe first storm-cloud. But we little know until tried how much of theuncontrollable there is in us, urging across glaciers and torrents, andup dangerous heights, let the judgment forbid as it may. 

I succeeded in gaining the foot of the cliff on the eastern extremity ofthe glacier, and there discovered the mouth of a narrow avalanche gully, through which I began to climb, intending to follow it as far aspossible, and at least obtain some fine wild views for my pains. Itsgeneral course is oblique to the plane of the mountain-face, and themetamorphic slates of which the mountain is built are cut by cleavageplanes in such a way that they weather off in angular blocks, givingrise to irregular steps that greatly facilitate climbing on the sheerplaces. I thus made my way into a wilderness of crumbling spires andbattlements, built together in bewildering combinations, and glazed inmany places with a thin coating of ice, which I had to hammer off withstones. The situation was becoming gradually more perilous; but, havingpassed several dangerous spots, I dared not think of descending; for, sosteep was the entire ascent, one would inevitably fall to the glacier incase a single misstep were made. Knowing, therefore, the tried dangerbeneath, I became all the more anxious concerning the developments to bemade above, and began to be conscious of a vague foreboding of whatactually befell; not that I was given to fear, but rather because myinstincts, usually so positive and true, seemed vitiated in some way, and were leading me astray. At length, after attaining an elevation ofabout 12, 800 feet, I found myself at the foot of a sheer drop in the bedof the avalanche channel I was tracing, which seemed absolutely to barfurther progress. It was only about forty-five or fifty feet high, andsomewhat roughened by fissures and projections; but these seemed soslight and insecure, as footholds, that I tried hard to avoid theprecipice altogether, by scaling the wall of the channel on either side. But, though less steep, the walls were smoother than the obstructingrock, and repeated efforts only showed that I must either go right aheador turn back. The tried dangers beneath seemed even greater than that ofthe cliff in front; therefore, after scanning its face again and again, I began to scale it, picking my holds with intense caution. Aftergaining a point about halfway to the top, I was suddenly brought to adead stop, with arms outspread, clinging close to the face of the rock, unable to move hand or foot either up or down. My doom appeared fixed. I_must_ fall. There would be a moment of bewilderment, and then alifeless rumble down the one general precipice to the glacier below. 

When this final danger flashed upon me, I became nerve-shaken for thefirst time since setting foot on the mountains, and my mind seemed tofill with a stifling smoke. But this terrible eclipse lasted only amoment, when life blazed forth again with preternatural clearness. Iseemed suddenly to become possessed of a new sense. The other self, bygone experiences, Instinct, or Guardian Angel, --call it what youwill, --came forward and assumed control. Then my trembling musclesbecame firm again, every rift and flaw in the rock was seen as through amicroscope, and my limbs moved with a positiveness and precision withwhich I seemed to have nothing at all to do. Had I been borne aloft uponwings, my deliverance could not have been more complete. 

Above this memorable spot, the face of the mountain is still moresavagely hacked and torn. It is a maze of yawning chasms and gullies, inthe angles of which rise beetling crags and piles of detached bouldersthat seem to have been gotten ready to be launched below. But thestrange influx of strength I had received seemed inexhaustible. I founda way without effort, and soon stood upon the topmost crag in theblessed light. 

How truly glorious the landscape circled around this noblesummit!--giant mountains, valleys innumerable, glaciers and meadows, rivers and lakes, with the wide blue sky bent tenderly over them all. But in my first hour of freedom from that terrible shadow, the sunlightin which I was laving seemed all in all. 

Looking southward along the axis of the range, the eye is first caughtby a row of exceedingly sharp and slender spires, which rise openly to aheight of about a thousand feet, above a series of short, residualglaciers that lean back against their bases; their fantastic sculptureand the unrelieved sharpness with which they spring out of the icerendering them peculiarly wild and striking. These are "The Minarets. "Beyond them you behold a sublime wilderness of mountains, their snowysummits towering together in crowded abundance, peak beyond peak, swelling higher, higher as they sweep on southward, until theculminating point of the range is reached on Mount Whitney, near thehead of the Kern River, at an elevation of nearly 14, 700 feet above thelevel of the sea. 

Westward, the general flank of the range is seen flowing sublimely awayfrom the sharp summits, in smooth undulations; a sea of huge graygranite waves dotted with lakes and meadows, and fluted with stupendouscañons that grow steadily deeper as they recede in the distance. Belowthis gray region lies the dark forest zone, broken here and there byupswelling ridges and domes; and yet beyond lies a yellow, hazy belt, marking the broad plain of the San Joaquin, bounded on its farther sideby the blue mountains of the coast. 

Turning now to the northward, there in the immediate foreground is theglorious Sierra Crown, with Cathedral Peak, a temple of marvelousarchitecture, a few degrees to the left of it; the gray, massive form ofMammoth Mountain to the right; while Mounts Ord, Gibbs, Dana, Conness, Tower Peak, Castle Peak, Silver Mountain, and a host of noblecompanions, as yet nameless, make a sublime show along the axis of therange. 

Eastward, the whole region seems a land of desolation covered withbeautiful light. The torrid volcanic basin of Mono, with its one barelake fourteen miles long; Owen's Valley and the broad lava table-land atits head, dotted with craters, and the massive Inyo Range, rivaling eventhe Sierra in height; these are spread, map-like, beneath you, withcountless ranges beyond, passing and overlapping one another and fadingon the glowing horizon. 

[Illustration: MAP OF THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. ]

At a distance of less than 3000 feet below the summit of Mount Ritteryou may find tributaries of the San Joaquin and Owen's rivers, burstingforth from the ice and snow of the glaciers that load its flanks; whilea little to the north of here are found the highest affluents of theTuolumne and Merced. Thus, the fountains of four of the principal riversof California are within a radius of four or five miles. 

Lakes are seen gleaming in all sorts of places, --round, or oval, orsquare, like very mirrors; others narrow and sinuous, drawn close aroundthe peaks like silver zones, the highest reflecting only rocks, snow, and the sky. But neither these nor the glaciers, nor the bits of brownmeadow and moorland that occur here and there, are large enough to makeany marked impression upon the mighty wilderness of mountains. The eye, rejoicing in its freedom, roves about the vast expanse, yet returnsagain and again to the fountain peaks. Perhaps some one of the multitudeexcites special attention, some gigantic castle with turret andbattlement, or some Gothic cathedral more abundantly spired thanMilan's. But, generally, when looking for the first time from anall-embracing standpoint like this, the inexperienced observer isoppressed by the incomprehensible grandeur, variety, and abundance ofthe mountains rising shoulder to shoulder beyond the reach of vision;and it is only after they have been studied one by one, long andlovingly, that their far-reaching harmonies become manifest. Then, penetrate the wilderness where you may, the main telling features, towhich all the surrounding topography is subordinate, are quicklyperceived, and the most complicated clusters of peaks stand revealedharmoniously correlated and fashioned like works of art--eloquentmonuments of the ancient ice-rivers that brought them into relief fromthe general mass of the range. The cañons, too, some of them a miledeep, mazing wildly through the mighty host of mountains, howeverlawless and ungovernable at first sight they appear, are at lengthrecognized as the necessary effects of causes which followed each otherin harmonious sequence--Nature's poems carved on tables of stone--thesimplest and most emphatic of her glacial compositions. 

Could we have been here to observe during the glacial period, we shouldhave overlooked a wrinkled ocean of ice as continuous as that nowcovering the landscapes of Greenland; filling every valley and cañonwith only the tops of the fountain peaks rising darkly above therock-encumbered ice-waves like islets in a stormy sea--those islets theonly hints of the glorious landscapes now smiling in the sun. Standinghere in the deep, brooding silence all the wilderness seems motionless, as if the work of creation were done. But in the midst of this outersteadfastness we know there is incessant motion and change. Ever andanon, avalanches are falling from yonder peaks. These cliff-boundglaciers, seemingly wedged and immovable, are flowing like water andgrinding the rocks beneath them. The lakes are lapping their graniteshores and wearing them away, and every one of these rills and youngrivers is fretting the air into music, and carrying the mountains to theplains. Here are the roots of all the life of the valleys, and here moresimply than elsewhere is the eternal flux of nature manifested. Icechanging to water, lakes to meadows, and mountains to plains. And whilewe thus contemplate Nature's methods of landscape creation, and, readingthe records she has carved on the rocks, reconstruct, howeverimperfectly, the landscapes of the past, we also learn that as these wenow behold have succeeded those of the pre-glacial age, so they in turnare withering and vanishing to be succeeded by others yet unborn. 

But in the midst of these fine lessons and landscapes, I had to rememberthat the sun was wheeling far to the west, while a new way down themountain had to be discovered to some point on the timber line where Icould have a fire; for I had not even burdened myself with a coat. Ifirst scanned the western spurs, hoping some way might appear throughwhich I might reach the northern glacier, and cross its snout; or passaround the lake into which it flows, and thus strike my morning track. This route was soon sufficiently unfolded to show that, if practicableat all, it would require so much time that reaching camp that nightwould be out of the question. I therefore scrambled back eastward, descending the southern slopes obliquely at the same time. Here thecrags seemed less formidable, and the head of a glacier that flowsnortheast came in sight, which I determined to follow as far aspossible, hoping thus to make my way to the foot of the peak on the eastside, and thence across the intervening cañons and ridges to camp. 

The inclination of the glacier is quite moderate at the head, and, asthe sun had softened the _névé_, I made safe and rapid progress, running and sliding, and keeping up a sharp outlook for crevasses. Abouthalf a mile from the head, there is an ice-cascade, where the glacierpours over a sharp declivity and is shattered into massive blocksseparated by deep, blue fissures. To thread my way through the slipperymazes of this crevassed portion seemed impossible, and I endeavored toavoid it by climbing off to the shoulder of the mountain. But the slopesrapidly steepened and at length fell away in sheer precipices, compelling a return to the ice. Fortunately, the day had been warmenough to loosen the ice-crystals so as to admit of hollows being dug inthe rotten portions of the blocks, thus enabling me to pick my way withfar less difficulty than I had anticipated. Continuing down over thesnout, and along the left lateral moraine, was only a confident saunter, showing that the ascent of the mountain by way of this glacier is easy, provided one is armed with an ax to cut steps here and there. 

The lower end of the glacier was beautifully waved and barred by theoutcropping edges of the bedded ice-layers which represent the annualsnowfalls, and to some extent the irregularities of structure caused bythe weathering of the walls of crevasses, and by separate snowfallswhich have been followed by rain, hail, thawing and freezing, etc. Smallrills were gliding and swirling over the melting surface with a smooth, oily appearance, in channels of pure ice--their quick, compliantmovements contrasting most impressively with the rigid, invisible flowof the glacier itself, on whose back they all were riding. 

Night drew near before I reached the eastern base of the mountain, andmy camp lay many a rugged mile to the north; but ultimate success wasassured. It was now only a matter of endurance and ordinarymountain-craft. The sunset was, if possible, yet more beautiful thanthat of the day before. The Mono landscape seemed to be fairly saturatedwith warm, purple light. The peaks marshaled along the summit were inshadow, but through every notch and pass streamed vivid sun-fire, soothing and irradiating their rough, black angles, while companies ofsmall, luminous clouds hovered above them like very angels of light. 

Darkness came on, but I found my way by the trends of the cañons and thepeaks projected against the sky. All excitement died with the light, andthen I was weary. But the joyful sound of the waterfall across the lakewas heard at last, and soon the stars were seen reflected in the lakeitself. Taking my bearings from these, I discovered the little pinethicket in which my nest was, and then I had a rest such as only a tiredmountaineer may enjoy. After lying loose and lost for awhile, I made asunrise fire, went down to the lake, dashed water on my head, and dippeda cupful for tea. The revival brought about by bread and tea was ascomplete as the exhaustion from excessive enjoyment and toil. Then Icrept beneath the pine-tassels to bed. The wind was frosty and the fireburned low, but my sleep was none the less sound, and the eveningconstellations had swept far to the west before I awoke. 

After thawing and resting in the morning sunshine, I saunteredhome, --that is, back to the Tuolumne camp, --bearing away toward acluster of peaks that hold the fountain snows of one of the northtributaries of Rush Creek. Here I discovered a group of beautifulglacier lakes, nestled together in a grand amphitheater. Toward evening, I crossed the divide separating the Mono waters from those of theTuolumne, and entered the glacier basin that now holds the fountainsnows of the stream that forms the upper Tuolumne cascades. This streamI traced down through its many dells and gorges, meadows and bogs, reaching the brink of the main Tuolumne at dusk. 

A loud whoop for the artists was answered again and again. Theircamp-fire came in sight, and half an hour afterward I was with them. They seemed unreasonably glad to see me. I had been absent only threedays; nevertheless, though the weather was fine, they had already beenweighing chances as to whether I would ever return, and trying to decidewhether they should wait longer or begin to seek their way back to thelowlands. Now their curious troubles were over. They packed theirprecious sketches, and next morning we set out homeward bound, and intwo days entered the Yosemite Valley from the north by way of IndianCañon. 

CHAPTER V

THE PASSES

The sustained grandeur of the High Sierra is strikingly illustrated bythe great height of the passes. Between latitude 36° 20' and 38° thelowest pass, gap, gorge, or notch of any kind cutting across the axis ofthe range, as far as I have discovered, exceeds 9000 feet in heightabove the level of the sea; while the average height of all that are inuse, either by Indians or whites, is perhaps not less than 11, 000 feet, and not one of these is a carriage-pass. 

Farther north a carriage-road has been constructed through what is knownas the Sonora Pass, on the head waters of the Stanislaus and Walker'srivers, the summit of which is about 10, 000 feet above the sea. Substantial wagon-roads have also been built through the Carson andJohnson passes, near the head of Lake Tahoe, over which immensequantities of freight were hauled from California to the mining regionsof Nevada, before the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad. 

Still farther north, a considerable number of comparatively low passesoccur, some of which are accessible to wheeled vehicles, and throughthese rugged defiles during the exciting years of the gold period longemigrant-trains with foot-sore cattle wearily toiled. After thetoil-worn adventurers had escaped a thousand dangers and had crawledthousands of miles across the plains the snowy Sierra at last loomed insight, the eastern wall of the land of gold. And as with shaded eyesthey gazed through the tremulous haze of the desert, with what joy mustthey have descried the pass through which they were to enter the betterland of their hopes and dreams!

Between the Sonora Pass and the southern extremity of the High Sierra, adistance of nearly 160 miles, there are only five passes through whichtrails conduct from one side of the range to the other. These are barelypracticable for animals; a pass in these regions meaning simply anynotch or cañon through which one may, by the exercise of unlimitedpatience, make out to lead a mule, or a sure-footed mustang; animalsthat can slide or jump as well as walk. Only three of the five passesmay be said to be in use, viz. : the Kearsarge, Mono, and Virginia Creek;the tracks leading through the others being only obscure Indian trails, not graded in the least, and scarcely traceable by white men; for muchof the way is over solid rock and earthquake avalanche taluses, wherethe unshod ponies of the Indians leave no appreciable sign. Only skilledmountaineers are able to detect the marks that serve to guide theIndians, such as slight abrasions of the looser rocks, the displacementof stones here and there, and bent bushes and weeds. A general knowledgeof the topography is, then, the main guide, enabling one to determinewhere the trail ought to go--_must_ go. One of these Indian trailscrosses the range by a nameless pass between the head waters of thesouth and middle forks of the San Joaquin, the other between the northand middle forks of the same river, just to the south of "The Minarets";this last being about 9000 feet high, is the lowest of the five. TheKearsarge is the highest, crossing the summit near the head of the southfork of King's River, about eight miles to the north of Mount Tyndall, through the midst of the most stupendous rock-scenery. The summit ofthis pass is over 12, 000 feet above sea-level; nevertheless, it is oneof the safest of the five, and is used every summer, from July toOctober or November, by hunters, prospectors, and stock-owners, and tosome extent by enterprising pleasure-seekers also. For, besides thesurpassing grandeur of the scenery about the summit, the trail, inascending the western flank of the range, conducts through a grove ofthe giant Sequoias, and through the magnificent Yosemite Valley of thesouth fork of King's River. This is, perhaps, the highest traveled passon the North American continent. 

[Illustration: MAP OF THE YOSEMITE VALLEY, SHOWING PRESENT RESERVATIONBOUNDARY. ]

The Mono Pass lies to the east of Yosemite Valley, at the head of one ofthe tributaries of the south fork of the Tuolumne. This is the bestknown and most extensively traveled of all that exist in the HighSierra. A trail was made through it about the time of the Mono goldexcitement, in the year 1858, by adventurous miners and prospectors--menwho would build a trail down the throat of darkest Erebus on the way togold. Though more than a thousand feet lower than the Kearsarge, it isscarcely less sublime in rock-scenery, while in snowy, falling water itfar surpasses it. Being so favorably situated for the stream of Yosemitetravel, the more adventurous tourists cross over through this gloriousgateway to the volcanic region around Mono Lake. It has therefore gaineda name and fame above every other pass in the range. According to thefew barometrical observations made upon it, its highest point is 10, 765feet above the sea. The other pass of the five we have been consideringis somewhat lower, and crosses the axis of the range a few miles to thenorth of the Mono Pass, at the head of the southernmost tributary ofWalker's River. It is used chiefly by roaming bands of the Pah UteIndians and "sheepmen. "

But, leaving wheels and animals out of the question, the freemountaineer with a sack of bread on his shoulders and an ax to cut stepsin ice and frozen snow can make his way across the range almosteverywhere, and at any time of year when the weather is calm. To himnearly every notch between the peaks is a pass, though much patientstep-cutting is at times required up and down steeply inclined glaciers, with cautious climbing over precipices that at first sight would seemhopelessly inaccessible. 

In pursuing my studies, I have crossed from side to side of the range atintervals of a few miles all along the highest portion of the chain, with far less real danger than one would naturally count on. And whatfine wildness was thus revealed--storms and avalanches, lakes andwaterfalls, gardens and meadows, and interesting animals--only thosewill ever know who give the freest and most buoyant portion of theirlives to climbing and seeing for themselves. 

To the timid traveler, fresh from the sedimentary levels of thelowlands, these highways, however picturesque and grand, seem terriblyforbidding--cold, dead, gloomy gashes in the bones of the mountains, andof all Nature's ways the ones to be most cautiously avoided. Yet theyare full of the finest and most telling examples of Nature's love; andthough hard to travel, none are safer. For they lead through regionsthat lie far above the ordinary haunts of the devil, and of thepestilence that walks in darkness. True, there are innumerable placeswhere the careless step will be the last step; and a rock falling fromthe cliffs may crush without warning like lightning from the sky; butwhat then! Accidents in the mountains are less common than in thelowlands, and these mountain mansions are decent, delightful, evendivine, places to die in, compared with the doleful chambers ofcivilization. Few places in this world are more dangerous than home. Fear not, therefore, to try the mountain-passes. They will kill care, save you from deadly apathy, set you free, and call forth every facultyinto vigorous, enthusiastic action. Even the sick should try theseso-called dangerous passes, because for every unfortunate they kill, they cure a thousand. 

All the passes make their steepest ascents on the eastern flank. On thisside the average rise is not far from a thousand feet to the mile, whileon the west it is about two hundred feet. Another marked differencebetween the eastern and western portions of the passes is that theformer begin at the very foot of the range, while the latter can hardlybe said to begin lower than an elevation of from seven to ten thousandfeet. Approaching the range from the gray levels of Mono and Owen'sValley on the east, the traveler sees before him the steep, short passesin full view, fenced in by rugged spurs that come plunging down from theshoulders of the peaks on either side, the courses of the more directbeing disclosed from top to bottom without interruption. But from thewest one sees nothing of the way he may be seeking until near thesummit, after days have been spent in threading the forests growing onthe main dividing ridges between the river cañons. 

It is interesting to observe how surely the alp-crossing animals ofevery kind fall into the same trails. The more rugged and inaccessiblethe general character of the topography of any particular region, themore surely will the trails of white men, Indians, bears, wild sheep, etc. , be found converging into the best passes. The Indians of thewestern slope venture cautiously over the passes in settled weather toattend dances, and obtain loads of pine-nuts and the larvae of a smallfly that breeds in Mono and Owen's lakes, which, when dried, forms animportant article of food; while the Pah Utes cross over from the eastto hunt the deer and obtain supplies of acorns; and it is trulyastonishing to see what immense loads the haggard old squaws make out tocarry bare-footed through these rough passes, oftentimes for a distanceof sixty or seventy miles. They are always accompanied by the men, whostride on, unburdened and erect, a little in advance, kindly stooping atdifficult places to pile stepping-stones for their patient, pack-animalwives, just as they would prepare the way for their ponies. 

Bears evince great sagacity as mountaineers, but although they aretireless and enterprising travelers they seldom cross the range. I haveseveral times tracked them through the Mono Pass, but only in lateyears, after cattle and sheep had passed that way, when they doubtlesswere following to feed on the stragglers and on those that had beenkilled by falling over the rocks. Even the wild sheep, the bestmountaineers of all, choose regular passes in making journeys across thesummits. Deer seldom cross the range in either direction. I have neveryet observed a single specimen of the mule-deer of the Great Basin westof the summit, and rarely one of the black-tailed species on the easternslope, notwithstanding many of the latter ascend the range nearly to thesummit every summer, to feed in the wild gardens and bring forth theiryoung. 

The glaciers are the pass-makers, and it is by them that the courses ofall mountaineers are predestined. Without exception every pass in theSierra was created by them without the slightest aid or predeterminingguidance from any of the cataclysmic agents. I have seen elaboratestatements of the amount of drilling and blasting accomplished in theconstruction of the railroad across the Sierra, above Donner Lake; butfor every pound of rock moved in this way, the glaciers which descendedeast and west through this same pass, crushed and carried away more thana hundred tons. 

The so-called practicable road-passes are simply those portions of therange more degraded by glacial action than the adjacent portions, anddegraded in such a way as to leave the summits rounded, instead ofsharp; while the peaks, from the superior strength and hardness of theirrocks, or from more favorable position, having suffered lessdegradation, are left towering above the passes as if they had beenheaved into the sky by some force acting from beneath. 

The scenery of all the passes, especially at the head, is of the wildestand grandest description, --lofty peaks massed together and laden aroundtheir bases with ice and snow; chains of glacier lakes; cascadingstreams in endless variety, with glorious views, westward over a sea ofrocks and woods, and eastward over strange ashy plains, volcanoes, andthe dry, dead-looking ranges of the Great Basin. Every pass, however, possesses treasures of beauty all its own. 

Having thus in a general way indicated the height, leading features, anddistribution of the principal passes, I will now endeavor to describethe Mono Pass in particular, which may, I think, be regarded as a fairexample of the higher alpine passes in general. 

The main portion of the Mono Pass is formed by Bloody Cañon, whichbegins at the summit of the range, and runs in a generaleast-northeasterly direction to the edge of the Mono Plain. 

The first white men who forced a way through its somber depths were, aswe have seen, eager gold-seekers. But the cañon was known and traveledas a pass by the Indians and mountain animals long before its discoveryby white men, as is shown by the numerous tributary trails which comeinto it from every direction. Its name accords well with the characterof the "early times" in California, and may perhaps have been suggestedby the predominant color of the metamorphic slates in which it is ingreat part eroded; or more probably by blood-stains made by theunfortunate animals which were compelled to slip and shuffle awkwardlyover its rough, cutting rocks. I have never known an animal, either muleor horse, to make its way through the cañon, either in going up or down, without losing more or less blood from wounds on the legs. Occasionallyone is killed outright--falling headlong and rolling over precipiceslike a boulder. But such accidents are rarer than from the terribleappearance of the trail one would be led to expect; the more experiencedwhen driven loose find their way over the dangerous places with acaution and sagacity that is truly wonderful. During the gold excitementit was at times a matter of considerable pecuniary importance to force away through the cañon with pack-trains early in the spring while it wasyet heavily blocked with snow; and then the mules with their loads hadsometimes to be let down over the steepest drifts and avalanche beds bymeans of ropes. 

A good bridle-path leads from Yosemite through many a grove and meadowup to the head of the cañon, a distance of about thirty miles. Here thescenery undergoes a sudden and startling condensation. Mountains, red, gray, and black, rise close at hand on the right, whitened around theirbases with banks of enduring snow; on the left swells the huge red massof Mount Gibbs, while in front the eye wanders down the shadowy cañon, and out on the warm plain of Mono, where the lake is seen gleaming likea burnished metallic disk, with clusters of lofty volcanic cones to thesouth of it. 

When at length we enter the mountain gateway, the somber rocks seemaware of our presence, and seem to come thronging closer about us. Happily the ouzel and the old familiar robin are here to sing uswelcome, and azure daisies beam with trustfulness and sympathy, enablingus to feel something of Nature's love even here, beneath the gaze of hercoldest rocks. 

The effect of this expressive outspokenness on the part of thecañon-rocks is greatly enhanced by the quiet aspect of the alpinemeadows through which we pass just before entering the narrow gateway. The forests in which they lie, and the mountain-tops rising beyond them, seem quiet and tranquil. We catch their restful spirit, yield to thesoothing influences of the sunshine, and saunter dreamily on throughflowers and bees, scarce touched by a definite thought; then suddenly wefind ourselves in the shadowy cañon, closeted with Nature in one of herwildest strongholds. 

After the first bewildering impression begins to wear off, we perceivethat it is not altogether terrible; for besides the reassuring birds andflowers we discover a chain of shining lakelets hanging down from thevery summit of the pass, and linked together by a silvery stream. Thehighest are set in bleak, rough bowls, scantily fringed with brown andyellow sedges. Winter storms blow snow through the cañon in blindingdrifts, and avalanches shoot from the heights. Then are these sparklingtarns filled and buried, leaving not a hint of their existence. In Juneand July they begin to blink and thaw out like sleepy eyes, the caricesthrust up their short brown spikes, the daisies bloom in turn, and themost profoundly buried of them all is at length warmed and summered asif winter were only a dream. 

Red Lake is the lowest of the chain, and also the largest. It seemsrather dull and forbidding at first sight, lying motionless in its deep, dark bed. The cañon wall rises sheer from the water's edge on the south, but on the opposite side there is sufficient space and sunshine for asedgy daisy garden, the center of which is brilliantly lighted withlilies, castilleias, larkspurs, and columbines, sheltered from the windby leafy willows, and forming a most joyful outburst of plant-lifekeenly emphasized by the chill baldness of the onlooking cliffs. 

After indulging here in a dozing, shimmering lake-rest, the happy streamsets forth again, warbling and trilling like an ouzel, ever delightfullyconfiding, no matter how dark the way; leaping, gliding, hither, thither, clear or foaming: manifesting the beauty of its wildness inevery sound and gesture. 

One of its most beautiful developments is the Diamond Cascade, situateda short distance below Red Lake. Here the tense, crystalline water isfirst dashed into coarse, granular spray mixed with dusty foam, and thendivided into a diamond pattern by following the diagonal cleavage-jointsthat intersect the face of the precipice over which it pours. Viewed infront, it resembles a strip of embroidery of definite pattern, varyingthrough the seasons with the temperature and the volume of water. Scarcea flower may be seen along its snowy border. A few bent pines look onfrom a distance, and small fringes of cassiope and rock-ferns aregrowing in fissures near the head, but these are so lowly andundemonstrative that only the attentive observer will be likely tonotice them. 

On the north wall of the cañon, a little below the Diamond Cascade, aglittering side stream makes its appearance, seeming to leap directlyout of the sky. It first resembles a crinkled ribbon of silver hangingloosely down the wall, but grows wider as it descends, and dashes thedull rock with foam. A long rough talus curves up against this part ofthe cliff, overgrown with snow-pressed willows, in which the falldisappears with many an eager surge and swirl and plashing leap, finallybeating its way down to its confluence with the main cañon stream. 

Below this point the climate is no longer arctic. Butterflies becomelarger and more abundant, grasses with imposing spread of panicle waveabove your shoulders, and the summery drone of the bumblebee thickensthe air. The Dwarf Pine, the tree-mountaineer that climbs highest andbraves the coldest blasts, is found scattered in storm-beaten clumps fromthe summit of the pass about half-way down the cañon. Here it issucceeded by the hardy Two-leaved Pine, which is speedily joined by thetaller Yellow and Mountain Pines. These, with the burly juniper, andshimmering aspen, rapidly grow larger as the sunshine becomes richer, forming groves that block the view; or they stand more apart here andthere in picturesque groups, that make beautiful and obvious harmonywith the rocks and with one another. Blooming underbrush becomesabundant, --azalea, spiraea, and the brier-rose weaving fringes for thestreams, and shaggy rugs to relieve the stern, unflinching rock-bosses. 

Through this delightful wilderness, Cañon Creek roves without anyconstraining channel, throbbing and wavering; now in sunshine, now inthoughtful shade; falling, swirling, flashing from side to side inweariless exuberance of energy. A glorious milky way of cascades is thusdeveloped, of which Bower Cascade, though one of the smallest, isperhaps the most beautiful of them all. It is situated in the lowerregion of the pass, just where the sunshine begins to mellow between thecold and warm climates. Here the glad creek, grown strong with tributegathered from many a snowy fountain on the heights, sings richerstrains, and becomes more human and lovable at every step. Now you mayby its side find the rose and homely yarrow, and small meadows full ofbees and clover. At the head of a low-browed rock, luxuriant dogwoodbushes and willows arch over from bank to bank, embowering the streamwith their leafy branches; and drooping plumes, kept in motion by thecurrent, fringe the brow of the cascade in front. From this leafy covertthe stream leaps out into the light in a fluted curve thick sown withsparkling crystals, and falls into a pool filled with brown boulders, out of which it creeps gray with foam-bells and disappears in a tangleof verdure like that from which it came. 

Hence, to the foot of the cañon, the metamorphic slates give place togranite, whose nobler sculpture calls forth expressions of correspondingbeauty from the stream in passing over it, --bright trills of rapids, booming notes of falls, solemn hushes of smooth-gliding sheets, allchanting and blending in glorious harmony. When, at length, itsimpetuous alpine life is done, it slips through a meadow with scarce anaudible whisper, and falls asleep in Moraine Lake. 

This water-bed is one of the finest I ever saw. Evergreens wavesoothingly about it, and the breath of flowers floats over it likeincense. Here our blessed stream rests from its rocky wanderings, allits mountaineering done, --no more foaming rock-leaping, no more wild, exulting song. It falls into a smooth, glassy sleep, stirred only by thenight-wind, which, coming down the cañon, makes it croon and mutter inripples along its broidered shores. 

Leaving the lake, it glides quietly through the rushes, destined nevermore to touch the living rock. Henceforth its path lies through ancientmoraines and reaches of ashy sage-plain, which nowhere afford rockssuitable for the development of cascades or sheer falls. Yet this beautyof maturity, though less striking, is of a still higher order, enticingus lovingly on through gentian meadows and groves of rustling aspen toLake Mono, where, spirit-like, our happy stream vanishes in vapor, andfloats free again in the sky. 

Bloody Cañon, like every other in the Sierra, was recently occupied by aglacier, which derived its fountain snows from the adjacent summits, anddescended into Mono Lake, at a time when its waters stood at a muchhigher level than now. The principal characters in which the history ofthe ancient glaciers is preserved are displayed here in marvelousfreshness and simplicity, furnishing the student with extraordinaryadvantages for the acquisition of knowledge of this sort. The moststriking passages are polished and striated surfaces, which in manyplaces reflect the rays of the sun like smooth water. The dam of RedLake is an elegantly modeled rib of metamorphic slate, brought intorelief because of its superior strength, and because of the greaterintensity of the glacial erosion of the rock immediately above it, caused by a steeply inclined tributary glacier, which entered the maintrunk with a heavy down-thrust at the head of the lake. 

Moraine Lake furnishes an equally interesting example of a basin formedwholly, or in part, by a terminal moraine dam curved across the path ofa stream between two lateral moraines. 

At Moraine Lake the cañon proper terminates, although apparentlycontinued by the two lateral moraines of the vanished glacier. Thesemoraines are about 300 feet high, and extend unbrokenly from the sidesof the cañon into the plain, a distance of about five miles, curving andtapering in beautiful lines. Their sunward sides are gardens, theirshady sides are groves; the former devoted chiefly to eriogonae, compositae, and graminae; a square rod containing five or six profuselyflowered eriogonums of several species, about the same number of bahiaand linosyris, and a few grass tufts; each species being planted trimlyapart, with bare gravel between, as if cultivated artificially. 

My first visit to Bloody Cañon was made in the summer of 1869, undercircumstances well calculated to heighten the impressions that are thepeculiar offspring of mountains. I came from the blooming tangles ofFlorida, and waded out into the plant-gold of the great valley ofCalifornia, when its flora was as yet untrodden. Never before had Ibeheld congregations of social flowers half so extensive or half soglorious. Golden composite covered all the ground from the Coast Rangeto the Sierra like a stratum of curdled sunshine, in which I reveled forweeks, watching the rising and setting of their innumerable suns; then Igave myself up to be borne forward on the crest of the summer wave thatsweeps annually up the Sierra and spends itself on the snowy summits. 

At the Big Tuolumne Meadows I remained more than a month, sketching, botanizing, and climbing among the surrounding mountains. Themountaineer with whom I then happened to be camping was one of thoseremarkable men one so frequently meets in California, the hard anglesand bosses of whose characters have been brought into relief by thegrinding excitements of the gold period, until they resemble glaciallandscapes. But at this late day, my friend's activities had subsided, and his craving for rest caused him to become a gentle shepherd andliterally to lie down with the lamb. 

Recognizing the unsatisfiable longings of my Scotch Highland instincts, he threw out some hints concerning Bloody Cañon, and advised me toexplore it. "I have never seen it myself, " he said, "for I never was sounfortunate as to pass that way. But I have heard many a strange storyabout it, and I warrant you will at least find it wild enough. "

Then of course I made haste to see it. Early next morning I made up abundle of bread, tied my note-book to my belt, and strode away in thebracing air, full of eager, indefinite hope. The plushy lawns that layin my path served to soothe my morning haste. The sod in many places wasstarred with daisies and blue gentians, over which I lingered. I tracedthe paths of the ancient glaciers over many a shining pavement, andmarked the gaps in the upper forests that told the power of the winteravalanches. Climbing higher, I saw for the first time the gradualdwarfing of the pines in compliance with climate, and on the summitdiscovered creeping mats of the arctic willow overgrown with silkycatkins, and patches of the dwarf vaccinium with its round flowerssprinkled in the grass like purple hail; while in every direction thelandscape stretched sublimely away in fresh wildness--a manuscriptwritten by the hand of Nature alone. 

At length, as I entered the pass, the huge rocks began to close aroundin all their wild, mysterious impressiveness, when suddenly, as I wasgazing eagerly about me, a drove of gray hairy beings came in sight, lumbering toward me with a kind of boneless, wallowing motion likebears. 

I never turn back, though often so inclined, and in this particularinstance, amid such surroundings, everything seemed singularlyunfavorable for the calm acceptance of so grim a company. Suppressing myfears, I soon discovered that although as hairy as bears and as crookedas summit pines, the strange creatures were sufficiently erect to belongto our own species. They proved to be nothing more formidable than MonoIndians dressed in the skins of sage-rabbits. Both the men and the womenbegged persistently for whisky and tobacco, and seemed so accustomed todenials that I found it impossible to convince them that I had none togive. Excepting the names of these two products of civilization, theyseemed to understand not a word of English; but I afterward learned thatthey were on their way to Yosemite Valley to feast awhile on trout andprocure a load of acorns to carry back through the pass to their huts onthe shore of Mono Lake. 

Occasionally a good countenance may be seen among the Mono Indians, butthese, the first specimens I had seen, were mostly ugly, and some ofthem altogether hideous. The dirt on their faces was fairly stratified, and seemed so ancient and so undisturbed it might almost possess ageological significance. The older faces were, moreover, strangelyblurred and divided into sections by furrows that looked like thecleavage-joints of rocks, suggesting exposure on the mountains in acastaway condition for ages. Somehow they seemed to have no right placein the landscape, and I was glad to see them fading out of sight downthe pass. 

Then came evening, and the somber cliffs were inspired with theineffable beauty of the alpenglow. A solemn calm fell upon everything. All the lower portion of the cañon was in gloaming shadow, and I creptinto a hollow near one of the upper lakelets to smooth the ground in asheltered nook for a bed. When the short twilight faded, I kindled asunny fire, made a cup of tea, and lay down to rest and look at thestars. Soon the night-wind began to flow and pour in torrents among thejagged peaks, mingling strange tones with those of the waterfallssounding far below; and as I drifted toward sleep I began to experiencean uncomfortable feeling of nearness to the furred Monos. Then the fullmoon looked down over the edge of the cañon wall, her countenanceseemingly filled with intense concern, and apparently so near as toproduce a startling effect as if she had entered my bedroom, forgettingall the world, to gaze on me alone. 

The night was full of strange sounds, and I gladly welcomed the morning. Breakfast was soon done, and I set forth in the exhilarating freshnessof the new day, rejoicing in the abundance of pure wildness so closeabout me. The stupendous rocks, hacked and scarred with centuries ofstorms, stood sharply out in the thin early light, while down in thebottom of the cañon grooved and polished bosses heaved and glistenedlike swelling sea-waves, telling a grand old story of the ancientglacier that poured its crushing floods above them. 

Here for the first time I met the arctic daisies in all their perfectionof purity and spirituality, --gentle mountaineers face to face with thestormy sky, kept safe and warm by a thousand miracles. I leaped lightlyfrom rock to rock, glorying in the eternal freshness and sufficiency ofNature, and in the ineffable tenderness with which she nurtures hermountain darlings in the very fountains of storms. Fresh beauty appearedat every step, delicate rock-ferns, and groups of the fairest flowers. Now another lake came to view, now a waterfall. Never fell light inbrighter spangles, never fell water in whiter foam. I seemed to floatthrough the cañon enchanted, feeling nothing of its roughness, and wasout in the Mono levels before I was aware. 

Looking back from the shore of Moraine Lake, my morning ramble seemedall a dream. There curved Bloody Cañon, a mere glacial furrow 2000 feetdeep, with smooth rocks projecting from the sides and braided togetherin the middle, like bulging, swelling muscles. Here the lilies werehigher than my head, and the sunshine was warm enough for palms. Yet thesnow around the arctic willows was plainly visible only four miles away, and between were narrow specimen zones of all the principal climates ofthe globe. 

On the bank of a small brook that comes gurgling down the side of theleft lateral moraine, I found a camp-fire still burning, which no doubtbelonged to the gray Indians I had met on the summit, and I listenedinstinctively and moved cautiously forward, half expecting to see someof their grim faces peering out of the bushes. 

Passing on toward the open plain, I noticed three well-defined terminalmoraines curved gracefully across the cañon stream, and joined by longsplices to the two noble laterals. These mark the halting-places of thevanished glacier when it was retreating into its summit shadows on thebreaking-up of the glacial winter. 

Five miles below the foot of Moraine Lake, just where the lateralmoraines lose themselves in the plain, there was a field of wild rye, growing in magnificent waving bunches six to eight feet high, bearingheads from six to twelve inches long. Rubbing out some of the grains, Ifound them about five eighths of an inch long, dark-colored, and sweet. Indian women were gathering it in baskets, bending down large handfuls, beating it out, and fanning it in the wind. They were quite picturesque, coming through the rye, as one caught glimpses of them here and there, in winding lanes and openings, with splendid tufts arching above theirheads, while their incessant chat and laughter showed their heedlessjoy. 

Like the rye-field, I found the so-called desert of Mono blooming in ahigh state of natural cultivation with the wild rose, cherry, aster, andthe delicate abronia; also innumerable gilias, phloxes, poppies, andbush-compositae. I observed their gestures and the various expressionsof their corollas, inquiring how they could be so fresh and beautifulout in this volcanic desert. They told as happy a life as anyplant-company I ever met, and seemed to enjoy even the hot sand and thewind. 

But the vegetation of the pass has been in great part destroyed, and thesame may be said of all the more accessible passes throughout the range. Immense numbers of starving sheep and cattle have been driven throughthem into Nevada, trampling the wild gardens and meadows almost out ofexistence. The lofty walls are untouched by any foot, and the falls singon unchanged; but the sight of crushed flowers and stripped, bittenbushes goes far toward destroying the charm of wildness. 

The cañon should be seen in winter. A good, strong traveler, who knowsthe way and the weather, might easily make a safe excursion through itfrom Yosemite Valley on snow-shoes during some tranquil time, when thestorms are hushed. The lakes and falls would be buried then; but so, also, would be the traces of destructive feet, while the views of themountains in their winter garb, and the ride at lightning speed down thepass between the snowy walls, would be truly glorious. 

[Illustration: VIEW OF THE MONO PLAIN FROM THE FOOT OF BLOODY CAÑON. ]

CHAPTER VI

THE GLACIER LAKES

Among the many unlooked-for treasures that are bound up and hidden awayin the depths of Sierra solitudes, none more surely charm and surpriseall kinds of travelers than the glacier lakes. The forests and theglaciers and the snowy fountains of the streams advertise their wealthin a more or less telling manner even in the distance, but nothing isseen of the lakes until we have climbed above them. All the upperbranches of the rivers are fairly laden with lakes, like orchard treeswith fruit. They lie embosomed in the deep woods, down in the grovybottoms of cañons, high on bald tablelands, and around the feet of theicy peaks, mirroring back their wild beauty over and over again. Someconception of their lavish abundance may be made from the fact that, from one standpoint on the summit of Red Mountain, a day's journey tothe east of Yosemite Valley, no fewer than forty-two are displayedwithin a radius of ten miles. The whole number in the Sierra can hardlybe less than fifteen hundred, not counting the smaller pools and tarns, which are innumerable. Perhaps two thirds or more lie on the westernflank of the range, and all are restricted to the alpine and subalpineregions. At the close of the last glacial period, the middle andfoot-hill regions also abounded in lakes, all of which have long sincevanished as completely as the magnificent ancient glaciers that broughtthem into existence. 

Though the eastern flank of the range is excessively steep, we findlakes pretty regularly distributed throughout even the most precipitousportions. They are mostly found in the upper branches of the cañons, andin the glacial amphitheaters around the peaks. 

Occasionally long, narrow specimens occur upon the steep sides ofdividing ridges, their basins swung lengthwise like hammocks, and veryrarely one is found lying so exactly on the summit of the range at thehead of some pass that its waters are discharged down both flanks whenthe snow is melting fast. But, however situated, they soon cease to formsurprises to the studious mountaineer; for, like all the love-work ofNature, they are harmoniously related to one another, and to all theother features of the mountains. It is easy, therefore, to find thebright lake-eyes in the roughest and most ungovernable-lookingtopography of any landscape countenance. Even in the lower regions, where they have been closed for many a century, their rocky orbits arestill discernible, filled in with the detritus of flood and avalanche. Abeautiful system of grouping in correspondence with the glacialfountains is soon perceived; also their extension in the direction ofthe trends of the ancient glaciers; and in general their dependence asto form, size, and position upon the character of the rocks in whichtheir basins have been eroded, and the quantity and direction ofapplication of the glacial force expended upon each basin. 

In the upper cañons we usually find them in pretty regular succession, strung together like beads on the bright ribbons of theirfeeding-streams, which pour, white and gray with foam and spray, fromone to the other, their perfect mirror stillness making impressivecontrasts with the grand blare and glare of the connecting cataracts. InLake Hollow, on the north side of the Hoffman spur, immediately abovethe great Tuolumne cañon, there are ten lovely lakelets lying neartogether in one general hollow, like eggs in a nest. Seen from above, ina general view, feathered with Hemlock Spruce, and fringed with sedge, they seem to me the most singularly beautiful and interestingly locatedlake-cluster I have ever yet discovered. 

Lake Tahoe, 22 miles long by about 10 wide, and from 500 to over 1600feet in depth, is the largest of all the Sierra lakes. It lies justbeyond the northern limit of the higher portion of the range between themain axis and a spur that puts out on the east side from near the headof the Carson River. Its forested shores go curving in and out aroundmany an emerald bay and pine-crowned promontory, and its waters areeverywhere as keenly pure as any to be found among the highestmountains. 

Donner Lake, rendered memorable by the terrible fate of the Donnerparty, is about three miles long, and lies about ten miles to the northof Tahoe, at the head of one of the tributaries of the Truckee. A fewmiles farther north lies Lake Independence, about the same size asDonner. But far the greater number of the lakes lie much higher and arequite small, few of them exceeding a mile in length, most of them lessthan half a mile. 

Along the lower edge of the lake-belt, the smallest have disappeared bythe filling-in of their basins, leaving only those of considerable size. But all along the upper freshly glaciated margin of the lake-bearingzone, every hollow, however small, lying within reach of any portion ofthe close network of streams, contains a bright, brimming pool; so thatthe landscape viewed from the mountain-tops seems to be sown broadcastwith them. Many of the larger lakes are encircled with smaller ones likecentral gems girdled with sparkling brilliants. In general, however, there is no marked dividing line as to size. In order, therefore, toprevent confusion, I would state here that in giving numbers, I includenone less than 500 yards in circumference. 

In the basin of the Merced River, I counted 131, of which 111 are uponthe tributaries that fall so grandly into Yosemite Valley. Pohono Creek, which forms the fall of that name, takes its rise in a beautiful lake, lying beneath the shadow of a lofty granite spur that puts out fromBuena Vista peak. This is now the only lake left in the whole PohonoBasin. The Illilouette has sixteen, the Nevada no fewer thansixty-seven, the Tenaya eight, Hoffmann Creek five, and Yosemite Creekfourteen. There are but two other lake-bearing affluents of the Merced, viz. , the South Fork with fifteen, and Cascade Creek with five, both ofwhich unite with the main trunk below Yosemite. 

[Illustration: LAKE TENAYA, ONE OF THE YOSEMITE FOUNTAINS. ]

The Merced River, as a whole, is remarkably like an elm-tree, and itrequires but little effort on the part of the imagination to picture itstanding upright, with all its lakes hanging upon its spreadingbranches, the topmost eighty miles in height. Now add all the otherlake-bearing rivers of the Sierra, each in its place, and you will havea truly glorious spectacle, --an avenue the length and width of therange; the long, slender, gray shafts of the main trunks, the milky wayof arching branches, and the silvery lakes, all clearly defined andshining on the sky. How excitedly such an addition to the scenery wouldbe gazed at! Yet these lakeful rivers are still more excitinglybeautiful and impressive in their natural positions to those who havethe eyes to see them as they lie imbedded in their meadows and forestsand glacier-sculptured rocks. 

When a mountain lake is born, --when, like a young eye, it first opens tothe light, --it is an irregular, expressionless crescent, inclosed inbanks of rock and ice, --bare, glaciated rock on the lower side, therugged snout of a glacier on the upper. In this condition it remains formany a year, until at length, toward the end of some auspicious clusterof seasons, the glacier recedes beyond the upper margin of the basin, leaving it open from shore to shore for the first time, thousands ofyears after its conception beneath the glacier that excavated its basin. The landscape, cold and bare, is reflected in its pure depths; the windsruffle its glassy surface, and the sun fills it with throbbing spangles, while its waves begin to lap and murmur around its leaflessshores, --sun-spangles during the day and reflected stars at night itsonly flowers, the winds and the snow its only visitors. Meanwhile, theglacier continues to recede, and numerous rills, still younger than thelake itself, bring down glacier-mud, sand-grains, and pebbles, givingrise to margin-rings and plats of soil. To these fresh soil-beds comemany a waiting plant. First, a hardy carex with arching leaves and aspike of brown flowers; then, as the seasons grow warmer, and thesoil-beds deeper and wider, other sedges take their appointed places, and these are joined by blue gentians, daisies, dodecatheons, violets, honeyworts, and many a lowly moss. Shrubs also hasten in time to the newgardens, --kalmia with its glossy leaves and purple flowers, the arcticwillow, making soft woven carpets, together with the heathy bryanthusand cassiope, the fairest and dearest of them all. Insects now enrichthe air, frogs pipe cheerily in the shallows, soon followed by theouzel, which is the first bird to visit a glacier lake, as the sedge isthe first of plants. 

So the young lake grows in beauty, becoming more and more humanlylovable from century to century. Groves of aspen spring up, and hardypines, and the Hemlock Spruce, until it is richly overshadowed andembowered. But while its shores are being enriched, the soil-beds creepout with incessant growth, contracting its area, while the lightermud-particles deposited on the bottom cause it to grow constantlyshallower, until at length the last remnant of the lakevanishes, --closed forever in ripe and natural old age. And now itsfeeding-stream goes winding on without halting through the new gardensand groves that have taken its place. 

The length of the life of any lake depends ordinarily upon the capacityof its basin, as compared with the carrying power of the streams thatflow into it, the character of the rocks over which these streams flow, and the relative position of the lake toward other lakes. In a serieswhose basins lie in the same cañon, and are fed by one and the same mainstream, the uppermost will, of course, vanish first unless some otherlake-filling agent comes in to modify the result; because at first itreceives nearly all of the sediments that the stream brings down, onlythe finest of the mud-particles being carried through the highest of theseries to the next below. Then the next higher, and the next would besuccessively filled, and the lowest would be the last to vanish. Butthis simplicity as to duration is broken in upon in various ways, chiefly through the action of side-streams that enter the lower lakesdirect. For, notwithstanding many of these side tributaries are quiteshort, and, during late summer, feeble, they all become powerfultorrents in springtime when the snow is melting, and carry not only sandand pine-needles, but large trunks and boulders tons in weight, sweepingthem down their steeply inclined channels and into the lake basins withastounding energy. Many of these side affluents also have the advantageof access to the main lateral moraines of the vanished glacier thatoccupied the cañon, and upon these they draw for lake-filling material, while the main trunk stream flows mostly over clean glacier pavements, where but little moraine matter is ever left for them to carry. Thus asmall rapid stream with abundance of loose transportable material withinits reach may fill up an extensive basin in a few centuries, while alarge perennial trunk stream, flowing over clean, enduring pavements, though ordinarily a hundred times larger, may not fill a smaller basinin thousands of years. 

The comparative influence of great and small streams as lake-fillers isstrikingly illustrated in Yosemite Valley, through which the Mercedflows. The bottom of the valley is now composed of level meadow-landsand dry, sloping soil-beds planted with oak and pine, but it was once alake stretching from wall to wall and nearly from one end of the valleyto the other, forming one of the most beautiful cliff-bound sheets ofwater that ever existed in the Sierra. And though never perhaps seen byhuman eye, it was but yesterday, geologically speaking, since itdisappeared, and the traces of its existence are still so fresh, it mayeasily be restored to the eye of imagination and viewed in all itsgrandeur, about as truly and vividly as if actually before us. Now wefind that the detritus which fills this magnificent basin was notbrought down from the distant mountains by the main streams thatconverge here to form the river, however powerful and available for thepurpose at first sight they appear; but almost wholly by the small localtributaries, such as those of Indian Cañon, the Sentinel, and the ThreeBrothers, and by a few small residual glaciers which lingered in theshadows of the walls long after the main trunk glacier had recededbeyond the head of the valley. 

Had the glaciers that once covered the range been melted at once, leaving the entire surface bare from top to bottom simultaneously, thenof course all the lakes would have come into existence at the same time, and the highest, other circumstances being equal, would, as we haveseen, be the first to vanish. But because they melted gradually from thefoot of the range upward, the lower lakes were the first to see thelight and the first to be obliterated. Therefore, instead of finding thelakes of the present day at the foot of the range, we find them at thetop. Most of the lower lakes vanished thousands of years before thosenow brightening the alpine landscapes were born. And in general, owingto the deliberation of the upward retreat of the glaciers, the lowest ofthe existing lakes are also the oldest, a gradual transition beingapparent throughout the entire belt, from the older, forested, meadow-rimmed and contracted forms all the way up to those that are newborn, lying bare and meadowless among the highest peaks. 

[Illustration: THE DEATH OF A LAKE. ]

A few small lakes unfortunately situated are extinguished suddenly by asingle swoop of an avalanche, carrying down immense numbers of trees, together with the soil they were growing upon. Others are obliterated byland-slips, earthquake taluses, etc. , but these lake-deaths comparedwith those resulting from the deliberate and incessant deposition ofsediments, may be termed accidental. Their fate is like that of treesstruck by lightning. 

The lake-line is of course still rising, its present elevation beingabout 8000 feet above sea-level; somewhat higher than this toward thesouthern extremity of the range, lower toward the northern, on accountof the difference in time of the withdrawal of the glaciers, due todifference in climate. Specimens occur here and there considerably belowthis limit, in basins specially protected from inwashing detritus, orexceptional in size. These, however, are not sufficiently numerous tomake any marked irregularity in the line. The highest I have yet foundlies at an elevation of about 12, 000 feet, in a glacier womb, at thefoot of one of the highest of the summit peaks, a few miles to the northof Mount Hitter. The basins of perhaps twenty-five or thirty are stillin process of formation beneath the few lingering glaciers, but by thetime they are born, an equal or greater number will probably have died. Since the beginning of the close of the ice-period the whole number inthe range has perhaps never been greater than at present. 

A rough approximation to the average duration of these mountain lakesmay be made from data already suggested, but I cannot stop here topresent the subject in detail. I must also forego, in the mean time, thepleasure of a full discussion of the interesting question of lake-basinformation, for which fine, clear, demonstrative material abounds inthese mountains. In addition to what has been already given on thesubject, I will only make this one statement. Every lake in the Sierrais a glacier lake. Their basins were not merely remodeled and scouredout by this mighty agent, but in the first place were eroded from thesolid. 

I must now make haste to give some nearer views of representativespecimens lying at different elevations on the main lake-belt, confiningmyself to descriptions of the features most characteristic of each. 

SHADOW LAKE

This is a fine specimen of the oldest and lowest of the existing lakes. It lies about eight miles above Yosemite Valley, on the main branch ofthe Merced, at an elevation of about 7350 feet above the sea; and iseverywhere so securely cliff-bound that without artificial trails onlywild animals can get down to its rocky shores from any direction. Itsoriginal length was about a mile and a half; now it is only half a milein length by about a fourth of a mile in width, and over the lowestportion of the basin ninety-eight feet deep. Its crystal waters areclasped around on the north and south by majestic granite wallssculptured in true Yosemitic style into domes, gables, and battlementedheadlands, which on the south come plunging down sheer into deep water, from a height of from 1500 to 2000 feet. The South Lyell glacier erodedthis magnificent basin out of solid porphyritic granite while forcingits way westward from the summit fountains toward Yosemite, and theexposed rocks around the shores, and the projecting bosses of the walls, ground and burnished beneath the vast ice-flood, still glow with silveryradiance, notwithstanding the innumerable corroding storms that havefallen upon them. The general conformation of the basin, as well as themoraines laid along the top of the walls, and the grooves and scratcheson the bottom and sides, indicate in the most unmistakable manner thedirection pursued by this mighty ice-river, its great depth, and thetremendous energy it exerted in thrusting itself into and out of thebasin; bearing down with superior pressure upon this portion of itschannel, because of the greater declivity, consequently eroding itdeeper than the other portions about it, and producing the lake-bowl asthe necessary result. 

With these magnificent ice-characters so vividly before us it is noteasy to realize that the old glacier that made them vanished tens ofcenturies ago; for, excepting the vegetation that has sprung up, and thechanges effected by an earthquake that hurled rock-avalanches from theweaker headlands, the basin as a whole presents the same appearance thatit did when first brought to light. The lake itself, however, hasundergone marked changes; one sees at a glance that it is growing old. More than two thirds of its original area is now dry land, covered withmeadow-grasses and groves of pine and fir, and the level bed of alluviumstretching across from wall to wall at the head is evidently growing outall along its lakeward margin, and will at length close the lakeforever. 

Every lover of fine wildness would delight to saunter on a summer daythrough the flowery groves now occupying the filled-up portion of thebasin. The curving shore is clearly traced by a ribbon of white sandupon which the ripples play; then comes a belt of broad-leafed sedges, interrupted here and there by impenetrable tangles of willows; beyondthis there are groves of trembling aspen; then a dark, shadowy belt ofTwo-leaved Pine, with here and there a round carex meadow ensconcednest-like in its midst; and lastly, a narrow outer margin of majesticSilver Fir 200 feet high. The ground beneath the trees is covered with aluxuriant crop of grasses, chiefly triticum, bromus, and calamagrostis, with purple spikes and panicles arching to one's shoulders; while theopen meadow patches glow throughout the summer with showyflowers, --heleniums, goldenrods, erigerons, lupines, castilleias, andlilies, and form favorite hiding and feeding-grounds for bears and deer. 

The rugged south wall is feathered darkly along the top with an imposingarray of spirey Silver Firs, while the rifted precipices all the waydown to the water's edge are adorned with picturesque old junipers, their cinnamon-colored bark showing finely upon the neutral gray of thegranite. These, with a few venturesome Dwarf Pines and Spruces, lean outover fissured ribs and tablets, or stand erect back in shadowy niches, in an indescribably wild and fearless manner. Moreover, thewhite-flowered Douglas spiraea and dwarf evergreen oak form gracefulfringes along the narrower seams, wherever the slightest hold can beeffected. Rock-ferns, too, are here, such as allosorus, pellaea, andcheilanthes, making handsome rosettes on the drier fissures; and thedelicate maidenhair, cistoperis, and woodsia hide back in mossygrottoes, moistened by some trickling rill; and then the orangewall-flower holds up its showy panicles here and there in the sunshine, and bahia makes bosses of gold. But, notwithstanding all this plantbeauty, the general impression in looking across the lake is of stern, unflinching rockiness; the ferns and flowers are scarcely seen, and notone fiftieth of the whole surface is screened with plant life. 

The sunnier north wall is more varied in sculpture, but the general toneis the same. A few headlands, flat-topped and soil-covered, supportclumps of cedar and pine; and up-curving tangles of chinquapin andlive-oak, growing on rough earthquake taluses, girdle their bases. Smallstreams come cascading down between them, their foaming marginsbrightened with gay primulas, gilias, and mimuluses. And close along theshore on this side there is a strip of rocky meadow enameled withbuttercups, daisies, and white violets, and the purple-topped grassesout on its beveled border dip their leaves into the water. 

The lower edge of the basin is a dam-like swell of solid granite, heavily abraded by the old glacier, but scarce at all cut into as yet bythe outflowing stream, though it has flowed on unceasingly since thelake came into existence. 

As soon as the stream is fairly over the lake-lip it breaks intocascades, never for a moment halting, and scarce abating one jot of itsglad energy, until it reaches the next filled-up basin, a mile below. Then swirling and curving drowsily through meadow and grove, it breaksforth anew into gray rapids and falls, leaping and gliding in gloriousexuberance of wild bound and dance down into another and yet anotherfilled-up lake basin. Then, after a long rest in the levels of LittleYosemite, it makes its grandest display in the famous Nevada Fall. Outof the clouds of spray at the foot of the fall the battered, roaringriver gropes its way, makes another mile of cascades and rapids, rests amoment in Emerald Pool, then plunges over the grand cliff of the VernalFall, and goes thundering and chafing down a boulder-choked gorge oftremendous depth and wildness into the tranquil reaches of the oldYosemite lake basin. 

The color-beauty about Shadow Lake during the Indian summer is muchricher than one could hope to find in so young and so glacial awilderness. Almost every leaf is tinted then, and the golden-rods are inbloom; but most of the color is given by the ripe grasses, willows, andaspens. At the foot of the lake you stand in a trembling aspen grove, every leaf painted like a butterfly, and away to right and left roundthe shores sweeps a curving ribbon of meadow, red and brown dotted withpale yellow, shading off here and there into hazy purple. The walls, too, are dashed with bits of bright color that gleam out on the neutralgranite gray. But neither the walls, nor the margin meadow, nor yet thegay, fluttering grove in which you stand, nor the lake itself, flashingwith spangles, can long hold your attention; for at the head of the lakethere is a gorgeous mass of orange-yellow, belonging to the main aspenbelt of the basin, which seems the very fountain whence all the colorbelow it had flowed, and here your eye is filled and fixed. Thisglorious mass is about thirty feet high, and extends across the basinnearly from wall to wall. Rich bosses of willow flame in front of it, and from the base of these the brown meadow comes forward to the water'sedge, the whole being relieved against the unyielding green of theconiferae, while thick sun-gold is poured over all. 

During these blessed color-days no cloud darkens the sky, the winds aregentle, and the landscape rests, hushed everywhere, and indescribablyimpressive. A few ducks are usually seen sailing on the lake, apparentlymore for pleasure than anything else, and the ouzels at the head of therapids sing always; while robins, grosbeaks, and the Douglas squirrelsare busy in the groves, making delightful company, and intensifying thefeeling of grateful sequestration without ruffling the deep, hushed calmand peace. 

This autumnal mellowness usually lasts until the end of November. Thencome days of quite another kind. The winter clouds grow, and bloom, andshed their starry crystals on every leaf and rock, and all the colorsvanish like a sunset. The deer gather and hasten down their well-knowntrails, fearful of being snow-bound. Storm succeeds storm, heaping snowon the cliffs and meadows, and bending the slender pines to the groundin wide arches, one over the other, clustering and interlacing likelodged wheat. Avalanches rush and boom from the shelving heights, pilingimmense heaps upon the frozen lake, and all the summer glory is buriedand lost. Yet in the midst of this hearty winter the sun shines warm attimes, calling the Douglas squirrel to frisk in the snowy pines and seekout his hidden stores; and the weather is never so severe as to driveaway the grouse and little nut-hatches and chickadees. 

Toward May, the lake begins to open. The hot sun sends down innumerablestreams over the cliffs, streaking them round and round with foam. Thesnow slowly vanishes, and the meadows show tintings of green. Thenspring comes on apace; flowers and flies enrich the air and the sod, andthe deer come back to the upper groves like birds to an old nest. 

I first discovered this charming lake in the autumn of 1872, while on myway to the glaciers at the head of the river. It was rejoicing then inits gayest colors, untrodden, hidden in the glorious wildness likeunmined gold. Year after year I walked its shores without discoveringany other trace of humanity than the remains of an Indian camp-fire, andthe thigh-bones of a deer that had been broken to get at the marrow. Itlies out of the regular ways of Indians, who love to hunt in moreaccessible fields adjacent to trails. Their knowledge of deer-haunts hadprobably enticed them here some hunger-time when they wished to makesure of a feast; for hunting in this lake-hollow is like hunting in afenced park. I had told the beauty of Shadow Lake only to a few friends, fearing it might come to be trampled and "improved" like Yosemite. On mylast visit, as I was sauntering along the shore on the strip of sandbetween the water and sod, reading the tracks of the wild animals thatlive here, I was startled by a human track, which I at once saw belongedto some shepherd; for each step was turned out 35° or 40° from thegeneral course pursued, and was also run over in an uncertain sprawlingfashion at the heel, while a row of round dots on the right indicatedthe staff that shepherds carry. None but a shepherd could make such atrack, and after tracing it a few minutes I began to fear that he mightbe seeking pasturage; for what else could he be seeking? Returning fromthe glaciers shortly afterward, nay worst fears were realized. A trailhad been made down the mountain-side from the north, and all the gardensand meadows were destroyed by a horde of hoofed locusts, as if swept bya fire. The money-changers were in the temple. 

ORANGE LAKE

Besides these larger cañon lakes, fed by the main cañon streams, thereare many smaller ones lying aloft on the top of rock benches, entirelyindependent of the general drainage channels, and of course drawingtheir supplies from a very limited area. Notwithstanding they are mostlysmall and shallow, owing to their immunity from avalanche detritus andthe inwashings of powerful streams, they often endure longer than othersmany times larger but less favorably situated. When very shallow theybecome dry toward the end of summer; but because their basins are groundout of seamless stone they suffer no loss save from evaporation alone;and the great depth of snow that falls, lasting into June, makes theirdry season short in any case. 

Orange Lake is a fair illustration of this bench form. It lies in themiddle of a beautiful glacial pavement near the lower margin of thelake-line, about a mile and a half to the northwest of Shadow Lake. Itis only about 100 yards in circumference. Next the water there is agirdle of carices with wide overarching leaves, then in regular order ashaggy ruff of huckleberry bushes, a zone of willows with here and therea bush of the Mountain Ash, then a zone of aspens with a few pinesaround the outside. These zones are of course concentric, and togetherform a wall beyond which the naked ice-burnished granite stretches awayin every direction, leaving it conspicuously relieved, like a bunch ofpalms in a desert. 

In autumn, when the colors are ripe, the whole circular grove, at alittle distance, looks like a big handful of flowers set in a cup to bekept fresh--a tuft of goldenrods. Its feeding-streams are exceedinglybeautiful, notwithstanding their inconstancy and extreme shallowness. They have no channel whatever, and consequently are left free to spreadin thin sheets upon the shining granite and wander at will. In manyplaces the current is less than a fourth of an inch deep, and flows withso little friction it is scarcely visible. Sometimes there is not asingle foam-bell, or drifting pine-needle, or irregularity of any sortto manifest its motion. Yet when observed narrowly it is seen to form aweb of gliding lacework exquisitely woven, giving beautiful reflectionsfrom its minute curving ripples and eddies, and differing from thewater-laces of large cascades in being everywhere transparent. Inspring, when the snow is melting, the lake-bowl is brimming full, andsends forth quite a large stream that slips glassily for 200 yards orso, until it comes to an almost vertical precipice 800 feet high, downwhich it plunges in a fine cataract; then it gathers its scatteredwaters and goes smoothly over folds of gently dipping granite to itsconfluence with the main cañon stream. During the greater portion of theyear, however, not a single water sound will you hear either at head orfoot of the lake, not oven the whispered lappings of ripple-waves alongthe shore; for the winds are fenced out. But the deep mountain silenceis sweetened now and then by birds that stop here to rest and drink ontheir way across the cañon. 

LAKE STAKE KING

A beautiful variety of the bench-top lakes occurs just where the greatlateral moraines of the main glaciers have been shoved forward inoutswelling concentric rings by small residual tributary glaciers. Instead of being encompassed by a narrow ring of trees like Orange Lake, these lie embosomed in dense moraine woods, so dense that in seekingthem you may pass them by again and again, although you may know nearlywhere they lie concealed. 

[Illustration: LAKE STARR KING. ]

Lake Starr King, lying to the north of the cone of that name, above theLittle Yosemite Valley, is a fine specimen of this variety. The ouzelspass it by, and so do the ducks; they could hardly get into it if theywould, without plumping straight down inside the circling trees. 

Yet these isolated gems, lying like fallen fruit detached from thebranches, are not altogether without inhabitants and joyous, animatingvisitors. Of course fishes cannot get into them, and this is generallytrue of nearly every glacier lake in the range, but they are all wellstocked with happy frogs. How did the frogs get into them in the firstplace? Perhaps their sticky spawn was carried in on the feet of ducks orother birds, else their progenitors must have made some excitingexcursions through the woods and up the sides of the cañons. Down in thestill, pure depths of these hidden lakelets you may also find the larvaeof innumerable insects and a great variety of beetles, while the airabove them is thick with humming wings, through the midst of whichfly-catchers are constantly darting. And in autumn, when thehuckleberries are ripe, bands of robins and grosbeaks come to feast, forming altogether delightful little byworlds for the naturalist. 

Pushing our way upward toward the axis of the range, we find lakes ingreater and greater abundance, and more youthful in aspect. At anelevation of about 9000 feet above sea-level they seem to have arrivedat middle age, --that is, their basins seem to be about half filled withalluvium. Broad sheets of meadow-land are seen extending into them, imperfect and boggy in many places and more nearly level than those ofthe older lakes below them, and the vegetation of their shores is ofcourse more alpine. Kalmia, lodum, and cassiope fringe the meadow rocks, while the luxuriant, waving groves, so characteristic of the lowerlakes, are represented only by clumps of the Dwarf Pine and HemlockSpruce. These, however, are oftentimes very picturesquely grouped onrocky headlands around the outer rim of the meadows, or with still morestriking effect crown some rocky islet. 

Moreover, from causes that we cannot stop here to explain, the cliffsabout these middle-aged lakes are seldom of the massive Yosemite type, but are more broken, and less sheer, and they usually stand back, leaving the shores comparatively free; while the few precipitous rocksthat do come forward and plunge directly into deep water are seldom morethan three or four hundred feet high. 

I have never yet met ducks in any of the lakes of this kind, but theouzel is never wanting where the feeding-streams are perennial. Wildsheep and deer may occasionally be seen on the meadows, and very rarelya bear. One might camp on the rugged shores of these bright fountainsfor weeks, without meeting any animal larger than the marmots thatburrow beneath glacier boulders along the edges of the meadows. 

The highest and youngest of all the lakes lie nestled in glacier wombs. At first sight, they seem pictures of pure bloodless desolation, miniature arctic seas, bound in perpetual ice and snow, and overshadowedby harsh, gloomy, crumbling precipices. Their waters are keenultramarine blue in the deepest parts, lively grass-green toward theshore shallows and around the edges of the small bergs usually floatingabout in them. A few hardy sedges, frost-pinched every night, areoccasionally found making soft sods along the sun-touched portions oftheir shores, and when their northern banks slope openly to the south, and are soil-covered, no matter how coarsely, they are sure to bebrightened with flowers. One lake in particular now comes to mind whichillustrates the floweriness of the sun-touched banks of these icy gems. Close up under the shadow of the Sierra Matterhorn, on the eastern slopeof the range, lies one of the iciest of these glacier lakes at anelevation of about 12, 000 feet. A short, ragged-edged glacier crawlsinto it from the south, and on the opposite side it is embanked anddammed by a series of concentric terminal moraines, made by the glacierwhen it entirely filled the basin. Half a mile below lies a second lake, at a height of 11, 500 feet, about as cold and as pure as a snow-crystal. The waters of the first come gurgling down into it over and through themoraine dam, while a second stream pours into it direct from a glacierthat lies to the southeast. Sheer precipices of crystalline snow riseout of deep water on the south, keeping perpetual winter on that side, but there is a fine summery spot on the other, notwithstanding the lakeis only about 300 yards wide. Here, on August 25, 1873, I found acharming company of flowers, not pinched, crouching dwarfs, scarce ableto look up, but warm and juicy, standing erect in rich cheery color andbloom. On a narrow strip of shingle, close to the water's edge, therewere a few tufts of carex gone to seed; and a little way back up therocky bank at the foot of a crumbling wall so inclined as to absorb andradiate as well as reflect a considerable quantity of sun-heat, was thegarden, containing a thrifty thicket of Cowania covered with largeyellow flowers; several bushes of the alpine ribes with berries nearlyripe and wildly acid; a few handsome grasses belonging to two distinctspecies, and one goldenrod; a few hairy lupines and radiant spragueas, whose blue and rose-colored flowers were set off to fine advantage amidgreen carices; and along a narrow seam in the very warmest angle of thewall a perfectly gorgeous fringe of _Epilobium obcordatum_ withflowers an inch wide, crowded together in lavish profusion, and coloredas royal a purple as ever was worn by any high-bred plant of thetropics; and best of all, and greatest of all, a noble thistle in fullbloom, standing erect, head and shoulders above his companions, andthrusting out his lances in sturdy vigor as if growing on a Scottishbrae. All this brave warm bloom among the raw stones, right in the faceof the onlooking glaciers. 

As far as I have been able to find out, these upper lakes aresnow-buried in winter to a depth of about thirty-five or forty feet, andthose most exposed to avalanches, to a depth of even a hundred feet ormore. These last are, of course, nearly lost to the landscape. Someremain buried for years, when the snowfall is exceptionally great, andmany open only on one side late in the season. The snow of the closedside is composed of coarse granules compacted and frozen into a firm, faintly stratified mass, like the _névé_ of a glacier. The lappingwaves of the open portion gradually undermine and cause it to break offin large masses like icebergs, which gives rise to a precipitous frontlike the discharging wall of a glacier entering the sea. The play of thelights among the crystal angles of these snow-cliffs, the pearly whiteof the outswelling bosses, the bergs drifting in front, aglow in the sunand edged with green water, and the deep blue disk of the lake itselfextending to your feet, --this forms a picture that enriches all yourafterlife, and is never forgotten. But however perfect the season andthe day, the cold incompleteness of these young lakes is always keenlyfelt. We approach them with a kind of mean caution, and stealunconfidingly around their crystal shores, dashed and ill at ease, as ifexpecting to hear some forbidding voice. But the love-songs of theouzels and the love-looks of the daisies gradually reassure us, andmanifest the warm fountain humanity that pervades the coldest and mostsolitary of them all. 

CHAPTER VII

THE GLACIER MEADOWS

After the lakes on the High Sierra come the glacier meadows. They aresmooth, level, silky lawns, lying embedded in the upper forests, on thefloors of the valleys, and along the broad backs of the main dividingridges, at a height of about 8000 to 9500 feet above the sea. 

They are nearly as level as the lakes whose places they have taken, andpresent a dry, even surface free from rock-heaps, mossy bogginess, andthe frowsy roughness of rank, coarse-leaved, weedy, and shrubbyvegetation. The sod is close and fine, and so complete that you cannotsee the ground; and at the same time so brightly enameled with flowersand butterflies that it may well be called a garden-meadow, ormeadow-garden; for the plushy sod is in many places so crowded withgentians, daisies, ivesias, and various species of orthocarpus that thegrass is scarcely noticeable, while in others the flowers are onlypricked in here and there singly, or in small ornamental rosettes. 

The most influential of the grasses composing the sod is a delicatecalamagrostis with fine filiform leaves, and loose, airy panicles thatseem to float above the flowery lawn like a purple mist. But, write as Imay, I cannot give anything like an adequate idea of the exquisitebeauty of these mountain carpets as they lie smoothly outspread in thesavage wilderness. What words are fine enough to picture them I to whatshall we liken them? The flowery levels of the prairies of the old West, the luxuriant savannahs of the South, and the finest of cultivatedmeadows are coarse in comparison. One may at first sight compare themwith the carefully tended lawns of pleasure-grounds; for they are asfree from weeds as they, and as smooth, but here the likeness ends; forthese wild lawns, with all their exquisite fineness, have no trace ofthat painful, licked, snipped, repressed appearance that pleasure-groundlawns are apt to have even when viewed at a distance. And, not tomention the flowers with which they are brightened, their grasses arevery much finer both in color and texture, and instead of lying flat andmotionless, matted together like a dead green cloth, they respond to thetouches of every breeze, rejoicing in pure wildness, blooming andfruiting in the vital light. 

Glacier meadows abound throughout all the alpine and subalpine regionsof the Sierra in still greater numbers than the lakes. Probably from2500 to 3000 exist between latitude 36° 30' and 39°, distributed, ofcourse, like the lakes, in concordance with all the other glacialfeatures of the landscape. 

On the head waters of the rivers there are what are called "BigMeadows, " usually about from five to ten miles long. These occupy thebasins of the ancient ice-seas, where many tributary glaciers cametogether to form the grand trunks. Most, however, are quite small, averaging perhaps but little more than three fourths of a mile inlength. 

One of the very finest of the thousands I have enjoyed lies hidden in anextensive forest of the Two-leaved Pine, on the edge of the basin of theancient Tuolumne Mer de Glace, about eight miles to the west of MountDana. 

Imagine yourself at the Tuolumne Soda Springs on the bank of the river, a day's journey above Yosemite Valley. You set off northward through aforest that stretches away indefinitely before you, seemingly unbrokenby openings of any kind. As soon as you are fairly into the woods, thegray mountain-peaks, with their snowy gorges and hollows, are lost toview. The ground is littered with fallen trunks that lie crossed andrecrossed like storm-lodged wheat; and besides this close forest ofpines, the rich moraine soil supports a luxuriant growth ofribbon-leaved grasses--bromus, triticum, calamagrostis, agrostis, etc. , which rear their handsome spikes and panicles above your waist. Makingyour way through the fertile wilderness, --finding lively bits ofinterest now and then in the squirrels and Clark crows, and perchance ina deer or bear, --after the lapse of an hour or two vertical bars ofsunshine are seen ahead between the brown shafts of the pines, showingthat you are approaching an open space, and then you suddenly emergefrom the forest shadows upon a delightful purple lawn lying smooth andfree in the light like a lake. This is a glacier meadow. It is about amile and a half long by a quarter of a mile wide. The trees comepressing forward all around in close serried ranks, planting their feetexactly on its margin, and holding themselves erect, strict and orderlylike soldiers on parade; thus bounding the meadow with exquisiteprecision, yet with free curving lines such as Nature alone can draw. With inexpressible delight you wade out into the grassy sun-lake, feeling yourself contained in one of Nature's most sacred chambers, withdrawn from the sterner influences of the mountains, secure from allintrusion, secure from yourself, free in the universal beauty. Andnotwithstanding the scene is so impressively spiritual, and you seemdissolved in it, yet everything about you is beating with warm, terrestrial, human love and life delightfully substantial and familiar. The resiny pines are types of health and steadfastness; the robinsfeeding on the sod belong to the same species you have known sincechildhood; and surely these daisies, larkspurs, and goldenrods are thevery friend-flowers of the old home garden. Bees hum as in a harvestnoon, butterflies waver above the flowers, and like them you lave in thevital sunshine, too richly and homogeneously joy-filled to be capable ofpartial thought. You are all eye, sifted through and through with lightand beauty. Sauntering along the brook that meanders silently throughthe meadow from the east, special flowers call you back todiscriminating consciousness. The sod comes curving down to the water'sedge, forming bossy outswelling banks, and in some places overlappingcountersunk boulders and forming bridges. Here you find mats of thecurious dwarf willow scarce an inch high, yet sending up a multitude ofgray silky catkins, illumined here and there with, the purple cups andbells of bryanthus and vaccinium. 

Go where you may, you everywhere find the lawn divinely beautiful, as ifNature had fingered and adjusted every plant this very day. The floatinggrass panicles are scarcely felt in brushing through their midst, soflue are they, and none of the flowers have tall or rigid stalks. In thebrightest places you find three species of gentians with differentshades of blue, daisies pure as the sky, silky leaved ivesias with warmyellow flowers, several species of orthocarpus with blunt, bossy spikes, red and purple and yellow; the alpine goldenrod, pentstemon, and clover, fragrant and honeyful, with their colors massed and blended. Parting thegrasses and looking more closely you may trace the branching of theirshining stems, and note the marvelous beauty of their mist of flowers, the glumes and pales exquisitely penciled, the yellow dangling stamens, and feathery pistils. Beneath the lowest leaves you discover a fairyrealm of mosses, --hypnum, dicranum, polytriclium, and manyothers, --their precious spore-cups poised daintily on polished shafts, curiously hooded, or open, showing the richly ornate peristomas wornlike royal crowns. Creeping liverworts are here also in abundance, andseveral rare species of fungi, exceedingly small, and frail, anddelicate, as if made only for beauty. Caterpillars, black beetles, andants roam the wilds of this lower world, making their way throughminiature groves and thickets like bears in a thick wood. 

And how rich, too, is the life of the sunny air! Every leaf and flowerseems to have its winged representative overhead. Dragon-flies shoot invigorous zigzags through the dancing swarms, and a rich profusion ofbutterflies--the leguminosae of insects--make a fine addition to thegeneral show. Many of these last are comparatively small at thiselevation, and as yet almost unknown to science; but every now and thena familiar vanessa or papilio comes sailing past. Humming-birds, too, are quite common here, and the robin is always found along the margin ofthe stream, or out in the shallowest portions of the sod, and sometimesthe grouse and mountain quail, with their broods of precious fluffychickens. Swallows skim the grassy lake from end to end, fly-catcherscome and go in fitful flights from the tops of dead spars, whilewoodpeckers swing across from side to side in graceful festooncurves, --birds, insects, and flowers all in their own way telling a deepsummer joy. 

The influences of pure nature seem to be so little known as yet, that itis generally supposed that complete pleasure of this kind, permeatingone's very flesh and bones, unfits the student for scientific pursuitsin which cool judgment and observation are required. But the effect isjust the opposite. Instead of producing a dissipated condition, the mindis fertilized and stimulated and developed like sun-fed plants. All thatwe have seen here enables us to see with surer vision the fountainsamong the summit-peaks to the east whence flowed the glaciers thatground soil for the surrounding forest; and down at the foot of themeadow the moraine which formed the dam which gave rise to the lake thatoccupied this basin before the meadow was made; and around the marginthe stones that were shoved back and piled up into a rude wall by theexpansion of the lake ice during long bygone winters; and along thesides of the streams the slight hollows of the meadow which mark thoseportions of the old lake that were the last to vanish. 

I would fain ask my readers to linger awhile in this fertile wilderness, to trace its history from its earliest glacial beginnings, and learnwhat we may of its wild inhabitants and visitors. How happy the birdsare all summer and some of them all winter; how the pouched marmotsdrive tunnels under the snow, and how fine and brave a life theslandered coyote lives here, and the deer and bears! But, knowing wellthe difference between reading and seeing, I will only ask attention tosome brief sketches of its varying aspects as they are presentedthroughout the more marked seasons of the year. 

The summer life we have been depicting lasts with but little abatementuntil October, when the night frosts begin to sting, bronzing thegrasses, and ripening the leaves of the creeping heathworts along thebanks of the stream to reddish purple and crimson; while the flowersdisappear, all save the goldenrods and a few daisies, that continue tobloom on unscathed until the beginning of snowy winter. In still nightsthe grass panicles and every leaf and stalk are laden with frostcrystals, through which the morning sunbeams sift in ravishing splendor, transforming each to a precious diamond radiating the colors of therainbow. The brook shallows are plaited across and across with slenderlances of ice, but both these and the grass crystals are melted beforemidday, and, notwithstanding the great elevation of the meadow, theafternoons are still warm enough to revive the chilled butterflies andcall them out to enjoy the late-flowering goldenrods. The divinealpenglow flushes the surrounding forest every evening, followed by acrystal night with hosts of lily stars, whose size and brilliancy cannotbe conceived by those who have never risen above the lowlands. 

Thus come and go the bright sun-days of autumn, not a cloud in the sky, week after week until near December. Then comes a sudden change. Cloudsof a peculiar aspect with a slow, crawling gait gather and grow in theazure, throwing out satiny fringes, and becoming gradually darker untilevery lake-like rift and opening is closed and the whole bent firmamentis obscured in equal structureless gloom. Then comes the snow, for theclouds are ripe, the meadows of the sky are in bloom, and shed theirradiant blossoms like an orchard in the spring. Lightly, lightly theylodge in the brown grasses and in the tasseled needles of the pines, falling hour after hour, day after day, silently, lovingly, --all thewinds hushed, --glancing and circling hither, thither, glinting againstone another, rays interlocking in flakes as large as daisies; and thenthe dry grasses, and the trees, and the stones are all equally abloomagain. Thunder-showers occur here during the summer months, andimpressive it is to watch the coming of the big transparent drops, eacha small world in itself, --one unbroken ocean without islands hurlingfree through the air like planets through space. But still moreimpressive to me is the coming of the snow-flowers, --falling stars, winter daisies, --giving bloom to all the ground alike. Raindrops blossombrilliantly in the rainbow, and change to flowers in the sod, but snowcomes in full flower direct from the dark, frozen sky. 

The later snow-storms are oftentimes accompanied by winds that break upthe crystals, when the temperature is low, into single petals andirregular dusty fragments; but there is comparatively little drifting onthe meadow, so securely is it embosomed in the woods. From December toMay, storm succeeds storm, until the snow is about fifteen or twentyfeet deep, but the surface is always as smooth as the breast of a bird. 

Hushed now is the life that so late was beating warmly. Most of thebirds have gone down below the snow-line, the plants sleep, and all thefly-wings are folded. Yet the sun beams gloriously many a cloudless dayin midwinter, casting long lance shadows athwart the dazzling expanse. In June small flecks of the dead, decaying sod begin to appear, gradually widening and uniting with one another, covered with creepingrags of water during the day, and ice by night, looking as hopeless andunvital as crushed rocks just emerging from the darkness of the glacialperiod. Walk the meadow now! Scarce the memory of a flower will youfind. The ground seems twice dead. Nevertheless, the annual resurrectionis drawing near. The life-giving sun pours his floods, the lastsnow-wreath melts, myriads of growing points push eagerly through thesteaming mold, the birds come back, new wings fill the air, and fervidsummer life comes surging on, seemingly yet more glorious than before. 

This is a perfect meadow, and under favorable circumstances existswithout manifesting any marked changes for centuries. Nevertheless, soonor late it must inevitably grow old and vanish. During the calm Indiansummer, scarce a sand-grain moves around its banks, but in flood-timesand storm-times, soil is washed forward upon it and laid in successivesheets around its gently sloping rim, and is gradually extended to thecenter, making it dryer. Through a considerable period the meadowvegetation is not greatly affected thereby, for it gradually rises withthe rising ground, keeping on the surface like water-plants rising onthe swell of waves. But at length the elevation of the meadow-land goeson so far as to produce too dry a soil for the specific meadow-plants, when, of course, they have to give up their places to others fitted forthe new conditions. The most characteristic of the newcomers at thiselevation above the sea are principally sun-loving gilias, eriogonae, and compositae, and finally forest-trees. Henceforward the obscuringchanges are so manifold that the original lake-meadow can be unveiledand seen only by the geologist. 

Generally speaking, glacier lakes vanish more slowly than the meadowsthat succeed them, because, unless very shallow, a greater quantity ofmaterial is required to fill up their basins and obliterate them than isrequired to render the surface of the meadow too high and dry for meadowvegetation. Furthermore, owing to the weathering to which the adjacentrocks are subjected, material of the finer sort, susceptible oftransportation by rains and ordinary floods, is more abundant during themeadow period than during the lake period. Yet doubtless many a finemeadow favorably situated exists in almost prime beauty for thousands ofyears, the process of extinction being exceedingly slow, as we reckontime. This is especially the case with meadows circumstanced like theone we have described--embosomed in deep woods, with the ground risinggently away from it all around, the network of tree-roots in which allthe ground is clasped preventing any rapid torrential washing. But, inexceptional cases, beautiful lawns formed with great deliberation areoverwhelmed 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 whichhave been fed by feeble streams, glacier mud and fine vegetable humusenter largely into the composition of the soil; and on account of theshallowness of this soil, and the seamless, water-tight, undrainedcondition of the rock-basins, they are usually wet, and thereforeoccupied by tall grasses and sedges, whose coarse appearance offers astriking contrast to that of the delicate lawn-making kind describedabove. These shallow-soiled meadows are oftentimes still furtherroughened and diversified by partially buried moraines and swellingbosses of the bed-rock, which, with the trees and shrubs growing uponthem, produce a striking effect as they stand in relief like islands inthe grassy level, or sweep across in rugged curves from one forest wallto the other. 

Throughout the upper meadow region, wherever water is sufficientlyabundant and low in temperature, in basins secure from flood-washing, handsome bogs are formed with a deep growth of brown and yellow sphagnumpicturesquely ruined with patches of kalmia and ledum which ripen massesof beautiful color in the autumn. Between these cool, spongy bogs andthe dry, flowery meadows there are many interesting varieties which aregraduated into one another by the varied conditions already alluded to, forming a series of delightful studies. 

HANGING MEADOWS

Another, very well-marked and interesting kind of meadow, differinggreatly both in origin and appearance from the lake-meadows, is foundlying aslant upon moraine-covered hillsides trending in the direction ofgreatest declivity, waving up and down over rock heaps and ledges, likerich green ribbons brilliantly illumined with tall flowers. They occurboth in the alpine and subalpine regions in considerable numbers, andnever fail to make telling features in the landscape. They are often amile or more in length, but never very wide--usually from thirty tofifty yards. When the mountain or cañon side on which, they lie dips atthe required angle, and other conditions are at the same time favorable, they extend from above the timber line to the bottom of a cañon or lakebasin, descending in fine, fluent lines like cascades, breaking here andthere into a kind of spray on large boulders, or dividing and flowingaround on either side of some projecting islet. Sometimes a noisy streamgoes brawling down through them, and again, scarcely a drop of water isin sight. They owe their existence, however, to streams, whether visibleor invisible, the wildest specimens being found where some perennialfountain, as a glacier or snowbank or moraine spring sends down itswaters across a rough sheet of soil in a dissipated web of feeble, oozing rivulets. These conditions give rise to a meadowy vegetation, whose extending roots still more obstruct the free flow of the waters, and tend to dissipate them out over a yet wider area. Thus the morainesoil and the necessary moisture requisite for the better class of meadowplants are at times combined about as perfectly as if smoothly outspreadon a level surface. Where the soil happens to be composed of the finerqualities of glacial detritus and the water is not in excess, thenearest approach is made by the vegetation to that of the lake-meadow. But where, as is more commonly the case, the soil is coarse andbouldery, the vegetation is correspondingly rank. Tall, wide-leavedgrasses take their places along the sides, and rushes and noddingcarices in the wetter portions, mingled with the most beautiful andimposing flowers, --orange lilies and larkspurs seven or eight feet high, lupines, senecios, aliums, painted-cups, many species of mimulus andpentstemon, the ample boat-leaved _veratrum alba_, and themagnificent alpine columbine, with spurs an inch and a half long. At anelevation of from seven to nine thousand feet showy flowers frequentlyform the bulk of the vegetation; then the hanging meadows become hanginggardens. 

In rare instances we find an alpine basin the bottom of which is aperfect meadow, and the sides nearly all the way round, rising in gentlecurves, are covered with moraine soil, which, being saturated withmelting snow from encircling fountains, gives rise to an almostcontinuous girdle of down-curving meadow vegetation that blendsgracefully into the level meadow at the bottom, thus forming a grand, smooth, soft, meadow-lined mountain nest. It is in meadows of this sortthat the mountain beaver (_Haplodon_) loves to make his home, excavating snug chambers beneath the sod, digging canals, turning theunderground waters from channel to channel to suit his convenience, andfeeding the vegetation. 

Another kind of meadow or bog occurs on densely timbered hillsides wheresmall perennial streams have been dammed at short intervals by fallentrees. Still another kind is found hanging down smooth, flat precipices, while corresponding leaning meadows rise to meet them. 

There are also three kinds of small pot-hole meadows one of which isfound along the banks of the main streams, another on the summits ofrocky ridges, and the third on glacier pavements, all of theminteresting in origin and brimful of plant beauty. 

CHAPTER VIII

THE FORESTS

The coniferous forests of the Sierra are the grandest and most beautifulin the world, and grow in a delightful climate on the most interestingand accessible of mountain-ranges, yet strange to say they are not wellknown. More than sixty years ago David Douglas, an enthusiastic botanistand tree lover, wandered alone through fine sections of the Sugar Pineand Silver Fir woods wild with delight. A few years later, otherbotanists made short journeys from the coast into the lower woods. Thencame the wonderful multitude of miners into the foot-hill zone, mostlyblind with gold-dust, soon followed by "sheepmen, " who, with wool overtheir eyes, chased their flocks through all the forest belts from oneend of the range to the other. Then the Yosemite Valley was discovered, and thousands of admiring tourists passed through sections of the lowerand middle zones on their way to that wonderful park, and gained fineglimpses of the Sugar Pines and Silver Firs along the edges of dustytrails and roads. But few indeed, strong and free with eyes undimmedwith care, have gone far enough and lived long enough with the trees togain anything like a loving conception of their grandeur andsignificance as manifested in the harmonies of their distribution andvarying aspects throughout the seasons, as they stand arrayed in theirwinter garb rejoicing in storms, putting forth their fresh leaves in thespring while steaming with resiny fragrance, receiving thethunder-showers of summer, or reposing heavy-laden with ripe cones inthe rich sungold of autumn. For knowledge of this kind one must dwellwith the trees and grow with them, without any reference to time in thealmanac sense. 

The distribution of the general forest in belts is readily perceived. These, as we have seen, extend in regular order from one extremity ofthe range to the other; and however dense and somber they may appear ingeneral views, neither on the rocky heights nor down in the leafiesthollows will you find anything to remind you of the dank, malarialselvas of the Amazon and Orinoco, with, their "boundless contiguity ofshade, " the monotonous uniformity of the Deodar forests of the Himalaya, the Black Forest of Europe, or the dense dark woods of Douglas Sprucewhere rolls the Oregon. The giant pines, and firs, and Sequoias holdtheir arms open to the sunlight, rising above one another on themountain benches, marshaled in glorious array, giving forth the utmostexpression of grandeur and beauty with inexhaustible variety andharmony. 

[Illustration: VIEW IN THE SIERRA FOREST. ]

The inviting openness of the Sierra woods is one of their mostdistinguishing characteristics. The trees of all the species stand moreor less apart in groves, or in small, irregular groups, enabling one tofind a way nearly everywhere, along sunny colonnades and throughopenings that have a smooth, park-like surface, strewn with brownneedles and burs. Now you cross a wild garden, now a meadow, now aferny, willowy stream; and ever and anon you emerge from all the grovesand flowers upon some granite pavement or high, bare ridge commandingsuperb views above the waving sea of evergreens far and near. 

One would experience but little difficulty in riding on horsebackthrough the successive belts all the way up to the storm-beaten fringesof the icy peaks. The deep cañons, however, that extend from the axis ofthe range, cut the belts more or less completely into sections, andprevent the mounted traveler from tracing them lengthwise. 

This simple arrangement in zones and sections brings the forest, as awhole, within the comprehension of every observer. The different speciesare ever found occupying the same relative positions to one another, ascontrolled by soil, climate, and the comparative vigor of each speciesin taking and holding the ground; and so appreciable are theserelations, one need never be at a loss in determining, within a fewhundred feet, the elevation above sea-level by the trees alone; for, notwithstanding some of the species range upward for several thousandfeet, and all pass one another more or less, yet even those possessingthe greatest vertical range are available in this connection, in as muchas they take on new forms corresponding with the variations in altitude. 

Crossing the treeless plains of the Sacramento and San Joaquin from thewest and reaching the Sierra foot-hills, you enter the lower fringe ofthe forest, composed of small oaks and pines, growing so far apart thatnot one twentieth of the surface of the ground is in shade at clearnoonday. After advancing fifteen or twenty miles, and making an ascentof from two to three thousand feet, you reach the lower margin of themain pine belt, composed of the gigantic Sugar Pine, Yellow Pine, Incense Cedar, and Sequoia. Next you come to the magnificent Silver Firbelt, and lastly to the upper pine belt, which sweeps up the rockyacclivities of the summit peaks in a dwarfed, wavering fringe to aheight of from ten to twelve thousand feet. 

[Illustration: EDGE OF THE TIMBER LINE ON MOUNT SHASTA. ]

This general order of distribution, with reference to climate dependenton elevation, is perceived at once, but there are other harmonies, asfar-reaching in this connection, that become manifest only after patientobservation and study. Perhaps the most interesting of these is thearrangement of the forests in long, curving bands, braided together intolace-like patterns, and outspread in charming variety. The key to thisbeautiful harmony is the ancient glaciers; where they flowed the treesfollowed, tracing their wavering courses along cañons, over ridges, andover high, rolling plateaus. The Cedars of Lebanon, says Hooker, aregrowing upon one of the moraines of an ancient glacier. All the forestsof the Sierra are growing upon moraines. But moraines vanish like theglaciers that make them. Every storm that falls upon them wastes them, cutting gaps, disintegrating boulders, and carrying away their decayingmaterial into new formations, until at length they are no longerrecognizable by any save students, who trace their transitional formsdown from the fresh moraines still in process of formation, throughthose that are more and more ancient, and more and more obscured byvegetation and all kinds of post-glacial weathering. 

Had the ice-sheet that once covered all the range been meltedsimultaneously from the foot-hills to the summits, the flanks would, ofcourse, have been left almost bare of soil, and these noble forestswould be wanting. Many groves and thickets would undoubtedly have grownup on lake and avalanche beds, and many a fair flower and shrub wouldhave found food and a dwelling-place in weathered nooks and crevices, but the Sierra as a whole would have been a bare, rocky desert. 

[Illustration: VIEW IN THE MAIN PINE BELT OF THE SIERRA FOREST. ]

It appears, therefore, that the Sierra forests in general indicate theextent and positions of the ancient moraines as well as they do lines ofclimate. For forests, properly speaking, cannot exist without soil; and, since the moraines have been deposited upon the solid rock, and onlyupon elected places, leaving a considerable portion of the old glacialsurface bare, we find luxuriant forests of pine and fir abruptlyterminated by scored and polished pavements on which not even a moss isgrowing, though soil alone is required to fit them for the growth oftrees 200 feet in height. 

THE NUT PINE(_Pinus Sabiniana_)

The Nut Pine, the first conifer met in ascending the range from thewest, grows only on the torrid foothills, seeming to delight in the mostardent sun-heat, like a palm; springing up here and there singly, or inscattered groups of five or six, among scrubby White Oaks and thicketsof ceanothus and manzanita; its extreme upper limit being about 4000feet above the sea, its lower about from 500 to 800 feet. 

This tree is remarkable for its airy, widespread, tropical appearance, which suggests a region of palms, rather than cool, resiny pine woods. No one would take it at first sight to be a conifer of any kind, it isso loose in habit and so widely branched, and its foliage is so thin andgray. Full-grown specimens are from forty to fifty feet in height, andfrom two to three feet in diameter. The trunk usually divides into threeor four main branches, about fifteen and twenty feet from the ground, which, after bearing away from one another, shoot straight up and formseparate summits; while the crooked subordinate branches aspire, andradiate, and droop in ornamental sprays. The slender, grayish-greenneedles are from eight to twelve inches long, loosely tasseled, andinclined to droop in handsome curves, contrasting with the stiff, dark-colored trunk and branches in a very striking manner. No other treeof my acquaintance, so substantial in body, is in its foliage so thinand so pervious to the light. The sunbeams sift through even theleafiest trees with scarcely any interruption, and the weary, heatedtraveler finds but little protection in their shade. 

[Illustration: NUT PINE (PINUS SABINIANA). ]

The generous crop of nutritious nuts which the Nut Pine yields makes ita favorite with Indians, bears, and squirrels. The cones are mostbeautiful, measuring from five to eight inches in length, and not muchless in thickness, rich chocolate-brown in color, and protected bystrong, down-curving hooks Which terminate the scales. Nevertheless, thelittle Douglas squirrel can open them. Indians gathering the ripe nutsmake a striking picture. The men climb the trees like bears and beat offthe cones with sticks, or recklessly cut off the more fruitful brancheswith hatchets, while the squaws gather the big, generous cones, androast them until the scales open sufficiently to allow the hard-shelledseeds to be beaten out. Then, in the cool evenings, men, women, andchildren, with their capacity for dirt greatly increased by the softresin with which they are all bedraggled, form circles aroundcamp-fires, on the bank of the nearest stream, and lie in easyindependence cracking nuts and laughing and chattering, as heedless ofthe future as the squirrels. 

_Pinus tuberculata_

This curious little pine is found at an elevation of from 1500 to 3000feet, growing in close, willowy groves. It is exceedingly slender andgraceful in habit, although trees that chance to stand alone outside thegroves sweep forth long, curved branches, producing a striking contrastto the ordinary grove form. The foliage is of the same peculiargray-green color as that of the Nut Pine, and is worn about as loosely, so that the body of the tree is scarcely obscured by it. 

[Illustration: THE GROVE FORM. THE ISOLATED FORM (PINUS TUBERCULATA). ]

At the age of seven or eight years it begins to bear cones, not onbranches, but on the main axis, and, as they never fall off, the trunkis soon picturesquely dotted with them. The branches also becomefruitful after they attain sufficient size. The average size of theolder trees is about thirty or forty feet in height, and twelve tofourteen inches in diameter. The cones are about four inches long, exceedingly hard, and covered with a sort of silicious varnish and gum, rendering them impervious to moisture, evidently with a view to thecareful preservation of the seeds. 

No other conifer in the range is so closely restricted to speciallocalities. It is usually found apart, standing deep in chaparral onsunny hill-and cañon-sides where there is but little depth of soil, and, where found at all, it is quite plentiful; but the ordinary traveler, following carriage-roads and trails, may ascend the range many timeswithout meeting it. 

While exploring the lower portion of the Merced Cañon I found a lonelyminer seeking his fortune in a quartz vein on a wild mountain-sideplanted with this singular tree. He told me that he called it theHickory Pine, because of the whiteness and toughness of the wood. It isso little known, however, that it can hardly be said to have a commonname. Most mountaineers refer to it as "that queer little pine-treecovered all over with burs. " In my studies of this species I found avery interesting and significant group of facts, whose relations will beseen almost as soon as stated:

1st. All the trees in the groves I examined, however unequal in size, are of the same age. 

2d. Those groves are all planted on dry hillsides covered withchaparral, and therefore are liable to be swept by fire. 

3d. There are no seedlings or saplings in or about the living groves, but there is always a fine, hopeful crop springing up on the ground onceoccupied by any grove that has been destroyed by the burning of thechaparral. 

4th. The cones never fall off and never discharge their seeds until thetree or branch to which they belong dies. 

[Illustration: LOWER MARGIN OF THE MAIN PINE BELT, SHOWING OPENCHARACTER OF WOODS. ]

A full discussion of the bearing of these facts upon one another wouldperhaps be out of place here, but I may at least call attention to theadmirable adaptation of the tree to the fire-swept regions where aloneit is found. After a grove has been destroyed, the ground is at oncesown lavishly with all the seeds ripened during its whole life, whichseem to have been carefully held in store with reference to such acalamity. Then a young grove immediately springs up, giving beauty forashes. 

SUGAR PINE(_Pinus Lambertiana_)

This is the noblest pine yet discovered, surpassing all others notmerely in size but also in kingly beauty and majesty. 

It towers sublimely from every ridge and cañon of the range, at anelevation of from three to seven thousand feet above the sea, attainingmost perfect development at a height of about 5000 feet. 

Full-grown specimens are commonly about 220 feet high, and from six toeight feet in diameter near the ground, though some grand old patriarchis occasionally met that has enjoyed five or six centuries of storms, and attained a thickness of ten or even twelve feet, living onundecayed, sweet and fresh in every fiber. 

In southern Oregon, where it was first discovered by David Douglas, onthe head waters of the Umpqua, it attains still grander dimensions, onespecimen having been measured that was 245 feet high, and over eighteenfeet in diameter three feet from the ground. The discoverer was theDouglas for whom the noble Douglas Spruce is named, and many otherplants which will keep his memory sweet and fresh as long as trees andflowers are loved. His first visit to the Pacific Coast was made in theyear 1825. The Oregon Indians watched him with curiosity as he wanderedin the woods collecting specimens, and, unlike the fur-gatheringstrangers they had hitherto known, caring nothing about trade. And whenat length they came to know him better, and saw that from year to yearthe growing things of the woods and prairies were his only objects ofpursuit, they called him "The Man of Grass, " a title of which he wasproud. During his first summer on the waters of the Columbia he madeFort Vancouver his headquarters, making excursions from this Hudson Baypost in every direction. On one of his long trips he saw in an Indian'spouch some of the seeds of a new species of pine which he learned wereobtained from a very large tree far to the southward of the Columbia. Atthe end of the next summer, returning to Fort Vancouver after thesetting in of the winter rains, bearing in mind the big pine he hadheard of, he set out on an excursion up the Willamette Valley in searchof it; and how he fared, and what dangers and hardships he endured, arebest told in his own journal, from which I quote as follows:

 _October_ 26, 1826. Weather dull. Cold and cloudy. When my friends in England are made acquainted with my travels I fear they will think I have told them nothing but my miseries. . . . I quitted my camp early in the morning to survey the neighboring country, leaving my guide to take charge of the horses until my return in the evening. About an hour's walk from the camp I met an Indian, who on perceiving me instantly strung his bow, placed on his left arm a sleeve of raccoon skin and stood on the defensive. Being quite sure that conduct was prompted by fear and not by hostile intentions, the poor fellow having probably never seen such a being as myself before, I laid my gun at my feet on the ground and waved my hand for him to come to me, which he did slowly and with great caution. I then made him place his bow and quiver of arrows beside my gun, and striking a light gave him a smoke out of my own pipe and a present of a few beads. With my pencil I made a rough sketch of the cone and pine tree which I wanted to obtain, and drew his attention to it, when he instantly pointed with his hand to the hills fifteen or twenty miles distant towards the south; and when I expressed my intention of going thither, cheerfully set out to accompany me. At midday I reached my long-wished-for pines, and lost no time in examining them and endeavoring to collect specimens and seeds. New and strange things seldom fail to make strong impressions, and are therefore frequently over-rated; so that, lest I should never see my friends in England to inform them verbally of this most beautiful and immensely grand tree, I shall here state the dimensions of the largest I could find among several that had been blown down by the wind. At 3 feet from the ground its circumference is 57 feet 9 inches; at 134 feet, 17 feet 5 inches; the extreme length 245 feet. . . . As it was impossible either to climb the tree or hew it down, I endeavored to knock off the cones by firing at them with ball, when the report of my gun brought eight Indians, all of them painted with red earth, armed with bows, arrows, bone-tipped spears, and flint-knives. They appeared anything but friendly. I explained to them what I wanted, and they seemed satisfied and sat down to smoke; but presently I saw one of them string his bow, and another sharpen his flint knife with a pair of wooden pincers and suspend it off the wrist of his right hand. Further testimony of their intentions was unnecessary. To save myself by flight was impossible, so without hesitation I stepped back about five paces, cocked my gun, drew one of the pistols out of my belt, and holding it in my left hand and the gun in my right, showed myself determined to fight for my life. As much as possible I endeavored to preserve my coolness, and thus we stood looking at one another without making any movement or uttering a word for perhaps ten minutes, when one at last, who seemed to be the leader, gave a sign that they wished for some tobacco; this I signified that they should have if they fetched a quantity of cones. They went off immediately in search of them, and no sooner were they all out of sight than I picked up my three cones and some twigs of the trees and made the quickest possible retreat, hurrying back to the camp, which I reached before dusk. . . . I now write lying on the grass with my gun cocked beside me, and penning these lines by the light of my Columbian candle, namely, an ignited piece of rosin-wood. 

This grand pine discovered under such, exciting circumstances Douglasnamed in honor of his friend Dr. Lambert of London. 

The trunk is a smooth, round, delicately tapered shaft, mostly withoutlimbs, and colored rich purplish-brown, usually enlivened with tufts ofyellow lichen. At the top of this magnificent bole, long, curvingbranches sweep gracefully outward and downward, sometimes forming apalm-like crown, but far more nobly impressive than any palm crown Iever beheld. The needles are about three inches long, finely temperedand arranged in rather close tassels at the ends of slender branchletsthat clothe the long, outsweeping limbs. How well they sing in the wind, and how strikingly harmonious an effect is made by the immensecylindrical cones that depend loosely from the ends of the mainbranches! No one knows what Nature can do in the way of pine-burs untilhe has seen those of the Sugar Pine. They are commonly from fifteen toeighteen inches long, and three in diameter; green, shaded with darkpurple on their sunward sides. They are ripe in September and October. Then the flat scales open and the seeds take wing, but the empty conesbecome still more beautiful and effective, for their diameter is nearlydoubled by the spreading of the scales, and their color changes to awarm yellowish-brown; while they remain swinging on the tree all thefollowing winter and summer, and continue effectively beautiful even onthe ground many years after they fall. The wood is deliciously fragrant, and fine in grain and texture; it is of a rich cream-yellow, as ifformed of condensed sunbeams. _Retinospora obtusa, Siebold_, theglory of Eastern forests, is called "Fu-si-no-ki" (tree of the sun) bythe Japanese; the Sugar Pine is the sun-tree of the Sierra. Unfortunately it is greatly prized by the lumbermen, and in accessibleplaces is always the first tree in the woods to feel their steel. Butthe regular lumbermen, with their saw-mills, have been, less generallydestructive thus far than the shingle-makers. The wood splits freely, and there is a constant demand for the shingles. And because an ax, andsaw, and frow are all the capital required for the business, many ofthat drifting, unsteady class of men so large in California engage in itfor a few months in the year. When prospectors, hunters, ranch hands, etc. , touch their "bottom dollar" and find themselves out of employment, they say, "Well, I can at least go to the Sugar Pines and makeshingles. " A few posts are set in the ground, and a single length cutfrom the first tree felled produces boards enough for the walls and roofof a cabin; all the rest the lumberman makes is for sale, and he isspeedily independent. No gardener or haymaker is more sweetly perfumedthan these rough mountaineers while engaged in this business, but thehavoc they make is most deplorable. 

[Illustration: SUGAR PINE ON EXPOSED RIDGE. ]

The sugar, from which the common name is derived, is to my taste thebest of sweets--better than maple sugar. It exudes from the heart-wood, where wounds have been made, either by forest fires, or the ax, in theshape of irregular, crisp, candy-like kernels, which are crowdedtogether in masses of considerable size, like clusters of resin-beads. When fresh, it is perfectly white and delicious, but, because most ofthe wounds on which it is found have been made by fire, the exuding sapis stained on the charred surface, and the hardened sugar becomes brown. Indians are fond of it, but on account of its laxative properties onlysmall quantities may be eaten. Bears, so fond of sweet things ingeneral, seem never to taste it; at least I have failed to find anytrace of their teeth in this connection. 

No lover of trees will ever forget his first meeting with the SugarPine, nor will he afterward need a poet to call him to "listen what thepine-tree saith. " In most pine-trees there is a sameness of expression, which, to most people, is apt to become monotonous; for the typicalspiry form, however beautiful, affords but little scope for appreciableindividual character. The Sugar Pine is as free from conventionalitiesof form and motion as any oak. No two are alike, even to the mostinattentive observer; and, notwithstanding they are ever tossing outtheir immense arms in what might seem most extravagant gestures, thereis a majesty and repose about them that precludes all possibility of thegrotesque, or even picturesque, in their general expression. They arethe priests of pines, and seem ever to be addressing the surroundingforest. The Yellow Pine is found growing with them on warm hillsides, and the White Silver Fir on cool northern slopes; but, noble as theseare, the Sugar Pine is easily king, and spreads his arms above them inblessing while they rock and wave in sign of recognition. The mainbranches are sometimes found to be forty feet in length, yetpersistently simple, seldom dividing at all, excepting near the end; butanything like a bare cable appearance is prevented by the small, tasseled branchlets that extend all around them; and when these superblimbs sweep out symmetrically on all sides, a crown sixty or seventyfeet wide is formed, which, gracefully poised on the summit of the nobleshaft, and filled with sunshine, is one of the most glorious forestobjects conceivable. Commonly, however, there is a great preponderanceof limbs toward the east, away from the direction of the prevailingwinds. 

No other pine seems to me so unfamiliar and self-contained. Inapproaching it, we feel as if in the presence of a superior being, andbegin to walk with a light step, holding our breath. Then, perchance, while we gaze awe-stricken, along comes a merry squirrel, chattering andlaughing, to break the spell, running up the trunk with no ceremony, andgnawing off the cones as if they were made only for him; while thecarpenter-woodpecker hammers away at the bark, drilling holes in whichto store his winter supply of acorns. 

[Illustration: YOUNG SUGAR PINE BEGINNING TO BEAR CONES. ]

Although so wild and unconventional when full-grown, the Sugar Pine is aremarkably proper tree in youth. The old is the most original andindependent in appearance of all the Sierra evergreens; the young is themost regular, --a strict follower of coniferous fashions, --slim, erect, with leafy, supple branches kept exactly in place, each tapering inoutline and terminating in a spiry point. The successive transitionalforms presented between the cautious neatness of youth and bold freedomof maturity offer a delightful study. At the age of fifty or sixtyyears, the shy, fashionable form begins to be broken up. Specializedbranches push out in the most unthought-of places, and bend with thegreat cones, at once marking individual character, and this beingconstantly augmented from year to year by the varying action of thesunlight, winds, snow-storms, etc. , the individuality of the tree isnever again lost in the general forest. 

The most constant companion of this species is the Yellow Pine, and aworthy companion it is. 

[Illustration: FOREST OF SEQUOIA, SUGAR PINE, AND DOUGLAS SPRUCE. ]

The Douglas Spruce, Libocedrus, Sequoia, and the White Silver Fir arealso more or less associated with it; but on many deep-soiledmountain-sides, at an elevation of about 5000 feet above the sea, itforms the bulk of the forest, filling every swell and hollow anddown-plunging ravine. The majestic crowns, approaching each other inbold curves, make a glorious canopy through which the tempered sunbeamspour, silvering the needles, and gilding the massive boles, and flowery, park-like ground, into a scene of enchantment. 

On the most sunny slopes the white-flowered fragrant chamoebatia isspread like a carpet, brightened during early summer with the crimsonSarcodes, the wild rose, and innumerable violets and gilias. Not even inthe shadiest nooks will you find any rank, untidy weeds or unwholesomedarkness. On the north sides of ridges the boles are more slender, andthe ground is mostly occupied by an underbrush of hazel, ceanothus, andflowering dogwood, but never so densely as to prevent the traveler fromsauntering where he will; while the crowning branches are neverimpenetrable to the rays of the sun, and never so interblended as tolose their individuality. 

View the forest from beneath or from some commanding ridge-top; eachtree presents a study in itself, and proclaims the surpassing grandeurof the species. 

YELLOW, OR SILVER PINE(_Pinus ponderosa_)

The Silver, or Yellow, Pine, as it is commonly called, ranks secondamong the pines of the Sierra as a lumber tree, and almost rivals theSugar Pine in stature and nobleness of port. Because of its superiorpowers of enduring variations of climate and soil, it has a moreextensive range than any other conifer growing on the Sierra. On thewestern slope it is first met at an elevation of about 2000 feet, andextends nearly to the upper limit of the timber line. Thence, crossingthe range by the lowest passes, it descends to the eastern base, andpushes out for a considerable distance into the hot volcanic plains, growing bravely upon well-watered moraines, gravelly lake basins, arcticridges, and torrid lava-beds; planting itself upon the lips of craters, flourishing vigorously even there, and tossing ripe cones among theashes and cinders of Nature's hearths. 

The average size of full-grown trees on the western slope, where it isassociated with the Sugar Pine, is a little less than 200 feet in heightand from five to six feet in diameter, though specimens may easily befound that are considerably larger. I measured one, growing at anelevation of 4000 feet in the valley of the Merced, that is a few inchesover eight feet in diameter, and 220 feet high. 

Where there is plenty of free sunshine and other conditions arefavorable, it presents a striking contrast in form to the Sugar Pine, being a symmetrical spire, formed of a straight round trunk, clad withinnumerable branches that are divided over and over again. About onehalf of the trunk is commonly branchless, but where it grows at allclose, three fourths or more become naked; the tree presenting then amore slender and elegant shaft than any other tree in the woods. Thebark is mostly arranged in massive plates, some of them measuring fouror five feet in length by eighteen inches in width, with a thickness ofthree or four inches, forming a quite marked and distinguishing feature. The needles are of a fine, warm, yellow-green color, six to eight incheslong, firm and elastic, and crowded in handsome, radiant tassels on theupturning ends of the branches. The cones are about three or four incheslong, and two and a half wide, growing in close, sessile clusters amongthe leaves. 

[Illustration: PINUS PONDEROSA. ]

The species attains its noblest form in filled-up lake basins, especially in those of the older yosemites, and so prominent a part doesit form of their groves that it may well be called the Yosemite Pine. Ripe specimens favorably situated are almost always 200 feet or more inheight, and the branches clothe the trunk nearly to the ground, as seenin the illustration. 

The Jeffrey variety attains its finest development in the northernportion of the range, in the wide basins of the McCloud and Pitt rivers, where it forms magnificent forests scarcely invaded by any other tree. It differs from the ordinary form in size, being only about half astall, and in its redder and more closely furrowed bark, grayish-greenfoliage, less divided branches, and larger cones; but intermediate formscome in which make a clear separation impossible, although somebotanists regard it as a distinct species. It is this variety thatclimbs storm-swept ridges, and wanders out among the volcanoes of theGreat Basin. Whether exposed to extremes of heat or cold, it is dwarfedlike every other tree, and becomes all knots and angles, wholly unlikethe majestic forms we have been sketching. Old specimens, bearing conesabout as big as pineapples, may sometimes be found clinging to riftedrocks at an elevation of seven or eight thousand feet, whose highestbranches scarce reach above one's shoulders. 

[Illustration: SILVER PINE 210 FEET HIGH. (THE FORM GROWING IN YOSEMITEVALLEY. )]

I have oftentimes feasted on the beauty of these noble trees when theywere towering in all their winter grandeur, laden with snow--one mass ofbloom; in summer, too, when the brown, staminate clusters hang thickamong the shimmering needles, and the big purple burs are ripening inthe mellow light; but it is during cloudless wind-storms that thesecolossal pines are most impressively beautiful. Then they bow likewillows, their leaves streaming forward all in one direction, and, whenthe sun shines upon them at the required angle, entire groves glow as ifevery leaf were burnished silver. The fall of tropic light on the royalcrown of a palm is a truly glorious spectacle, the fervid sun-floodbreaking upon the glossy leaves in long lance-rays, like mountain wateramong boulders. But to me there is something more impressive in the fallof light upon these Silver Pines. It seems beaten to the finest dust, and is shed off in myriads of minute sparkles that seem to come from thevery heart of the trees, as if, like rain falling upon fertile soil, ithad been absorbed, to reappear in flowers of light. 

This species also gives forth the finest music to the wind. Afterlistening to it in all kinds of winds, night and day, season afterseason, I think I could approximate to my position on the mountains bythis pine-music alone. If you would catch the tones of separate needles, climb a tree. They are well tempered, and give forth no uncertain sound, each standing out, with no interference excepting during heavy gales;then you may detect the click of one needle upon another, readilydistinguishable from their free, wing-like hum. Some idea of theirtemper may be drawn from the fact that, notwithstanding they are solong, the vibrations that give rise to the peculiar shimmering of thelight are made at the rate of about two hundred and fifty per minute. 

When a Sugar Pine and one of this species equal in size are observedtogether, the latter is seen to be far more simple in manners, morelithely graceful, and its beauty is of a kind more easily appreciated;but then, it is, on the other hand, much less dignified and original indemeanor. The Silver Pine seems eager to shoot aloft. Even while it isdrowsing in autumn sun-gold, you may still detect a skyward aspiration. But the Sugar Pine seems too unconsciously noble, and too complete inevery way, to leave room for even a heavenward care. 

DOUGLAS SPRUCE(_Pseudotsuga Douglasii_)

This tree is the king of the spruces, as the Sugar Pine is king ofpines. It is by far the most majestic spruce I ever beheld in anyforest, and one of the largest and longest lived of the giants thatflourish throughout the main pine belt, often attaining a height ofnearly 200 feet, and a diameter of six or seven. Where the growth is nottoo close, the strong, spreading branches come more than halfway downthe trunk, and these are hung with innumerable slender, swaying sprays, that are handsomely feathered with the short leaves which radiate atright angles all around them. This vigorous spruce is ever beautiful, welcoming the mountain winds and the snow as well as the mellow summerlight, and maintaining its youthful freshness undiminished from centuryto century through a thousand storms. 

It makes its finest appearance in the months of June and July. The richbrown buds with which its sprays are tipped swell and break about thistime, revealing the young leaves, which at first are bright yellow, making the tree appear as if covered with gay blossoms; while thependulous bracted cones with their shell-like scales are a constantadornment. 

The young trees are mostly gathered into beautiful family groups, eachsapling exquisitely symmetrical. The primary branches are whorledregularly around the axis, generally in fives, while each is draped withlong, feathery sprays, that descend in curves as free and as finelydrawn as those of falling water. 

In Oregon and Washington it grows in dense forests, growing tall andmast-like to a height of 300 feet, and is greatly prized as a lumbertree. But in the Sierra it is scattered among other trees, or formssmall groves, seldom ascending higher than 5500 feet, and never makingwhat would be called a forest. It is not particular in its choice ofsoil--wet or dry, smooth or rocky, it makes out to live well on themall. Two of the largest specimens I have measured are in YosemiteValley, one of which is more than eight feet in diameter, and is growingupon the terminal moraine of the residual glacier that occupied theSouth Fork Canon; the other is nearly as large, growing upon angularblocks of granite that have been shaken from the precipitous front ofthe Liberty Cap near the Nevada Fall. No other tree seems so capable ofadapting itself to earthquake taluses, and many of these roughboulder-slopes are occupied by it almost exclusively, especially inyosemite gorges moistened by the spray of waterfalls. 

INCENSE CEDAR(_Libocedrus decurrens_)

The Incense Cedar is another of the giants quite generally distributedthroughout this portion of the forest, without exclusively occupying anyconsiderable area, or even making extensive groves. It ascends to about5000 feet on the warmer hillsides, and reaches the climate mostcongenial to it at about from 3000 to 4000 feet, growing vigorously atthis elevation on all kinds of soil, and in particular it is capable ofenduring more moisture about its roots than any of its companions, excepting only the Sequoia. 

The largest specimens are about 150 feet high, and seven feet indiameter. The bark is brown, of a singularly rich tone very attractiveto artists, and the foliage is tinted with a warmer yellow than that ofany other evergreen in the woods. Casting your eye over the generalforest from some ridge-top, the color alone of its spiry summits issufficient to identify it in any company. 

In youth, say up to the age of seventy or eighty years, no other treeforms so strictly tapered a cone from top to bottom. The branches swoopoutward and downward in bold curves, excepting the younger ones near thetop, which aspire, while the lowest droop to the ground, and all spreadout in flat, ferny plumes, beautifully fronded, and imbricated upon oneanother. As it becomes older, it grows strikingly irregular andpicturesque. Large special branches put out at right angles from thetrunk, form big, stubborn elbows, and then shoot up parallel with theaxis. Very old trees are usually dead at the top, the main axisprotruding above ample masses of green plumes, gray and lichen-covered, and drilled full of acorn holes by the woodpeckers. The plumes areexceedingly beautiful; no waving fern-frond in shady dell is moreunreservedly beautiful in form and texture, or half so inspiring incolor and spicy fragrance. In its prime, the whole tree is thatched withthem, so that they shed off rain and snow like a roof, making finemansions for storm-bound birds and mountaineers. But if you would seethe _Libocedrus_ in all its glory, you must go to the woods inwinter. Then it is laden with myriads of four-sided staminate conesabout the size of wheat grains, --winter wheat, --producing a goldentinge, and forming a noble illustration of Nature's immortal vigor andvirility. The fertile cones are about three fourths of an inch long, borne on the outside of the plumy branchlets, where they serve to enrichstill more the surpassing beauty of this grand winter-bloominggoldenrod. 

[Illustration: INCENSE CEDAR IN ITS PRIME. ]

WHITE SILVER FIR(_Abies concolor_)

[Illustration: FOREST OF GRAND SILVER FIRS. TWO SEQUOIAS IN THEFOREGROUND ON THE LEFT. ]

We come now to the most regularly planted of all the main forest belts, composed almost exclusively of two noble firs--_A. Concolor_ and_A. Magnifica_. It extends with no marked interruption for 450miles, at an elevation of from 5000 to nearly 9000 feet above the sea. In its youth _A. Concolor_ is a charmingly symmetrical tree withbranches regularly whorled in level collars around its whitish-grayaxis, which terminates in a strong, hopeful shoot. The leaves are in twohorizontal rows, along branchlets that commonly are less than eightyears old, forming handsome plumes, pinnated like the fronds of ferns. The cones are grayish-green when ripe, cylindrical, about from three tofour inches long by one and a half to two inches wide, and stand uprighton the upper branches. 

Full-grown trees, favorably situated as to soil and exposure, are about200 feet high, and five or six feet in diameter near the ground, thoughlarger specimens are by no means rare. 

As old age creeps on, the bark becomes rougher and grayer, the brancheslose their exact regularity, many are snow-bent or broken off, and themain axis often becomes double or otherwise irregular from accidents tothe terminal bud or shoot; but throughout all the vicissitudes of itslife on the mountains, come what may, the noble grandeur of the speciesis patent to every eye. 

MAGNIFICENT SILVER FIR, OR RED FIR(_Abies magnifica_)

This is the most charmingly symmetrical of all the giants of the Sierrawoods, far surpassing its companion species in this respect, and easilydistinguished from it by the purplish-red bark, which is also moreclosely furrowed than that of the white, and by its larger cones, moreregularly whorled and fronded branches, and by its leaves, which areshorter, and grow all around the branchlets and point upward. 

In size, these two Silver Firs are about equal, the _magnifica_perhaps a little the taller. Specimens from 200 to 250 feet high are notrare on well-ground moraine soil, at an elevation of from 7500 to 8500feet above sea-level. The largest that I measured stands back threemiles from the brink of the north wall of Yosemite Valley. Fifteen yearsago it was 240 feet high, with a diameter of a little more than fivefeet. 

Happy the man with the freedom and the love to climb one of these superbtrees in full flower and fruit. How admirable the forest-work of Natureis then seen to be, as one makes his way up through the midst of thebroad, fronded branches, all arranged in exquisite order around thetrunk, like the whorled leaves of lilies, and each branch and branchletabout as strictly pinnate as the most symmetrical fern-frond. Thestaminate cones are seen growing straight downward from the under sideof the young branches in lavish profusion, making fine purple clustersamid the grayish-green foliage. On the topmost branches the fertilecones are set firmly on end like small casks. They are about six incheslong, three wide, covered with a fine gray down, and streaked withcrystal balsam that seems to have been poured upon each cone from above. 

Both the Silver Firs live 250 years or more when the conditions aboutthem are at all favorable. Some venerable patriarch may often be seen, heavily storm-marked, towering in severe majesty above the risinggeneration, with a protecting grove of saplings pressing close aroundhis feet, each dressed with such loving care that not a leaf seemswanting. Other companies are made up of trees near the prime of life, exquisitely harmonized to one another in form and gesture, as if Naturehad culled them one by one with nice discrimination from all the rest ofthe woods. 

[Illustration: VIEW OF FOREST OF THE MAGNIFICENT SILVER FIR. ]

It is from this tree, called Red Fir by the lumberman, that mountaineersalways cut boughs to sleep on when they are so fortunate as to be withinits limits. Two rows of the plushy branches overlapping along themiddle, and a crescent of smaller plumes mixed with ferns and flowersfor a pillow, form the very best bed imaginable. The essences of thepressed leaves seem to fill every pore of one's body, the sounds offalling water make a soothing hush, while the spaces between the grandspires afford noble openings through which to gaze dreamily into thestarry sky. Even in the matter of sensuous ease, any combination ofcloth, steel springs, and feathers seems vulgar in comparison. 

The fir woods are delightful sauntering-grounds at any time of year, butmost so in autumn. Then the noble trees are hushed in the hazy light, and drip with balsam; the cones are ripe, and the seeds, with theirample purple wings, mottle the air like flocks of butterflies; whiledeer feeding in the flowery openings between the groves, and birds andsquirrels in the branches, make a pleasant stir which enriches the deep, brooding calm of the wilderness, and gives a peculiar impressiveness toevery tree. No wonder the enthusiastic Douglas went wild with joy whenhe first discovered this species. Even in the Sierra, where so manynoble evergreens challenge admiration, we linger among these colossalfirs with fresh love, and extol their beauty again and again, as if noother in the world could henceforth claim our regard. 

[Illustration: SILVER-FIR FOREST GROWING ON MORAINES OF THE HOFFMAN ANDTENAYA GLACIERS. ]

It is in these woods the great granite domes rise that are so strikingand characteristic a feature of the Sierra. And here too we find thebest of the garden meadows. They lie level on the tops of the dividingridges, or sloping on the sides of them, embedded in the magnificentforest. Some of these meadows are in great part occupied by_Veratrumalba_, which here grows rank and tall, with boat-shapedleaves thirteen inches long and twelve inches wide, ribbed like those ofcypripedium. Columbine grows on the drier margins with tall larkspursand lupines waist-deep in grasses and sedges; several species ofcastilleia also make a bright show in beds of blue and white violets anddaisies. But the glory of these forest meadows is a lily--_L. Parvum_. The flowers are orange-colored and quite small, the smallest I ever sawof the true lilies; but it is showy nevertheless, for it is seven toeight feet high and waves magnificent racemes of ten to twenty flowersor more over one's head, while it stands out in the open ground withjust enough of grass and other plants about it to make a fringe forits feet and show it off to best advantage. 

A dry spot a little way back from the margin of a Silver Fir lily gardenmakes a glorious campground, especially where the slope is toward theeast and opens a view of the distant peaks along the summit of therange. The tall lilies are brought forward in all their glory by thelight of your blazing camp-fire, relieved against the outer darkness, and the nearest of the trees with their whorled branches tower above youlike larger lilies, and the sky seen through the garden opening seemsone vast meadow of white lily stars. 

In the morning everything is joyous and bright, the delicious purple ofthe dawn changes softly to daffodil yellow and white; while the sunbeamspouring through the passes between the peaks give a margin of gold toeach of them. Then the spires of the firs in the hollows of the middleregion catch the glow, and your camp grove is filled with light. Thebirds begin to stir, seeking sunny branches on the edge of the meadowfor sun-baths after the cold night, and looking for their breakfasts, every one of them as fresh as a lily and as charmingly arrayed. Innumerable insects begin to dance, the deer withdraw from the openglades and ridge-tops to their leafy hiding-places in the chaparral, theflowers open and straighten their petals as the dew vanishes, everypulse beats high, every life-cell rejoices, the very rocks seem totingle with life, and God is felt brooding over everything great andsmall. 

BIG TREE(_Sequoia gigantea_)

Between the heavy pine and Silver Fir belts we find the Big Tree, theking of all the conifers in the world, "the noblest of a noble race. " Itextends in a widely interrupted belt from a small grove on the middlefork of the American River to the head of Deer Creek, a distance ofabout 260 miles, the northern limit being near the thirty-ninthparallel, the southern a little below the thirty-sixth, and theelevation of the belt above the sea varies from about 5000 to 8000 feet. From the American River grove to the forest on King's River the speciesoccurs only in small isolated groups so sparsely distributed along thebelt that three of the gaps in it are from forty to sixty miles wide. But from King's River southward the Sequoia is not restricted to meregroves, but extends across the broad rugged basins of the Kaweah andTule rivers in noble forests, a distance of nearly seventy miles, thecontinuity of this part of the belt being broken only by deep cañons. The Fresno, the largest of the northern groves, occupies an area ofthree or four square miles, a short distance to the southward of thefamous Mariposa Grove. Along the beveled rim of the cañon of the southfork of King's River there is a majestic forest of Sequoia about sixmiles long by two wide. This is the northernmost assemblage of Big Treesthat may fairly be called a forest. Descending the precipitous dividebetween the King's River and Kaweah you enter the grand forests thatform the main continuous portion of the belt. Advancing southward thegiants become more and more irrepressibly exuberant, heaving theirmassive crowns into the sky from every ridge and slope, and wavingonward in graceful compliance with the complicated topography of theregion. The finest of the Kaweah section of the belt is on the broadridge between Marble Creek and the middle fork, and extends from thegranite headlands overlooking the hot plains to within a few miles ofthe cool glacial fountains of the summit peaks. The extreme upper limitof the belt is reached between the middle and south forks of the Kaweahat an elevation of 8400 feet. But the finest block of Big Tree forest inthe entire belt is on the north fork of Tule River. In the northerngroves there are comparatively few young trees or saplings. But here forevery old, storm-stricken giant there are many in all the glory of primevigor, and for each of these a crowd of eager, hopeful young trees andsaplings growing heartily on moraines, rocky ledges, along watercourses, and in the moist alluvium of meadows, seemingly in hot pursuit ofeternal life. 

But though the area occupied by the species increases so much from northto south there is no marked increase in the size of the trees. A heightof 275 feet and a diameter near the ground of about 20 feet is perhapsabout the average size of full-grown trees favorably situated; specimens25 feet in diameter are not very rare, and a few are nearly 300 feethigh. In the Calaveras Grove there are four trees over 300 feet inheight, the tallest of which by careful measurement is 325 feet. Thelargest I have yet met in the course of my explorations is a majesticold scarred monument in the King's River forest. It is 35 feet 8 inchesin diameter inside the bark four feet from the ground. Under the mostfavorable conditions these giants probably live 5000 years or more, though few of even the larger trees are more than half as old. I neversaw a Big Tree that had died a natural death; barring accidents theyseem to be immortal, being exempt from all the diseases that afflict andkill other trees. Unless destroyed by man, they live on indefinitelyuntil burned, smashed by lightning, or cast down by storms, or by thegiving way of the ground on which they stand. The age of one that wasfelled in the Calaveras Grove, for the sake of having its stump for adancing-floor, was about 1300 years, and its diameter, measured acrossthe stump, 24 feet inside the bark. Another that was cut down in theKing's River forest was about the same size, but nearly a thousand yearsolder (2200 years), though not a very old-looking tree. It was felled toprocure a section for exhibition, and thus an opportunity was given tocount its annual rings of growth. The colossal scarred monument in theKing's River forest mentioned above is burned half through, and I spenta day in making an estimate of its age, clearing away the charredsurface with an ax and carefully counting the annual rings with the aidof a pocket-lens. The wood-rings in the section I laid bare were soinvolved and contorted in some places that I was not able to determineits age exactly, but I counted over 4000 rings, which showed that thistree was in its prime, swaying in the Sierra winds, when Christ walkedthe earth. No other tree in the world, as far as I know, has looked downon so many centuries as the Sequoia, or opens such impressive andsuggestive views into history. 

So exquisitely harmonious and finely balanced are even the verymightiest of these monarchs of the woods in all their proportions andcircumstances there never is anything overgrown or monstrous-lookingabout them. On coming in sight of them for the first time, you arelikely to say, "Oh, see what beautiful, noble-looking trees are toweringthere among the firs and pines!"--their grandeur being in the mean timein great part invisible, but to the living eye it will be manifestedsooner or later, stealing slowly on the senses, like the grandeur ofNiagara, or the lofty Yosemite domes. Their great size is hidden fromthe inexperienced observer as long as they are seen at a distance in oneharmonious view. When, however, you approach them and walk round them, you begin to wonder at their colossal size and seek a measuring-rod. These giants bulge considerably at the base, but not more than isrequired for beauty and safety; and the only reason that this bulgingseems in some cases excessive is that only a comparatively small sectionof the shaft is seen at once in near views. One that I measured in theKing's River forest was 25 feet in diameter at the ground, and 10 feetin diameter 200 feet above the ground, showing that the taper of thetrunk as a whole is charmingly fine. And when you stand back far enoughto see the massive columns from the swelling instep to the lofty summitdissolving in a dome of verdure, you rejoice in the unrivaled display ofcombined grandeur and beauty. About a hundred feet or more of the trunkis usually branchless, but its massive simplicity is relieved by thebark furrows, which instead of making an irregular network run evenlyparallel, like the fluting of an architectural column, and to someextent by tufts of slender sprays that wave lightly in the winds andcast flecks of shade, seeming to have been pinned on here and there forthe sake of beauty only. The young trees have slender simple branchesdown to the ground, put on with strict regularity, sharply aspiring atthe top, horizontal about half-way down, and drooping in handsome curvesat the base. By the time the sapling is five or six hundred years oldthis spiry, feathery, juvenile habit merges into the firm, rounded domeform of middle age, which in turn takes on the eccentric picturesquenessof old age. No other tree in the Sierra forest has foliage so denselymassed or presents outlines so firmly drawn and so steadily subordinateto a special type. A knotty ungovernable-looking branch five to eightfeet thick may be seen pushing out abruptly from the smooth trunk, as ifsure to throw the regular curve into confusion, but as soon as thegeneral outline is reached it stops short and dissolves in spreadingbosses of law-abiding sprays, just as if every tree were growing beneathsome huge, invisible bell-glass, against whose sides every branch wasbeing pressed and molded, yet somehow indulging in so many smalldepartures from the regular form that there is still an appearance offreedom. 

The foliage of the saplings is dark bluish-green in color, while theolder trees ripen to a warm brownish-yellow tint like Libocedrus. Thebark is rich cinnamon-brown, purplish in young trees and in shadyportions of the old, while the ground is covered with brown leaves andburs forming color-masses of extraordinary richness, not to mention theflowers and underbrush that rejoice about them in their seasons. Walkthe Sequoia woods at any time of year and you will say they are the mostbeautiful and majestic on earth. Beautiful and impressive contrasts meetyou everywhere: the colors of tree and flower, rock and sky, light andshade, strength and frailty, endurance and evanescence, tangles ofsupple hazel-bushes, tree-pillars about as rigid as granite domes, rosesand violets, the smallest of their kind, blooming around the feet of thegiants, and rugs of the lowly chamaebatia where the sunbeams fall. Thenin winter the trees themselves break forth in bloom, myriads of smallfour-sided staminate cones crowd the ends of the slender sprays, coloring the whole tree, and when ripe dusting the air and the groundwith golden pollen. The fertile cones are bright grass-green, measuringabout two inches in length by one and a half in thickness, and are madeup of about forty firm rhomboidal scales densely packed, with from fiveto eight seeds at the base of each. A single cone, therefore, containsfrom two to three hundred seeds, which are about a fourth of an inchlong by three sixteenths wide, including a thin, flat margin that makesthem go glancing and wavering in their fall like a boy's kite. Thefruitfulness of Sequoia may be illustrated by two specimen branches oneand a half and two inches in diameter on which I counted 480 cones. Noother Sierra conifer produces nearly so many seeds. Millions are ripenedannually by a single tree, and in a fruitful year the product of one ofthe northern groves would be enough to plant all the mountain-ranges ofthe world. Nature takes care, however, that not one seed in a millionshall germinate at all, and of those that do perhaps not one in tenthousand is suffered to live through the many vicissitudes of storm, drought, fire, and snow-crushing that beset their youth. 

The Douglas squirrel is the happy harvester of most of the Sequoiacones. Out of every hundred perhaps ninety fall to his share, and unlesscut off by his ivory sickle they shake out their seeds and remain on thetree for many years. Watching the squirrels at their harvest work in theIndian summer is one of the most delightful diversions imaginable. Thewoods are calm and the ripe colors are blazing in all their glory; thecone-laden trees stand motionless in the warm, hazy air, and you may seethe crimson-crested woodcock, the prince of Sierra woodpeckers, drillingsome dead limb or fallen trunk with his bill, and ever and anon fillingthe glens with his happy cackle. The humming-bird, too, dwells in thesenoble woods, and may oftentimes be seen glancing among the flowers orresting wing-weary on some leafless twig; here also are the familiarrobin of the orchards, and the brown and grizzly bears so obviouslyfitted for these majestic solitudes; and the Douglas squirrel, makingmore hilarious, exuberant, vital stir than all the bears, birds, andhumming wings together. 

As soon as any accident happens to the crown of these Sequoias, such asbeing stricken off by lightning or broken by storms, then the branchesbeneath the wound, no matter how situated, seem to be excited like acolony of bees that have lost their queen, and become anxious to repairthe damage. Limbs that have grown outward for centuries at right anglesto the trunk begin to turn upward to assist in making a new crown, eachspeedily assuming the special form of true summits. Even in the case ofmere stumps, burned half through, some mere ornamental tuft will try togo aloft and do its best as a leader in forming a new head. 

Groups of two or three of these grand trees are often found standingclose together, the seeds from which they sprang having probably grownon ground cleared for their reception by the fall of a large tree of aformer generation. These patches of fresh, mellow soil beside theupturned roots of the fallen giant may be from forty to sixty feet wide, and they are speedily occupied by seedlings. Out of theseseedling-thickets perhaps two or three may become trees, forming thoseclose groups called "three graces, " "loving couples, " etc. For evensupposing that the trees should stand twenty or thirty feet apart whileyoung, by the time they are full-grown their trunks will touch and crowdagainst each other and even appear as one in some cases. 

It is generally believed that this grand Sequoia was once far morewidely distributed over the Sierra; but after long and careful study Ihave come to the conclusion that it never was, at least since the closeof the glacial period, because a diligent search along the margins ofthe groves, and in the gaps between, fails to reveal a single trace ofits previous existence beyond its present bounds. Notwithstanding, Ifeel confident that if every Sequoia in the range were to die to-day, numerous monuments of their existence would remain, of so imperishable anature as to be available for the student more than ten thousand yearshence. 

In the first place we might notice that no species of coniferous tree inthe range keeps its individuals so well together as Sequoia; a mile isperhaps the greatest distance of any straggler from the main body, andall of those stragglers that have come under my observation are young, instead of old monumental trees, relics of a more extended growth. 

Again, Sequoia trunks frequently endure for centuries after they fall. Ihave a specimen block, cut from a fallen trunk, which is hardlydistinguishable from specimens cut from living trees, although the oldtrunk-fragment from which it was derived has lain in the damp forestmore than 380 years, probably thrice as long. The time measure in thecase is simply this: when the ponderous trunk to which the old vestigebelonged fell, it sunk itself into the ground, thus making a long, straight ditch, and in the middle of this ditch a Silver Fir is growingthat is now four feet in diameter and 380 years old, as determined bycutting it half through and counting the rings, thus demonstrating thatthe remnant of the trunk that made the ditch has lain on the ground_more_ than 380 years. For it is evident that to find the wholetime, we must add to the 380 years the time that the vanished portion ofthe trunk lay in the ditch before being burned out of the way, plus thetime that passed before the seed from which the monumental fir sprangfell into the prepared soil and took root. Now, because Sequoia trunksare never wholly consumed in one forest fire, and those fires recur onlyat considerable intervals, and because Sequoia ditches after beingcleared are often left unplanted for centuries, it becomes evident thatthe trunk remnant in question may probably have lain a thousand years ormore. And this instance is by no means a rare one. 

But admitting that upon those areas supposed to have been once coveredwith Sequoia every tree may have fallen, and every trunk may have beenburned or buried, leaving not a remnant, many of the ditches made by thefall of the ponderous trunks, and the bowls made by their upturningroots, would remain patent for thousands of years after the last vestigeof the trunks that made them had vanished. Much of this ditch-writingwould no doubt be quickly effaced by the flood-action of overflowingstreams and rain-washing; but no inconsiderable portion would remainenduringly engraved on ridge-tops beyond such destructive action; for, where all the conditions are favorable, it is almost imperishable. _Now these historic ditches and root bowls occur in all the presentSequoia groves and forests, but as far as I have observed, not thefaintest vestige of one presents itself outside of them_. 

We therefore conclude that the area covered by Sequoia has not beendiminished during the last eight or ten thousand years, and probably notat all in post-glacial times. 

_Is the species verging to extinction? What are its relations toclimate, soil, and associated trees?_

All the phenomena bearing on these questions also throw light, as weshall endeavor to show, upon the peculiar distribution of the species, and sustain the conclusion already arrived at on the question ofextension. 

In the northern groups, as we have seen, there are few young trees orsaplings growing up around the failing old ones to perpetuate the race, and in as much as those aged Sequoias, so nearly childless, are the onlyones commonly known, the species, to most observers, seems doomed tospeedy extinction, as being nothing more than an expiring remnant, vanquished in the so-called struggle for life by pines and firs thathave driven it into its last strongholds in moist glens where climate isexceptionally favorable. But the language of the majestic continuousforests of the south creates a very different impression. No tree of allthe forest is more enduringly established in concordance with climateand soil. It grows heartily everywhere--on moraines, rocky ledges, alongwatercourses, and in the deep, moist alluvium of meadows, with amultitude of seedlings and saplings crowding up around the aged, seemingly abundantly able to maintain the forest in prime vigor. Forevery old storm-stricken tree, there is one or more in all the glory ofprime; and for each of these many young trees and crowds of exuberantsaplings. So that if all the trees of any section of the main Sequoiaforest were ranged together according to age, a very promising curvewould be presented, all the way up from last year's seedlings to giants, and with the young and middle-aged portion of the curve many timeslonger than the old portion. Even as far north as the Fresno, I counted536 saplings and seedlings growing promisingly upon a piece of roughavalanche soil not exceeding two acres in area. This soil bed is aboutseven years old, and has been seeded almost simultaneously by pines, firs, Libocedrus, and Sequoia, presenting a simple and instructiveillustration of the struggle for life among the rival species; and itwas interesting to note that the conditions thus far affecting them haveenabled the young Sequoias to gain a marked advantage. 

In every instance like the above I have observed that the seedlingSequoia is capable of growing on both drier and wetter soil than itsrivals, but requires more sunshine than they; the latter fact beingclearly shown wherever a Sugar Pine or fir is growing in close contactwith a Sequoia of about equal age and size, and equally exposed to thesun; the branches of the latter in such cases are always less leafy. Toward the south, however, where the Sequoia becomes _more_exuberant and numerous, the rival trees become _less_ so; and wherethey mix with Sequoias, they mostly grow up beneath them, like slendergrasses among stalks of Indian corn. Upon a bed of sandy flood-soil Icounted ninety-four Sequoias, from one to twelve feet high, on a patch, of ground once occupied by four large Sugar Pines which lay crumblingbeneath them, --an instance of conditions which have enabled Sequoias tocrowd out the pines. 

I also noted eighty-six vigorous saplings upon a piece of fresh groundprepared for their reception by fire. Thus fire, the great destroyer ofSequoia, also furnishes bare virgin ground, one of the conditionsessential for its growth from the seed. Fresh ground is, however, furnished in sufficient quantities for the constant renewal of theforests without fire, viz. , by the fall of old trees. The soil is thusupturned and mellowed, and many trees are planted for every one thatfalls. Land-slips and floods also give rise to bare virgin ground; and atree now and then owes its existence to a burrowing wolf or squirrel, but the most regular supply of fresh soil is furnished by the fall ofaged trees. 

The climatic changes in progress in the Sierra, bearing on the tenure oftree life, are entirely misapprehended, especially as to the time andthe means employed by Nature in effecting them. It is constantlyasserted in a vague way that the Sierra was vastly wetter than now, andthat the increasing drought will of itself extinguish Sequoia, leavingits ground to other trees supposed capable of nourishing in a drierclimate. But that Sequoia can and does grow on as dry ground as any ofits present rivals, is manifest in a thousand places. "Why, then, " itwill be asked, "are Sequoias always found in greatest abundance inwell-watered places where streams are exceptionally abundant?" Simplybecause a growth of Sequoias creates those streams. The thirstymountaineer knows well that in every Sequoia grove he will find runningwater, but it is a mistake to suppose that the water is the cause of thegrove being there; on the contrary, the grove is the cause of the waterbeing there. Drain off the water and the trees will remain, but cut offthe trees, and the streams will vanish. Never was cause more completelymistaken for effect than in the case of these related phenomena ofSequoia woods and perennial streams, and I confess that at first Ishared in the blunder. 

When attention is called to the method of Sequoia stream-making, it willbe apprehended at once. The roots of this immense tree fill the ground, forming a thick sponge that absorbs and holds back the rains and meltingsnows, only allowing them to ooze and flow gently. Indeed, every fallenleaf and rootlet, as well as long clasping root, and prostrate trunk, may be regarded as a dam hoarding the bounty of storm-clouds, anddispensing it as blessings all through the summer, instead of allowingit to go headlong in short-lived floods. Evaporation is also checked bythe dense foliage to a greater extent than by any other Sierra tree, andthe air is entangled in masses and broad sheets that are quicklysaturated; while thirsty winds are not allowed to go sponging andlicking along the ground. 

So great is the retention of water in many places in the main belt, thatbogs and meadows are created by the killing of the trees. A single trunkfalling across a stream in the woods forms a dam 200 feet long, and fromten to thirty feet high, giving rise to a pond which kills the treeswithin its reach. These dead trees fall in turn, thus making a clearing, while sediments gradually accumulate changing the pond into a bog, ormeadow, for a growth of carices and sphagnum. In some instances a seriesof small bogs or meadows rise above one another on a hillside, which aregradually merged into one another, forming sloping bogs, or meadows, which make striking features of Sequoia woods, and since all the treesthat have fallen into them have been preserved, they contain records ofthe generations that have passed since they began to form. 

Since, then, it is a fact that thousands of Sequoias are growingthriftily on what is termed dry ground, and even clinging like mountainpines to rifts in granite precipices; and since it has also been shownthat the extra moisture found in connection with the denser growths isan effect of their presence, instead of a cause of their presence, thenthe notions as to the former extension of the species and its nearapproach to extinction, based upon its supposed dependence on greatermoisture, are seen to be erroneous. 

The decrease in the rain- and snow-fall since the close of the glacialperiod in the Sierra is much less than is commonly guessed. The highestpost-glacial watermarks are well preserved in all the upper riverchannels, and they are not greatly higher than the spring floodmarks ofthe present; showing conclusively that no extraordinary decrease hastaken place in the volume of the upper tributaries of post-glacialSierra streams since they came into existence. But in the mean time, eliminating all this complicated question of climatic change, the plainfact remains that _the present rain- and snow-fall is abundantlysufficient for the luxuriant growth of Sequoia forests_. Indeed, allmy observations tend to show that in a prolonged drought the Sugar Pinesand firs would perish before the Sequoia, not alone because of thegreater longevity of individual trees, but because the species canendure more drought, and make the most of whatever moisture falls. 

Again, if the restriction and irregular distribution of the species beinterpreted as a result of the desiccation of the range, then instead ofincreasing as it does in individuals toward the south where the rainfallis less, it should diminish. 

If, then, the peculiar distribution of Sequoia has not been governed bysuperior conditions of soil as to fertility or moisture, by what has itbeen governed?

In the course of my studies I observed that the northern groves, theonly ones I was at first acquainted with, were located on just thoseportions of the general forest soil-belt that were first laid baretoward the close of the glacial period when the ice-sheet began to breakup into individual glaciers. And while searching the wide basin of theSan Joaquin, and trying to account for the absence of Sequoia whereevery condition seemed favorable for its growth, it occured to me thatthis remarkable gap in the Sequoia belt is located exactly in the basinof the vast ancient _mer de glace_ of the San Joaquin and King'sRiver basins, which poured its frozen floods to the plain, fed by thesnows that fell on more than fifty miles of the summit. I then perceivedthat the next great gap in the belt to the northward, forty miles wide, extending between the Calaveras and Tuolumne groves, occurs in the basinof the great ancient _mer de glace_ of the Tuolumne and Stanislausbasins, and that the smaller gap between the Merced and Mariposa grovesoccurs in the basin of the smaller glacier of the Merced. _The widerthe ancient glacier, the wider the corresponding gap in the Sequoiabelt_. 

Finally, pursuing my investigations across the basins of the Kaweah andTule, I discovered that the Sequoia belt attained its greatestdevelopment just where, owing to the topographical peculiarities of theregion, the ground had been most perfectly protected from the mainice-rivers that continued to pour past from the summit fountains longafter the smaller local glaciers had been melted. 

Taking now a general view of the belt, beginning at the south, we seethat the majestic ancient glaciers were shed off right and left down thevalleys of Kern and King's rivers by the lofty protective spursoutspread embracingly above the warm Sequoia-filled basins of the Kaweahand Tule. Then, next northward, occurs the wide Sequoia-less channel, orbasin, of the ancient San Joaquin and King's River _mer de glace_;then the warm, protected spots of Fresno and Mariposa groves; then theSequoia-less channel of the ancient Merced glacier; next the warm, sheltered ground of the Merced and Tuolumne groves; then theSequoia-less channel of the grand ancient _mer de glace_ of theTuolumne and Stanislaus; then the warm old ground of the Calaveras andStanislaus groves. It appears, therefore, that just where, at a certainperiod in the history of the Sierra, the glaciers were not, there theSequoia is, and just where the glaciers were, there the Sequoia is not. 

What the other conditions may have been that enabled Sequoia toestablish itself upon these oldest and warmest portions of the mainglacial soil-belt, I cannot say. I might venture to state, however, inthis connection, that since the Sequoia forests present a more and moreancient aspect as they extend southward, I am inclined to think that thespecies was distributed from the south, while the Sugar Pine, its greatrival in the northern groves, seems to have come around the head of theSacramento valley and down the Sierra from the north; consequently, whenthe Sierra soil-beds were first thrown open to preemption on the meltingof the ice-sheet, the Sequoia may have established itself along theavailable portions of the south half of the range prior to the arrivalof the Sugar Pine, while the Sugar Pine took possession of the northhalf prior to the arrival of Sequoia. 

But however much uncertainty may attach to this branch of the question, there are no obscuring shadows upon the grand general relationship wehave pointed out between the present distribution of Sequoia and theancient glaciers of the Sierra. And when we bear in mind that all thepresent forests of the Sierra are young, growing on moraine soilrecently deposited, and that the flank of the range itself, with all itslandscapes, is new-born, recently sculptured, and brought to the lightof day from beneath the ice mantle of the glacial winter, then athousand lawless mysteries disappear, and broad harmonies take theirplaces. 

But although all the observed phenomena bearing on the post-glacialhistory of this colossal tree point to the conclusion that it never wasmore widely distributed on the Sierra since the close of the glacialepoch; that its present forests are scarcely past prime, if, indeed, they have reached prime; that the post-glacial day of the species isprobably not half done; yet, when from a wider outlook the vastantiquity of the genus is considered, and its ancient richness inspecies and individuals; comparing our Sierra Giant and _Sequoiasempervirens_ of the Coast Range, the only other living species ofSequoia, with the twelve fossil species already discovered and describedby Heer and Lesquereux, some of which seem to have flourished over vastareas in the Arctic regions and in Europe and our own territories, during tertiary and cretaceous times, --then indeed it becomes plain thatour two surviving species, restricted to narrow belts within the limitsof California, are mere remnants of the genus, both as to species andindividuals, and that they probably are verging to extinction. But theverge of a period beginning in cretaceous times may have a breadth oftens of thousands of years, not to mention the possible existence ofconditions calculated to multiply and reëxtend both species andindividuals. This, however, is a branch of the question into which I donot now purpose to enter. 

In studying the fate of our forest king, we have thus far considered theaction of purely natural causes only; but, unfortunately, _man_ isin the woods, and waste and pure destruction are making rapid headway. If the importance of forests were at all understood, even from aneconomic standpoint, their preservation would call forth the mostwatchful attention of government. Only of late years by means of forestreservations has the simplest groundwork for available legislation beenlaid, while in many of the finest groves every species of destruction isstill moving on with accelerated speed. 

In the course of my explorations I found no fewer than five millslocated on or near the lower edge of the Sequoia belt, all of which werecutting considerable quantities of Big Tree lumber. Most of the Fresnogroup are doomed to feed the mills recently erected near them, and acompany of lumbermen are now cutting the magnificent forest on King'sRiver. In these milling operations waste far exceeds use, for after thechoice young manageable trees on any given spot have been felled, thewoods are fired to clear the ground of limbs and refuse with referenceto further operations, and, of course, most of the seedlings andsaplings are destroyed. 

These mill ravages, however, are small as compared with thecomprehensive destruction caused by "sheepmen. " Incredible numbers ofsheep are driven to the mountain pastures every summer, and their courseis ever marked by desolation. Every wild garden is trodden down, theshrubs are stripped of leaves as if devoured by locusts, and the woodsare burned. Running fires are set everywhere, with a view to clearingthe ground of prostrate trunks, to facilitate the movements of theflocks and improve the pastures. The entire forest belt is thus sweptand devastated from one extremity of the range to the other, and, withthe exception of the resinous _Pinus contorta_, Sequoia suffersmost of all. Indians burn off the underbrush in certain localities tofacilitate deer-hunting, mountaineers and lumbermen carelessly allowtheir camp-fires to run; but the fires of the sheepmen, or_muttoneers_, form more than ninety per cent. Of all destructivefires that range the Sierra forests. 

It appears, therefore, that notwithstanding our forest king might liveon gloriously in Nature's keeping, it is rapidly vanishing before thefire and steel of man; and unless protective measures be speedilyinvented and applied, in a few decades, at the farthest, all that will beleft of _Sequoia gigantea_ will be a few hacked and scarredmonuments. 

TWO-LEAVED, OR TAMARACK, PINE(_Pinus contorta_, var. _Marrayana_)

This species forms the bulk of the alpine forests, extending along therange, above the fir zone, up to a height of from 8000 to 9500 feetabove the sea, growing in beautiful order upon moraines that arescarcely changed as yet by post-glacial weathering. Compared with thegiants of the lower zones, this is a small tree, seldom attaining aheight of a hundred feet. The largest specimen I ever measured wasninety feet in height, and a little over six in diameter four feet fromthe ground. The average height of mature trees throughout the entirebelt is probably not far from fifty or sixty feet, with a diameter oftwo feet. It is a well-proportioned, rather handsome little pine, withgrayish-brown bark, and crooked, much-divided branches, which cover thegreater portion of the trunk, not so densely, however, as to prevent itsbeing seen. The lower limbs curve downward, gradually take a horizontalposition about half-way up the trunk, then aspire more and more towardthe summit, thus forming a sharp, conical top. The foliage is short andrigid, two leaves in a fascicle, arranged in comparatively long, cylindrical tassels at the ends of the tough, up-curving branchlets. Thecones are about two inches long, growing in stiff clusters among theneedles, without making any striking effect, except while very young, when they are of a vivid crimson color, and the whole tree appears to bedotted with brilliant flowers. The sterile cones are still more showy, on account of their great abundance, often giving a reddish-yellow tingeto the whole mass of the foliage, and filling the air with pollen. 

No other pine on the range is so regularly planted as this one. Moraineforests sweep along the sides of the high, rocky valleys for mileswithout interruption; still, strictly speaking, they are not dense, forflecks of sunshine and flowers find their way into the darkest places, where the trees grow tallest and thickest. Tall, nutritious grasses arespecially abundant beneath them, growing over all the ground, insunshine and shade, over extensive areas like a farmer's crop, andserving as pasture for the multitude of sheep that are driven from thearid plains every summer as soon as the snow is melted. 

The Two-leaved Pine, more than any other, is subject to destruction byfire. The thin bark is streaked and sprinkled with resin, as though ithad been showered down upon it like rain, so that even the green treescatch fire readily, and during strong winds whole forests are destroyed, the flames leaping from tree to tree, forming one continuous belt ofroaring fire that goes surging and racing onward above the bendingwoods, like the grass-fires of a prairie. During the calm, dry season ofIndian summer, the fire creeps quietly along the ground, feeding on thedry needles and burs; then, arriving at the foot of a tree, the resinybark is ignited, and the heated air ascends in a powerful current, increasing in velocity, and dragging the flames swiftly upward; then theleaves catch fire, and an immense column of flame, beautifully spired onthe edges, and tinted a rose-purple hue, rushes aloft thirty or fortyfeet above the top of the tree, forming a grand spectacle, especially ona dark night. It lasts, however, only a few seconds, vanishing withmagical rapidity, to be succeeded by others along the fire-line atirregular intervals for weeks at a time--tree after tree flashing anddarkening, leaving the trunks and branches hardly scarred. The heat, however, is sufficient to kill the trees, and in a few years the barkshrivels and falls off. Belts miles in extent are thus killed and leftstanding with the branches on, peeled and rigid, appearing gray in thedistance, like misty clouds. Later the branches drop off, leaving aforest of bleached spars. At length the roots decay, and the forlorntrunks are blown down during some storm, and piled one upon anotherencumbering the ground until they are consumed by the next fire, andleave it ready for a fresh crop. 

The endurance of the species is shown by its wandering occasionally outover the lava plains with the Yellow Pine, and climbing morainelessmountain-sides with the Dwarf Pine, clinging to any chance support inrifts and crevices of storm-beaten rocks--always, however, showing theeffects of such hardships in every feature. 

Down in sheltered lake hollows, on beds of rich alluvium, it varies sofar from the common form as frequently to be taken for a distinctspecies. Here it grows in dense sods, like grasses, from forty to eightyfeet high, bending all together to the breeze and whirling in eddyinggusts more lithely than any other tree in the woods. I have frequentlyfound specimens fifty feet high less than five inches in diameter. Beingthus slender, and at the same time well clad with leafy boughs, it isoftentimes bent to the ground when laden with soft snow, formingbeautiful arches in endless variety, some of which last until themelting of the snow in spring. 

MOUNTAIN PINE(_Pinus monticola_)

The Mountain Pine is king of the alpine woods, brave, hardy, andlong-lived, towering grandly above its companions, and becoming strongerand more imposing just where other species begin to crouch anddisappear. At its best it is usually about ninety feet high and five orsix in diameter, though a specimen is often met considerably larger thanthis. The trunk is as massive and as suggestive of enduring strength asthat of an oak. About two thirds of the trunk is commonly free of limbs, but close, fringy tufts of sprays occur all the way down, like thosewhich adorn the colossal shafts of Sequoia. The bark is deepreddish-brown upon trees that occupy exposed situations near its upperlimit, and furrowed rather deeply, the main furrows running nearlyparallel with each other, and connected by conspicuous cross furrows, which, with one exception, are, as far as I have noticed, peculiar tothis species. 

The cones are from four to eight inches long, slender, cylindrical, andsomewhat curved, resembling those of the common White Pine of theAtlantic coast. They grow in clusters of about from three to six orseven, becoming pendulous as they increase in weight, chiefly by thebending of the branches. 

This species is nearly related to the Sugar Pine, and, though not halfso tall, it constantly suggests its noble relative in the way that itextends its long arms and in general habit. The Mountain Pine is firstmet on the upper margin of the fir zone, growing singly in a subdued, inconspicuous form, in what appear as chance situations, without makingmuch impression on the general forest. Continuing up through theTwo-leaved Pines in the same scattered growth, it begins to show itscharacter, and at an elevation of about 10, 000 feet attains its noblestdevelopment near the middle of the range, tossing its tough arms in thefrosty air, welcoming storms and feeding on them, and reaching the grandold age of 1000 years. 

JUNIPER, OR RED CEDAR(_Juniperus occidentalis_)

The Juniper is preëminently a rock tree, occupying the baldest domes andpavements, where there is scarcely a handful of soil, at a height offrom 7000 to 9500 feet. In such situations the trunk is frequently overeight feet in diameter, and not much more in height. The top is almostalways dead in old trees, and great stubborn limbs push out horizontallythat are mostly broken and bare at the ends, but densely covered andembedded here and there with bossy mounds of gray foliage. Some are mereweathered stumps, as broad as long, decorated with a few leafy sprays, reminding one of the crumbling towers of some ancient castlescantily draped with ivy. Only upon the head waters of the Carson have Ifound this species established on good moraine soil. Here it flourisheswith the Silver and Two-leaved Pines, in great beauty and luxuriance, attaining a height of from forty to sixty feet, and manifesting butlittle of that rocky angularity so characteristic a feature throughoutthe greater portion, of its range. Two of the largest, growing at thehead of Hope Valley, measured twenty-nine feet three inches andtwenty-five feet six inches in circumference, respectively, four feetfrom the ground. The bark is of a bright cinnamon color, and, in thriftytrees, beautifully braided and reticulated, flaking off in thin, lustrous ribbons that are sometimes used by Indians for tent-matting. Its fine color and odd picturesqueness always catch an artist's eye, butto me the Juniper seems a singularly dull and taciturn tree, neverspeaking to one's heart. I have spent many a day and night in itscompany, in all kinds of weather, and have ever found it silent, cold, and rigid, like a column of ice. Its broad stumpiness, of course, precludes all possibility of waving, or even shaking; but it is not thisrocky steadfastness that constitutes its silence. In calm, sun-days theSugar Pine preaches the grandeur of the mountains like an apostlewithout moving a leaf. 

[Illustration: JUNIPER, OR RED CEDAR. ]

On level rocks it dies standing, and wastes insensibly out of existencelike granite, the wind exerting about as little control over it alive ordead as it does over a glacier boulder. Some are undoubtedly over 2000years old. All the trees of the alpine woods suffer, more or less, fromavalanches, the Two-leaved Pine most of all. Gaps two or three hundredyards wide, extending from the upper limit of the tree-line to thebottoms of valleys and lake basins, are of common occurrence in all theupper forests, resembling the clearings of settlers in the oldbackwoods. Scarcely a tree is spared, even the soil is scraped away, while the thousands of uprooted pines and spruces are piled upon oneanother heads downward, and tucked snugly in along the sides of theclearing in two windrows, like lateral moraines. The pines lie withbranches wilted and drooping like weeds. Not so the burly junipers. After braving in silence the storms of perhaps a dozen or twentycenturies, they seem in this, their last calamity, to become somewhatcommunicative, making sign of a very unwilling acceptance of their fate, holding themselves well up from the ground on knees and elbows, seemingly ill at ease, and anxious, like stubborn wrestlers, to riseagain. 

HEMLOCK SPRUCE(_Tsuga Pattoniana_)

The Hemlock Spruce is the most singularly beautiful of all theCalifornia coniferae. So slender is its axis at the top, that it bendsover and droops like the stalk of a nodding lily. The branches droopalso, and divide into innumerable slender, waving sprays, which arearranged in a varied, eloquent harmony that is wholly indescribable. Itscones are purple, and hang free, in the form of little tassels twoinches long from all the sprays from top to bottom. Though exquisitelydelicate and feminine in expression, it grows best where the snow liesdeepest, far up in the region of storms, at an elevation of from 9000 to9500 feet, on frosty northern slopes; but it is capable of growingconsiderably higher, say 10, 500 feet. The tallest specimens, growing insheltered hollows somewhat beneath the heaviest wind-currents, are fromeighty to a hundred feet high, and from two to four feet in diameter. The very largest specimen I ever found was nineteen feet seven inches incircumference four feet from the ground, growing on the edge of LakeHollow, at an elevation of 9250 feet above the level of the sea. At theage of twenty or thirty years it becomes fruitful, and hangs out itsbeautiful purple cones at the ends of the slender sprays, where theyswing free in the breeze, and contrast delightfully with the cool greenfoliage. They are translucent when young, and their beauty is delicious. After they are fully ripe, they spread their shell-like scales and allowthe brown-winged seeds to fly in the mellow air, while the empty conesremain to beautify the tree until the coming of a fresh crop. 

[Illustration: STORM-BEATEN HEMLOCK SPRUCE, FORTY FEET HIGH. ]

The staminate cones of all the coniferae are beautiful, growing inbright clusters, yellow, and rose, and crimson. Those of the HemlockSpruce are the most beautiful of all, forming little conelets of blueflowers, each on a slender stem. 

Under all conditions, sheltered or storm-beaten, well-fed or ill-fed, this tree is singularly graceful in habit. Even at its highest limitupon exposed ridge-tops, though compelled to crouch in dense thickets, huddled close together, as if for mutual protection, it still manages tothrow out its sprays in irrepressible loveliness; while on well-groundmoraine soil it develops a perfectly tropical luxuriance of foliage andfruit, and is the very loveliest tree in the forest; poised in thinwhite sunshine, clad with branches from head to foot, yet not in thefaintest degree heavy or bunchy, it towers in unassuming majesty, drooping as if unaffected with the aspiring tendencies of its race, loving the ground while transparently conscious of heaven and joyouslyreceptive of its blessings, reaching out its branches like sensitivetentacles, feeling the light and reveling in it. No other of our alpineconifers so finely veils its strength. Its delicate branches yield tothe mountains' gentlest breath; yet is it strong to meet the wildestonsets of the gale, --strong not in resistance, but compliance, bowing, snow-laden, to the ground, gracefully accepting burial month after monthin the darkness beneath the heavy mantle of winter. 

When the first soft snow begins to fall, the flakes lodge in the leaves, weighing down the branches against the trunk. Then the axis bends yetlower and lower, until the slender top touches the ground, thus forminga fine ornamental arch. The snow still falls lavishly, and the wholetree is at length buried, to sleep and rest in its beautiful grave asthough dead. Entire groves of young trees, from ten to forty feet high, are thus buried every winter like slender grasses. But, like the violetsand daisies which the heaviest snows crush not, they are safe. It is asthough this were only Nature's method of putting her darlings to sleepinstead of leaving them exposed to the biting storms of winter. 

Thus warmly wrapped they await the summer resurrection. The snow becomessoft in the sunshine, and freezes at night, making the mass hard andcompact, like ice, so that during the months of April and May you canride a horse over the prostrate groves without catching sight of asingle leaf. At length the down-pouring sunshine sets them free. Firstthe elastic tops of the arches begin to appear, then one branch afteranother, each springing loose with a gentle rustling sound, and atlength the whole tree, with the assistance of the winds, graduallyunbends and rises and settles back into its place in the warm air, asdry and feathery and fresh as young ferns just out of the coil. 

Some of the finest groves I have yet found are on the southern slopes ofLassen's Butte. There are also many charming companies on the headwaters of the Tuolumne, Merced, and San Joaquin, and, in general, thespecies is so far from being rare that you can scarcely fail to findgroves of considerable extent in crossing the range, choose what passyou may. The Mountain Pine grows beside it, and more frequently thetwo-leaved species; but there are many beautiful groups, numbering 1000individuals, or more, without a single intruder. 

I wish I had space to write more of the surpassing beauty of thisfavorite spruce. Every tree-lover is sure to regard it with specialadmiration; apathetic mountaineers, even, seeking only game or gold, stop to gaze on first meeting it, and mutter to themselves: "That's amighty pretty tree, " some of them adding, "d----d pretty!" In autumn, when its cones are ripe, the little striped tamias, and the Douglassquirrel, and the Clark crow make a happy stir in its groves. The deerlove to lie down beneath its spreading branches; bright streams from thesnow that is always near ripple through its groves, and bryanthusspreads precious carpets in its shade. But the best words only hint itscharms. Come to the mountains and see. 

DWARF PINE(_Pinus albicaulis_)

This species forms the extreme edge of the timber line throughout nearlythe whole extent of the range on both flanks. It is first met growing incompany with _Pinus contorta_, var. _Murrayana_, on the upper margin ofthe belt, as an erect tree from fifteen to thirty feet high and from oneto two feet in thickness; thence it goes straggling up the flanks of thesummit peaks, upon moraines or crumbling ledges, wherever it can obtaina foothold, to an elevation of from 10, 000 to 12, 000 feet, where itdwarfs to a mass of crumpled, prostrate branches, covered with slender, upright shoots, each tipped with a short, close-packed tassel of leaves. The bark is smooth and purplish, in some places almost white. Thefertile cones grow in rigid clusters upon the upper branches, darkchocolate in color while young, and bear beautiful pearly seeds aboutthe size of peas, most of which are eaten by two species of tamias andthe notable Clark crow. The staminate cones occur in clusters, about aninch wide, down among the leaves, and, as they are colored brightrose-purple, they give rise to a lively, flowery appearance littlelooked for in such a tree. 

[Illustration: GROUP OF ERECT DWARF PINES. ]

Pines are commonly regarded as sky-loving trees that must necessarilyaspire or die. This species forms a marked exception, creeping lowly, incompliance with the most rigorous demands of climate, yet enduringbravely to a more advanced age than many of its lofty relatives in thesun-lands below. Seen from a distance, it would never be taken for atree of any kind. Yonder, for example, is Cathedral Peak, some threemiles away, with a scattered growth of this pine creeping like mossesover the roof and around the beveled edges of the north gable, nowheregiving any hint of an ascending axis. When approached quite near itstill appears matted and heathy, and is so low that one experiences nogreat difficulty in walking over the top of it. Yet it is seldomabsolutely prostrate, at its lowest usually attaining a height of threeor four feet, with a main trunk, and branches outspread and intertangledabove it, as if in ascending they had been checked by a ceiling, againstwhich they had grown and been compelled to spread horizontally. Thewinter snow is indeed such a ceiling, lasting half the year; while thepressed, shorn surface is made yet smoother by violent winds, armed withcutting sand-grains, that beat down any shoot that offers to rise muchabove the general level, and carve the dead trunks and branches inbeautiful patterns. 

During stormy nights I have often camped snugly beneath the interlacingarches of this little pine. The needles, which have accumulated forcenturies, make fine beds, a fact well known to other mountaineers, suchas deer and wild sheep, who paw out oval hollows and lie beneath thelarger trees in safe and comfortable concealment. 

[Illustration: A DWARF PINE. ]

The longevity of this lowly dwarf is far greater than would be guessed. Here, for example, is a specimen, growing at an elevation of 10, 700feet, which seems as though it might be plucked up by the roots, for itis only three and a half inches in diameter, and its topmost tassel ishardly three feet above the ground. Cutting it half through and countingthe annual rings with the aid of a lens, we find its age to be no lessthan 255 years. Here is another telling specimen about the same height, 426 years old, whose trunk is only six inches in diameter; and one ofits supple branchlets, hardly an eighth of an inch in diameter insidethe bark, is seventy-five years old, and so filled with oily balsam, andso well seasoned by storms, that we may tie it in knots like awhip-cord. 

WHITE PINE(_Pinus flexilis_)

This species is widely distributed throughout the Rocky Mountains, andover all the higher of the many ranges of the Great Basin, between theWahsatch Mountains and the Sierra, where it is known as White Pine. Inthe Sierra it is sparsely scattered along the eastern flank, from BloodyCañon southward nearly to the extremity of the range, opposite thevillage of Lone Pine, nowhere forming any appreciable portion of thegeneral forest. From its peculiar position, in loose, stragglingparties, it seems to have been derived from the Basin ranges to theeastward, where it is abundant. 

It is a larger tree than the Dwarf Pine. At an elevation of about 9000feet above the sea, it often attains a height of forty or fifty feet, and a diameter of from three to five feet. The cones open freely whenripe, and are twice as large as those of the _albicaulis_, and thefoliage and branches are more open, having a tendency to sweep out infree, wild curves, like those of the Mountain Pine, to which it isclosely allied. It is seldom found lower than 9000 feet above sea-level, but from this elevation it pushes upward over the roughest ledges to theextreme limit of tree-growth, where, in its dwarfed, storm-crushedcondition, it is more like the white-barked species. 

Throughout Utah and Nevada it is one of the principal timber-trees, great quantities being cut every year for the mines. The famous WhitePine Mining District, White Pine City, and the White Pine Mountains havederived their names from it. 

NEEDLE PINE(_Pinus aristata_)

This species is restricted in the Sierra to the southern portion of therange, about the head waters of Kings and Kern rivers, where it formsextensive forests, and in some places accompanies the Dwarf Pine to theextreme limit of tree-growth. 

It is first met at an elevation of between 9000 and 10, 000 feet, andruns up to 11, 000 without seeming to suffer greatly from the climate orthe leanness of the soil. It is a much finer tree than the Dwarf Pine. Instead of growing in clumps and low, heathy mats, it manages in someway to maintain an erect position, and usually stands single. Whereverthe young trees are at all sheltered, they grow up straight and arrowy, with delicately tapered bole, and ascending branches terminated withglossy, bottle-brush tassels. At middle age, certain limbs arespecialized and pushed far out for the bearing of cones, after themanner of the Sugar Pine; and in old age these branches droop and castabout in every direction, giving rise to very picturesque effects. Thetrunk becomes deep brown and rough, like that of the Mountain Pine, while the young cones are of a strange, dull, blackish-blue color, clustered on the upper branches. When ripe they are from three to fourinches long, yellowish brown, resembling in every way those of theMountain Pine. Excepting the Sugar Pine, no tree on the mountains is socapable of individual expression, while in grace of form and movement itconstantly reminds one of the Hemlock Spruce. 

[Illustration: OAK GROWING AMONG YELLOW PINES. ]

The largest specimen I measured was a little over five feet in diameterand ninety feet in height, but this is more than twice the ordinarysize. 

This species is common throughout the Rocky Mountains and most of theshort ranges of the Great Basin, where it is called the Fox-tail Pine, from its long dense leaf-tassels. On the Hot Creek, White Pine, andGolden Gate ranges it is quite abundant. About a foot or eighteen inchesof the ends of the branches is densely packed with stiff outstandingneedles which radiate like an electric fox or squirrel's tail. Theneedles have a glossy polish, and the sunshine sifting through themmakes them burn with silvery luster, while their number and elastictemper tell delightfully in the winds. This tree is here still moreoriginal and picturesque than in the Sierra, far surpassing not only itscompanion conifers in this respect, but also the most noted of thelowland oaks. Some stand firmly erect, feathered with radiant tasselsdown to the ground, forming slender tapering towers of shining verdure;others, with two or three specialized branches pushed out at rightangles to the trunk and densely clad with tasseled sprays, take the formof beautiful ornamental crosses. Again in the same woods you find treesthat are made up of several boles united near the ground, spreading atthe sides in a plane parallel to the axis of the mountain, with theelegant tassels hung in charming order between them, making a harp heldagainst the main wind lines where they are most effective in playing thegrand storm harmonies. And besides these there are many variable archingforms, alone or in groups, with innumerable tassels drooping beneath thearches or radiant above them, and many lowly giants of no particularform that have braved the storms of a thousand years. But whether old oryoung, sheltered or exposed to the wildest gales, this tree is everfound irrepressibly and extravagantly picturesque, and offers a richerand more varied series of forms to the artist than any other conifer Iknow of. 

NUT PINE(_Pinus monophylla_)

The Nut Pine covers or rather dots the eastern flank of the Sierra, towhich it is mostly restricted, in grayish, bush-like patches, from themargin of the sage-plains to an elevation of from 7000 to 8000 feet. 

A more contentedly fruitful and unaspiring conifer could not beconceived. All the species we have been sketching make departures moreor less distant from the typical spire form, but none goes so far asthis. Without any apparent exigency of climate or soil, it remains nearthe ground, throwing out crooked, divergent branches like an orchardapple-tree, and seldom pushes a single shoot higher than fifteen ortwenty feet above the ground. 

The average thickness of the trunk is, perhaps, about ten or twelveinches. The leaves are mostly undivided, like round awls, instead ofbeing separated, like those of other pines, into twos and threes andfives. The cones are green while growing, and are usually found over allthe tree, forming quite a marked feature as seen against the bluish-grayfoliage. They are quite small, only about two inches in length, and giveno promise of edible nuts; but when we come to open them, we find thatabout half the entire bulk of the cone is made up of sweet, nutritiousseeds, the kernels of which are nearly as large as those of hazel-nuts. 

This is undoubtedly the most important food-tree on the Sierra, andfurnishes the Mono, Carson, and Walker River Indians with more andbetter nuts than all the other species taken together. It is theIndians' own tree, and many a white man have they killed for cutting itdown. 

In its development Nature seems to have aimed at the formation of asgreat a fruit-bearing surface as possible. Being so low and accessible, the cones are readily beaten off with poles, and the nuts procured byroasting them until the scales open. In bountiful seasons a singleIndian will gather thirty or forty bushels of them--a fine squirrelishemployment. 

Of all the conifers along the eastern base of the Sierra, and on all themany mountain groups and short ranges of the Great Basin, this foodfullittle pine is the commonest tree, and the most important. Nearly everymountain is planted with it to a height of from 8000 to 9000 feet abovethe sea. Some are covered from base to summit by this one species, withonly a sparse growth of juniper on the lower slopes to break thecontinuity of its curious woods, which, though dark-looking at adistance, are almost shadeless, and have none of the damp, leafy glensand hollows so characteristic of other pine woods. Tens of thousands ofacres occur in continuous belts. Indeed, viewed comprehensively theentire Basin seems to be pretty evenly divided into level plains dottedwith sage-bushes and mountain-chains covered with Nut Pines. No slope istoo rough, none too dry, for these bountiful orchards of the red man. 

The value of this species to Nevada is not easily overestimated. Itfurnishes charcoal and timber for the mines, and, with the juniper, supplies the ranches with fuel and rough fencing. In fruitful seasonsthe nut crop is perhaps greater than the California wheat crop, whichexerts so much influence throughout the food markets of the world. When, the crop is ripe, the Indians make ready the long beating-poles; bags, baskets, mats, and sacks are collected; the women out at service amongthe settlers, washing or drudging, assemble at the family huts; the menleave their ranch work; old and young, all are mounted on ponies andstart in great glee to the nut-lands, forming curiously picturesquecavalcades; flaming scarfs and calico skirts stream loosely over theknotty ponies, two squaws usually astride of each, with baby midgetsbandaged in baskets slung on their backs or balanced on the saddle-bow;while nut-baskets and water-jars project from each side, and the longbeating-poles make angles in every direction. Arriving at somewell-known central point where grass and water are found, the squawswith baskets, the men with poles ascend the ridges to the laden trees, followed by the children. Then the beating begins right merrily, theburs fly in every direction, rolling down the slopes, lodging here andthere against rocks and sage-bushes, chased and gathered by the womenand children with fine natural gladness. Smoke-columns speedily mark thejoyful scene of their labors as the roasting-fires are kindled, and, atnight, assembled in gay circles garrulous as jays, they begin the firstnut feast of the season. 

The nuts are about half an inch long and a quarter of an inch indiameter, pointed at the top, round at the base, light brown in generalcolor, and, like many other pine seeds, handsomely dotted with purple, like birds' eggs. The shells are thin and may be crushed between thethumb and finger. The kernels are white, becoming brown by roasting, andare sweet to every palate, being eaten by birds, squirrels, dogs, horses, and men. Perhaps less than one bushel in a thousand of the wholecrop is ever gathered. Still, besides supplying their own wants, intimes of plenty the Indians bring large quantities to market; then theyare eaten around nearly every fireside in the State, and are even fed tohorses occasionally instead of barley. 

Of other trees growing on the Sierra, but forming a very small part ofthe general forest, we may briefly notice the following:

_Chamoecyparis Lawsoniana_ is a magnificent tree in the coastranges, but small in the Sierra. It is found only well to the northwardalong the banks of cool streams on the upper Sacramento toward MountShasta. Only a few trees of this species, as far as I have seen, have asyet gained a place in the Sierra woods. It has evidently been derivedfrom the coast range by way of the tangle of connecting mountains at thehead of the Sacramento Valley. 

In shady dells and on cool stream banks of the northern Sierra we alsofind the Yew (_Taxus brevifolia_). 

The interesting Nutmeg Tree (_Torreya Californica_) is sparselydistributed along the western flank of the range at an elevation ofabout 4000 feet, mostly in gulches and cañons. It is a small, pricklyleaved, glossy evergreen, like a conifer, from twenty to fifty feethigh, and one to two feet in diameter. The fruit resembles a green-gageplum, and contains one seed, about the size of an acorn, and like anutmeg, hence the common name. The wood is fine-grained and of abeautiful, creamy yellow color like box, sweet-scented when dry, thoughthe green leaves emit a disagreeable odor. 

_Betula occidentalis_, the only birch, is a small, slender treerestricted to the eastern flank of the range along stream-sides belowthe pine-belt, especially in Owen's Valley. 

Alder, Maple, and Nuttall's Flowering Dogwood make beautiful bowers overswift, cool streams at an elevation of from 3000 to 5000 feet, mixedmore or less with willows and cottonwood; and above these in lake basinsthe aspen forms fine ornamental groves, and lets its light shinegloriously in the autumn months. 

The Chestnut Oak (_Quercus densiflora_) seems to have come from thecoast range around the head of the Sacramento Valley, like the_Chamaecyparis_, but as it extends southward along the lower edgeof the main pine-belt it grows smaller until it finally dwarfs to a merechaparral bush. In the coast mountains it is a fine, tall, ratherslender tree, about from sixty to seventy-five feet high, growing withthe grand _Sequoia sempervirens_, or Redwood. But unfortunately itis too good to live, and is now being rapidly destroyed for tan-bark. 

Besides the common Douglas Oak and the grand _Quercus Wislizeni_ ofthe foot-hills, and several small ones that make dense growths ofchaparral, there are two mountain-oaks that grow with the pines up to anelevation of about 5000 feet above the sea, and greatly enhance thebeauty of the yosemite parks. These are the Mountain Live Oak and theKellogg Oak, named in honor of the admirable botanical pioneer ofCalifornia. Kellogg's Oak (_Quercus Kelloggii_) is a firm, bright, beautiful tree, reaching a height of sixty feet, four to seven feet indiameter, with wide-spreading branches, and growing at an elevation offrom 3000 to 5000 feet in sunny valleys and flats among the evergreens, and higher in a dwarfed state. In the cliff-bound parks about 4000 feetabove the sea it is so abundant and effective it might fairly be calledthe Yosemite Oak. The leaves make beautiful masses of purple in thespring, and yellow in ripe autumn; while its acorns are eagerly gatheredby Indians, squirrels, and woodpeckers. The Mountain Live Oak (_Q. Chrysolepis_) is a tough, rugged mountaineer of a tree, growingbravely and attaining noble dimensions on the roughest earthquaketaluses in deep cañons and yosemite valleys. The trunk is usually short, dividing near the ground into great, wide-spreading limbs, and theseagain into a multitude of slender sprays, many of them cord-like anddrooping to the ground, like those of the Great White Oak of thelowlands (_Q. Lobata_). The top of the tree where there is plentyof space is broad and bossy, with a dense covering of shining leaves, making delightful canopies, the complicated system of gray, interlacing, arching branches as seen from beneath being exceedingly rich andpicturesque. No other tree that I know dwarfs so regularly andcompletely as this under changes of climate due to changes in elevation. At the foot of a cañon 4000 feet above the sea you may find magnificentspecimens of this oak fifty feet high, with craggy, bulging trunks, fiveto seven feet in diameter, and at the head of the cañon, 2500 feethigher, a dense, soft, low, shrubby growth of the same species, whileall the way up the cañon between these extremes of size and habit aperfect gradation may be traced. The largest I have seen was fifty feethigh, eight feet in diameter, and about seventy-five feet in spread. Thetrunk was all knots and buttresses, gray like granite, and about asangular and irregular as the boulders on which it was growing--a type ofsteadfast, unwedgeable strength. 

CHAPTER IX

THE DOUGLAS SQUIRREL(_Sciurus Douglasii_)

The Douglas Squirrel is by far the most interesting and influential ofthe California sciuridae, surpassing every other species in force ofcharacter, numbers, and extent of range, and in the amount of influencehe brings to bear upon the health and distribution of the vast forestshe inhabits. 

Go where you will throughout the noble woods of the Sierra Nevada, amongthe giant pines and spruces of the lower zones, up through the toweringSilver Firs to the storm-bent thickets of the summit peaks, youeverywhere find this little squirrel the master-existence. Though only afew inches long, so intense is his fiery vigor and restlessness, hestirs every grove with wild life, and makes himself more important thaneven the huge bears that shuffle through the tangled underbrush beneathhim. Every wind is fretted by his voice, almost every bole and branchfeels the sting of his sharp feet. How much the growth of the trees isstimulated by this means it is not easy to learn, but his action inmanipulating their seeds is more appreciable. Nature has made him masterforester and committed most of her coniferous crops to his paws. Probably over fifty per cent. Of all the cones ripened on the Sierra arecut off and handled by the Douglas alone, and of those of the Big Treesperhaps ninety per cent. Pass through his hands: the greater portion isof course stored away for food to last during the winter and spring, butsome of them are tucked separately into loosely covered holes, wheresome of the seeds germinate and become trees. But the Sierra is only oneof the many provinces over which he holds sway, for his dominion extendsover all the Redwood Belt of the Coast Mountains, and far northwardthroughout the majestic forests of Oregon, Washington, and BritishColumbia. I make haste to mention these facts, to show upon howsubstantial a foundation the importance I ascribe to him rests. 

The Douglas is closely allied to the Red Squirrel or Chickaree of theeastern woods. Ours may be a lineal descendant of this species, distributed westward to the Pacific by way of the Great Lakes and theRocky Mountains, and thence southward along our forested ranges. Thisview is suggested by the fact that our species becomes redder and moreChickaree-like in general, the farther it is traced back along thecourse indicated above. But whatever their relationship, and theevolutionary forces that have acted upon them, the Douglas is now thelarger and more beautiful animal. 

From the nose to the root of the tail he measures about eight inches;and his tail, which he so effectively uses in interpreting his feelings, is about six inches in length. He wears dark bluish-gray over the backand half-way down the sides, bright buff on the belly, with a stripe ofdark gray, nearly black, separating the upper and under colors; thisdividing stripe, however, is not very sharply defined. He has long blackwhiskers, which gives him a rather fierce look when observed closely, strong claws, sharp as fish-hooks, and the brightest of bright eyes, full of telling speculation. 

A King's River Indian told me that they call him "Pillillooeet, " which, rapidly pronounced with the first syllable heavily accented, is notunlike the lusty exclamation he utters on his way up a tree whenexcited. Most mountaineers in California call him the Pine Squirrel; andwhen I asked an old trapper whether he knew our little forester, hereplied with brightening countenance: "Oh, yes, of course I know him;everybody knows him. When I'm huntin' in the woods, I often find outwhere the deer are by his barkin' at 'em. I call 'em Lightnin'Squirrels, because they're so mighty quick and peert. "

All the true squirrels are more or less birdlike in speech andmovements; but the Douglas is preëminently so, possessing, as he does, every attribute peculiarly squirrelish enthusiastically concentrated. Heis the squirrel of squirrels, flashing from branch to branch of hisfavorite evergreens crisp and glossy and undiseased as a sunbeam. Givehim wings and he would outfly any bird in the woods. His big gray cousinis a looser animal, seemingly light enough to float on the wind; yetwhen leaping from limb to limb, or out of one tree-top to another, hesometimes halts to gather strength, as if making efforts concerning theupshot of which he does not always feel exactly confident. But theDouglas, with his denser body, leaps and glides in hidden strength, seemingly as independent of common muscles as a mountain stream. Hethreads the tasseled branches of the pines, stirring their needles likea rustling breeze; now shooting across openings in arrowy lines; nowlaunching in curves, glinting deftly from side to side in suddenzigzags, and swirling in giddy loops and spirals around the knottytrunks; getting into what seem to be the most impossible situationswithout sense of danger; now on his haunches, now on his head; yet evergraceful, and punctuating his most irrepressible outbursts of energywith little dots and dashes of perfect repose. He is, without exception, the wildest animal I ever saw, --a fiery, sputtering little bolt of life, luxuriating in quick oxygen and the woods' best juices. One can hardlythink of such a creature being dependent, like the rest of us, onclimate and food. But, after all, it requires no long acquaintance tolearn he is human, for he works for a living. His busiest time is in theIndian summer. Then he gathers burs and hazel-nuts like a ploddingfarmer, working continuously every day for hours; saying not a word;cutting off the ripe cones at the top of his speed, as if employed bythe job, and examining every branch in regular order, as if careful thatnot one should escape him; then, descending, he stores them away beneathlogs and stumps, in anticipation of the pinching hunger days of winter. He seems himself a kind of coniferous fruit, --both fruit and flower. Theresiny essences of the pines pervade every pore of his body, and eatinghis flesh is like chewing gum. 

One never tires of this bright chip of nature, --this brave little voicecrying in the wilderness, --of observing his many works and ways, andlistening to his curious language. His musical, piny gossip is as savoryto the ear as balsam to the palate; and, though he has not exactly thegift of song, some of his notes are as sweet as those of alinnet--almost flute-like in softness, while others prick and tinglelike thistles. He is the mocking-bird of squirrels, pouring forth mixedchatter and song like a perennial fountain; barking like a dog, screaming like a hawk, chirping like a blackbird or a sparrow; while inbluff, audacious noisiness he is a very jay. 

[Illustration: TRACK OF DOUGLAS SQUIRREL ONCE DOWN AND UP A PINE-TREEWHEN SHOWING OFF TO A SPECTATOR. ]

In descending the trunk of a tree with the intention of alighting on theground, he preserves a cautious silence, mindful, perhaps, of foxes andwildcats; but while rocking safely at home in the pine-tops there is noend to his capers and noise; and woe to the gray squirrel or chipmunkthat ventures to set foot on his favorite tree! No matter how slyly theytrace the furrows of the bark, they are speedily discovered, and kickeddown-stairs with comic vehemence, while a torrent of angry notes comesrushing from his whiskered lips that sounds remarkably like swearing. Hewill even attempt at times to drive away dogs and men, especially if hehas had no previous knowledge of them. Seeing a man for the first time, he approaches nearer and nearer, until within a few feet; then, with anangry outburst, he makes a sudden rush, all teeth and eyes, as if aboutto eat you up. But, finding that the big, forked animal doesn't scare, he prudently beats a retreat, and sets himself up to reconnoiter on someoverhanging branch, scrutinizing every movement you make with ludicroussolemnity. Gathering courage, he ventures down the trunk again, churringand chirping, and jerking nervously up and down in curious loops, eyeingyou all the time, as if snowing off and demanding your admiration. Finally, growing calmer, he settles down in a comfortable posture onsome horizontal branch commanding a good view, and beats time with histail to a steady "Chee-up! chee-up!" or, when somewhat less excited, "Pee-ah!" with the first syllable keenly accented, and the second drawnout like the scream of a hawk, --repeating this slowly and moreemphatically at first, then gradually faster, until a rate of about 150words a minute is reached; usually sitting all the time on his haunches, with paws resting on his breast, which pulses visibly with each word. Itis remarkable, too, that, though articulating distinctly, he keeps hismouth shut most of the time, and speaks through his nose. I haveoccasionally observed him even eating Sequoia seeds and nibbling atroublesome flea, without ceasing or in any way confusing his "Pee-ah!pee-ah!" for a single moment. 

While ascending trees all his claws come into play, but in descendingthe weight of his body is sustained chiefly by those of the hind feet;still in neither case do his movements suggest effort, though if you arenear enough you may see the bulging strength of his short, bear-likearms, and note his sinewy fists clinched in the bark. 

Whether going up or down, he carries his tail extended at full length inline with his body, unless it be required for gestures. But whilerunning along horizontal limbs or fallen trunks, it is frequently foldedforward over the back, with the airy tip daintily upcurled. In coolweather it keeps him warm. Then, after he has finished his meal, you maysee him crouched close on some level limb with his tail-robe neatlyspread and reaching forward to his ears, the electric, outstanding hairsquivering in the breeze like pine-needles. But in wet or very coldweather he stays in his nest, and while curled up there his comforter islong enough to come forward around his nose. It is seldom so cold, however, as to prevent his going out to his stores when hungry. 

Once as I lay storm-bound on the upper edge of the timber line on MountShasta, the thermometer nearly at zero and the sky thick with drivingsnow, a Douglas came bravely out several times from one of the lowerhollows of a Dwarf Pine near my camp, faced the wind without seeming tofeel it much, frisked lightly about over the mealy snow, and dug his waydown to some hidden seeds with wonderful precision, as if to his eyesthe thick snow-covering were glass. 

No other of the Sierra animals of my acquaintance is better fed, noteven the deer, amid abundance of sweet herbs and shrubs, or the mountainsheep, or omnivorous bears. His food consists of grass-seeds, berries, hazel-nuts, chinquapins, and the nuts and seeds of all the coniferoustrees without exception, --Pine, Fir, Spruce, Libocedrus, Juniper, andSequoia, --he is fond of them all, and they all agree with him, green orripe. No cone is too large for him to manage, none so small as to bebeneath his notice. The smaller ones, such as those of the Hemlock, andthe Douglas Spruce, and the Two-leaved Pine, he cuts off and eats on abranch of the tree, without allowing them to fall; beginning at thebottom of the cone and cutting away the scales to expose the seeds; notgnawing by guess, like a bear, but turning them round and round inregular order, in compliance with their spiral arrangement. 

When thus employed, his location in the tree is betrayed by a dribble ofscales, shells, and seed-wings, and, every few minutes, by the fall ofthe stripped axis of the cone. Then of course he is ready for another, and if you are watching you may catch a glimpse of him as he glidessilently out to the end of a branch and see him examining thecone-clusters until he finds one to his mind; then, leaning over, pullback the springy needles out of his way, grasp the cone with his paws toprevent its falling, snip it off in an incredibly short time, seize itwith jaws grotesquely stretched, and return to his chosen seat near thetrunk. But the immense size of the cones of the Sugar Pine--from fifteento twenty inches in length--and those of the Jeffrey variety of theYellow Pine compel him to adopt a quite different method. He cuts themoff without attempting to hold them, then goes down and drags them fromwhere they have chanced to fall up to the bare, swelling ground aroundthe instep of the tree, where he demolishes them in the same methodicalway, beginning at the bottom and following the scale-spirals to the top. 

[Illustration: SEEDS, WINGS, AND SCALE OF SUGAR PINE. (NAT. SIZE. )]

From a single Sugar Pine cone he gets from two to four hundred seedsabout half the size of a hazel-nut, so that in a few minutes he canprocure enough to last a week. He seems, however, to prefer those of thetwo Silver First above all others; perhaps because they are most easilyobtained, as the scales drop off when ripe without needing to be cut. Both species are filled with an exceedingly pungent, aromatic oil, whichspices all his flesh, and is of itself sufficient to account for hislightning energy. 

You may easily know this little workman by his chips. On sunny hillsidesaround the principal trees they lie in big piles, --bushels andbasketfuls of them, all fresh and clean, making the most beautifulkitchen-middens imaginable. The brown and yellow scales and nut-shellsare as abundant and as delicately penciled and tinted as the shellsalong the sea-shore; while the beautiful red and purple seed-wingsmingled with them would lead one to fancy that innumerable butterflieshad there met their fate. 

He feasts on all the species long before they are ripe, but is wiseenough to wait until they are matured before he gathers them into hisbarns. This is in October and November, which with him are the twobusiest months of the year. All kinds of burs, big and little, are nowcut off and showered down alike, and the ground is speedily covered withthem. A constant thudding and bumping is kept up; some of the largercones chancing to fall on old logs make the forest reëcho with thesound. Other nut-eaters less industrious know well what is going on, andhasten to carry away the cones as they fall. But however busy theharvester may be, he is not slow to descry the pilferers below, andinstantly leaves his work to drive them away. The little striped tamiasis a thorn in his flesh, stealing persistently, punish him as he may. The large Gray Squirrel gives trouble also, although the Douglas hasbeen accused of stealing from him. Generally, however, just the oppositeis the case. 

The excellence of the Sierra evergreens is well known to nurserymenthroughout the world, consequently there is considerable demand for theseeds. The greater portion of the supply has hitherto been procured bychopping down the trees in the more accessible sections of the forestalongside of bridle-paths that cross the range. Sequoia seeds at firstbrought from twenty to thirty dollars per pound, and therefore wereeagerly sought after. Some of the smaller fruitful trees were cut downin the groves not protected by government, especially those of Fresnoand King's River. Most of the Sequoias, however, are of so gigantic asize that the seedsmen have to look for the greater portion of theirsupplies to the Douglas, who soon learns he is no match for thesefreebooters. He is wise enough, however, to cease working the instant heperceives them, and never fails to embrace every opportunity to recoverhis burs whenever they happen to be stored in any place accessible tohim, and the busy seedsman often finds on returning to camp that thelittle Douglas has exhaustively spoiled the spoiler. I know oneseed-gatherer who, whenever he robs the squirrels, scatters wheat orbarley beneath the trees as conscience-money. 

The want of appreciable life remarked by so many travelers in the Sierraforests is never felt at this time of year. Banish all the humminginsects and the birds and quadrupeds, leaving only Sir Douglas, and themost solitary of our so-called solitudes would still throb with ardentlife. But if you should go impatiently even into the most populous ofthe groves on purpose to meet him, and walk about looking up among thebranches, you would see very little of him. But lie down at the foot ofone of the trees and straightway he will come. For, in the midst of theordinary forest sounds, the falling of burs, piping of quails, thescreaming of the Clark Crow, and the rustling of deer and bears amongthe chaparral, he is quick to detect your strange footsteps, and willhasten to make a good, close inspection of you as soon as you are still. First, you may hear him sounding a few notes of curious inquiry, butmore likely the first intimation of his approach will be the pricklysounds of his feet as he descends the tree overhead, just before hemakes his savage onrush to frighten you and proclaim your presence toevery squirrel and bird in the neighborhood. If you remain perfectlymotionless, he will come nearer and nearer, and probably set your flesha-tingle by frisking across your body. Once, while I was seated at thefoot of a Hemlock Spruce in one of the most inaccessible of the SanJoaquin yosemites engaged in sketching, a reckless fellow came up behindme, passed under my bended arm, and jumped on my paper. And one warmafternoon, while an old friend of mine was reading out in the shade ofhis cabin, one of his Douglas neighbors jumped from the gable upon hishead, and then with admirable assurance ran down over his shoulder andon to the book he held in his hand. 

Our Douglas enjoys a large social circle; for, besides his numerousrelatives, _Sciurus fossor, Tamias quadrivitatus, T. Townsendii, Spermophilus Beccheyi, S. Douglasii_, he maintains intimate relationswith the nut-eating birds, particularly the Clark Crow (_Picicorvuscolumbianus_) and the numerous woodpeckers and jays. The twospermophiles are astonishingly abundant in the lowlands and lowerfoot-hills, but more and more sparingly distributed up through theDouglas domains, --seldom venturing higher than six or seven thousandfeet above the level of the sea. The gray sciurus ranges but littlehigher than this. The little striped tamias alone is associated with himeverywhere. In the lower and middle zones, where they all meet, they aretolerably harmonious--a happy family, though very amusing skirmishes mayoccasionally be witnessed. Wherever the ancient glaciers have spreadforest soil there you find our wee hero, most abundant where depth ofsoil and genial climate have given rise to a corresponding luxuriance inthe trees, but following every kind of growth up the curving moraines tothe highest glacial fountains. 

Though I cannot of course expect all my readers to sympathize fully inmy admiration of this little animal, few, I hope, will think this sketchof his life too long. I cannot begin to tell here how much he hascheered my lonely wanderings during all the years I have been pursuingmy studies in these glorious wilds; or how much unmistakable humanity Ihave found in him. Take this for example: One calm, creamy Indian summermorning, when the nuts were ripe, I was camped in the upper pine-woodsof the south fork of the San Joaquin, where the squirrels seemed to beabout as plentiful as the ripe burs. They were taking an early breakfastbefore going to their regular harvest-work. While I was busy with my ownbreakfast I heard the thudding fall of two or three heavy cones from aYellow Pine near me. I stole noiselessly forward within about twentyfeet of the base of it to observe. In a few moments down came theDouglas. The breakfast-burs he had cut off had rolled on the gentlysloping ground into a clump of ceanothus bushes, but he seemed to knowexactly where they were, for he found them at once, apparently withoutsearching for them. They were more than twice as heavy as himself, butafter turning them into the right position for getting a good hold withhis long sickle-teeth he managed to drag them up to the foot of the treefrom which he had cut them, moving backward. Then seating himselfcomfortably, he held them on end, bottom up, and demolished them at hisease. A good deal of nibbling had to be done before he got anything toeat, because the lower scales are barren, but when he had patientlyworked his way up to the fertile ones he found two sweet nuts at thebase of each, shaped like trimmed hams, and spotted purple like birds'eggs. And notwithstanding these cones were dripping with soft balsam, and covered with prickles, and so strongly put together that a boy wouldbe puzzled to cut them open with a jack-knife, he accomplished his mealwith easy dignity and cleanliness, making less effort apparently than aman would in eating soft cookery from a plate. 

Breakfast done, I whistled a tune for him before he went to work, curious to see how he would be affected by it. He had not seen me allthis while; but the instant I began to whistle he darted up the treenearest to him, and came out on a small dead limb opposite me, andcomposed himself to listen. I sang and whistled more than a dozen airs, and as the music changed his eyes sparkled, and he turned his headquickly from side to side, but made no other response. Other squirrels, hearing the strange sounds, came around on all sides, also chipmunks andbirds. One of the birds, a handsome, speckle-breasted thrush, seemedeven more interested than the squirrels. After listening for awhile onone of the lower dead sprays of a pine, he came swooping forward withina few feet of my face, and remained fluttering in the air for half aminute or so, sustaining himself with whirring wing-beats, like ahumming-bird in front of a flower, while I could look into his eyes andsee his innocent wonder. 

By this time my performance must have lasted nearly half an hour. I sangor whistled "Bonnie Boon, " "Lass o' Gowrie, " "O'er the Water toCharlie, " "Bonnie Woods o' Cragie Lee, " etc. , all of which seemed to belistened to with bright interest, my first Douglas sitting patientlythrough it all, with his telling eyes fixed upon me until I ventured togive the "Old Hundredth, " when he screamed his Indian name, Pillillooeet, turned tail, and darted with ludicrous haste up the treeout of sight, his voice and actions in the case leaving a somewhatprofane impression, as if he had said, "I'll be hanged if you get me tohear anything so solemn and unpiny. " This acted as a signal for thegeneral dispersal of the whole hairy tribe, though the birds seemedwilling to wait further developments, music being naturally more intheir line. 

What there can be in that grand old church-tune that is so offensive tobirds and squirrels I can't imagine. A year or two after this HighSierra concert, I was sitting one fine day on a hill in the Coast Rangewhere the common Ground Squirrels were abundant. They were very shy onaccount of being hunted so much; but after I had been silent andmotionless for half an hour or so they began to venture out of theirholes and to feed on the seeds of the grasses and thistles around me asif I were no more to be feared than a tree-stump. Then it occurred to methat this was a good opportunity to find out whether they also disliked"Old Hundredth. " Therefore I began to whistle as nearly as I couldremember the same familiar airs that had pleased the mountaineers of theSierra. They at once stopped eating, stood erect, and listened patientlyuntil I came to "Old Hundredth, " when with ludicrous haste every one ofthem rushed to their holes and bolted in, their feet twinkling in theair for a moment as they vanished. 

No one who makes the acquaintance of our forester will fail to admirehim; but he is far too self-reliant and warlike ever to be taken for adarling. 

How long the life of a Douglas Squirrel may be, I don't know. The youngseem to sprout from knot-holes, perfect from the first, and as enduringas their own trees. It is difficult, indeed, to realize that socondensed a piece of sun-fire should ever become dim or die at all. Heis seldom killed by hunters, for he is too small to encourage much oftheir attention, and when pursued in settled regions becomes excessivelyshy, and keeps close in the furrows of the highest trunks, many of whichare of the same color as himself. Indian boys, however, lie in wait withunbounded patience to shoot them with arrows. In the lower and middlezones a few fall a prey to rattlesnakes. Occasionally he is pursued byhawks and wildcats, etc. But, upon the whole, he dwells safely in thedeep bosom of the woods, the most highly favored of all his happy tribe. May his tribe increase!

[Illustration: TRYING THE BOW. ]

CHAPTER X

A WIND-STORM IN THE FORESTS

The mountain winds, like the dew and rain, sunshine and snow, aremeasured and bestowed with love on the forests to develop their strengthand beauty. However restricted the scope of other forest influences, that of the winds is universal. The snow bends and trims the upperforests every winter, the lightning strikes a single tree here andthere, while avalanches mow down thousands at a swoop as a gardenertrims out a bed of flowers. But the winds go to every tree, fingeringevery leaf and branch and furrowed bole; not one is forgotten; theMountain Pine towering with outstretched arms on the rugged buttressesof the icy peaks, the lowliest and most retiring tenant of the dells;they seek and find them all, caressing them tenderly, bending them inlusty exercise, stimulating their growth, plucking off a leaf or limb asrequired, or removing an entire tree or grove, now whispering and cooingthrough the branches like a sleepy child, now roaring like the ocean;the winds blessing the forests, the forests the winds, with ineffablebeauty and harmony as the sure result. 

[Illustration: A WIND-STORM IN THE CALIFORNIA FORESTS. (AFTER A SKETCHBY THE AUTHOR. )]

After one has seen pines six feet in diameter bending like grassesbefore a mountain gale, and ever and anon some giant falling with acrash that shakes the hills, it seems astonishing that any, save thelowest thickset trees, could ever have found a period sufficientlystormless to establish themselves; or, once established, that theyshould not, sooner or later, have been blown down. But when the storm isover, and we behold the same forests tranquil again, towering fresh andunscathed in erect majesty, and consider what centuries of storms havefallen upon them since they were first planted, --hail, to break thetender seedlings; lightning, to scorch and shatter; snow, winds, andavalanches, to crush and overwhelm, --while the manifest result of allthis wild storm-culture is the glorious perfection we behold; then faithin Nature's forestry is established, and we cease to deplore theviolence of her most destructive gales, or of any other storm-implementwhatsoever. 

There are two trees in the Sierra forests that are never blown down, solong as they continue in sound health. These are the Juniper and theDwarf Pine of the summit peaks. Their stiff, crooked roots grip thestorm-beaten ledges like eagles' claws, while their lithe, cord-likebranches bend round compliantly, offering but slight holds for winds, however violent. The other alpine conifers--the Needle Pine, MountainPine, Two-leaved Pine, and Hemlock Spruce--are never thinned out by thisagent to any destructive extent, on account of their admirable toughnessand the closeness of their growth. In general the same is true of thegiants of the lower zones. The kingly Sugar Pine, towering aloft to aheight of more than 200 feet, offers a fine mark to storm-winds; but itis not densely foliaged, and its long, horizontal arms swing roundcompliantly in the blast, like tresses of green, fluent algae in abrook; while the Silver Firs in most places keep their ranks welltogether in united strength. The Yellow or Silver Pine is morefrequently overturned than any other tree on the Sierra, because itsleaves and branches form a larger mass in proportion to its height, while in many places it is planted sparsely, leaving open lanes throughwhich storms may enter with full force. Furthermore, because it isdistributed along the lower portion of the range, which was the first tobe left bare on the breaking up of the ice-sheet at the close of theglacial winter, the soil it is growing upon has been longer exposed topost-glacial weathering, and consequently is in a more crumbling, decayed condition than the fresher soils farther up the range, andtherefore offers a less secure anchorage for the roots. 

While exploring the forest zones of Mount Shasta, I discovered the pathof a hurricane strewn with thousands of pines of this species. Great andsmall had been uprooted or wrenched off by sheer force, making a cleangap, like that made by a snow avalanche. But hurricanes capable of doingthis class of work are rare in the Sierra, and when we have explored theforests from one extremity of the range to the other, we are compelledto believe that they are the most beautiful on the face of the earth, however we may regard the agents that have made them so. 

There is always something deeply exciting, not only in the sounds ofwinds in the woods, which exert more or less influence over every mind, but in their varied waterlike flow as manifested by the movements of thetrees, especially those of the conifers. By no other trees are theyrendered so extensively and impressively visible, not even by the lordlytropic palms or tree-ferns responsive to the gentlest breeze. The wavingof a forest of the giant Sequoias is indescribably impressive andsublime, but the pines seem to me the best interpreters of winds. Theyare mighty waving goldenrods, ever in tune, singing and writingwind-music all their long century lives. Little, however, of this nobletree-waving and tree-music will you see or hear in the strictly alpineportion of the forests. The burly Juniper, whose girth sometimes morethan equals its height, is about as rigid as the rocks on which itgrows. The slender lash-like sprays of the Dwarf Pine stream out inwavering ripples, but the tallest and slenderest are far too unyieldingto wave even in the heaviest gales. They only shake in quick, shortvibrations. The Hemlock Spruce, however, and the Mountain Pine, and someof the tallest thickets of the Two-leaved species bow in storms withconsiderable scope and gracefulness. But it is only in the lower andmiddle zones that the meeting of winds and woods is to be seen in allits grandeur. 

One of the most beautiful and exhilarating storms I ever enjoyed in theSierra occurred in December, 1874, when I happened to be exploring oneof the tributary valleys of the Yuba River. The sky and the ground andthe trees had been thoroughly rain-washed and were dry again. The daywas intensely pure, one of those incomparable bits of California winter, warm and balmy and full of white sparkling sunshine, redolent of all thepurest influences of the spring, and at the same time enlivened with oneof the most bracing wind-storms conceivable. Instead of camping out, asI usually do, I then chanced to be stopping at the house of a friend. But when the storm began to sound, I lost no time in pushing out intothe woods to enjoy it. For on such occasions Nature has always somethingrare to show us, and the danger to life and limb is hardly greater thanone would experience crouching deprecatingly beneath a roof. 

It was still early morning when I found myself fairly adrift. Delicioussunshine came pouring over the hills, lighting the tops of the pines, and setting free a steam of summery fragrance that contrasted strangelywith the wild tones of the storm. The air was mottled with pine-tasselsand bright green plumes, that went flashing past in the sunlight likebirds pursued. But there was not the slightest dustiness, nothing lesspure than leaves, and ripe pollen, and flecks of withered bracken andmoss. I heard trees falling for hours at the rate of one every two orthree minutes; some uprooted, partly on account of the loose, water-soaked condition of the ground; others broken straight across, where some weakness caused by fire had determined the spot. The gesturesof the various trees made a delightful study. Young Sugar Pines, lightand feathery as squirrel-tails, were bowing almost to the ground; whilethe grand old patriarchs, whose massive boles had been tried in ahundred storms, waved solemnly above them, their long, arching branchesstreaming fluently on the gale, and every needle thrilling and ringingand shedding off keen lances of light like a diamond. The DouglasSpruces, with long sprays drawn out in level tresses, and needles massedin a gray, shimmering glow, presented a most striking appearance as theystood in bold relief along the hilltops. The madroños in the dells, withtheir red bark and large glossy leaves tilted every way, reflected thesunshine in throbbing spangles like those one so often sees on therippled surface of a glacier lake. But the Silver Pines were now themost impressively beautiful of all. Colossal spires 200 feet in heightwaved like supple golden-rods chanting and bowing low as if in worship, while the whole mass of their long, tremulous foliage was kindled intoone continuous blaze of white sun-fire. The force of the gale was suchthat the most steadfast monarch of them all rocked down to its rootswith a motion plainly perceptible when one leaned against it. Nature washolding high festival, and every fiber of the most rigid giants thrilledwith glad excitement. 

I drifted on through the midst of this passionate music and motion, across many a glen, from ridge to ridge; often halting in the lee of arock for shelter, or to gaze and listen. Even when the grand anthem hadswelled to its highest pitch, I could distinctly hear the varying tonesof individual trees, --Spruce, and Fir, and Pine, and leafless Oak, --andeven the infinitely gentle rustle of the withered grasses at my feet. Each was expressing itself in its own way, --singing its own song, andmaking its own peculiar gestures, --manifesting a richness of variety tobe found in no other forest I have yet seen. The coniferous woods ofCanada, and the Carolinas, and Florida, are made up of trees thatresemble one another about as nearly as blades of grass, and grow closetogether in much the same way. Coniferous trees, in general, seldompossess individual character, such as is manifest among Oaks and Elms. But the California forests are made up of a greater number of distinctspecies than any other in the world. And in them we find, not only amarked differentiation into special groups, but also a markedindividuality in almost every tree, giving rise to storm effectsindescribably glorious. 

Toward midday, after a long, tingling scramble through copses of hazeland ceanothus, I gained the summit of the highest ridge in theneighborhood; and then it occurred to me that it would be a fine thingto climb one of the trees to obtain a wider outlook and get my ear closeto the Aeolian music of its topmost needles. But under the circumstancesthe choice of a tree was a serious matter. One whose instep was not verystrong seemed in danger of being blown down, or of being struck byothers in case they should fall; another was branchless to aconsiderable height above the ground, and at the same time too large tobe grasped with arms and legs in climbing; while others were notfavorably situated for clear views. After cautiously casting about, Imade choice of the tallest of a group of Douglas Spruces that weregrowing close together like a tuft of grass, no one of which seemedlikely to fall unless all the rest fell with it. Though comparativelyyoung, they were about 100 feet high, and their lithe, brushy tops wererocking and swirling in wild ecstasy. Being accustomed to climb trees inmaking botanical studies, I experienced no difficulty in reaching thetop of this one, and never before did I enjoy so noble an exhilarationof motion. The slender tops fairly flapped and swished in the passionatetorrent, bending and swirling backward and forward, round and round, tracing indescribable combinations of vertical and horizontal curves, while I clung with muscles firm braced, like a bobolink on a reed. 

In its widest sweeps my tree-top described an arc of from twenty tothirty degrees, but I felt sure of its elastic temper, having seenothers of the same species still more severely tried--bent almost to theground indeed, in heavy snows--without breaking a fiber. I was thereforesafe, and free to take the wind into my pulses and enjoy the excitedforest from my superb outlook. The view from here must be extremelybeautiful in any weather. Now my eye roved over the piny hills and dalesas over fields of waving grain, and felt the light running in ripplesand broad swelling undulations across the valleys from ridge to ridge, as the shining foliage was stirred by corresponding waves of air. Oftentimes these waves of reflected light would break up suddenly into akind of beaten foam, and again, after chasing one another in regularorder, they would seem to bend forward in concentric curves, anddisappear on some hillside, like sea-waves on a shelving shore. Thequantity of light reflected from the bent needles was so great as tomake whole groves appear as if covered with snow, while the blackshadows beneath the trees greatly enhanced the effect of the silverysplendor. 

Excepting only the shadows there was nothing somber in all this wild seaof pines. On the contrary, notwithstanding this was the winter season, the colors were remarkably beautiful. The shafts of the pine andlibocedrus were brown and purple, and most of the foliage was welltinged with yellow; the laurel groves, with the pale undersides of theirleaves turned upward, made masses of gray; and then there was many adash of chocolate color from clumps of manzanita, and jet of vividcrimson from the bark of the madroños, while the ground on thehillsides, appearing here and there through openings between the groves, displayed masses of pale purple and brown. 

The sounds of the storm corresponded gloriously with this wildexuberance of light and motion. The profound bass of the naked branchesand boles booming like waterfalls; the quick, tense vibrations of thepine-needles, now rising to a shrill, whistling hiss, now falling to asilky murmur; the rustling of laurel groves in the dells, and the keenmetallic click of leaf on leaf--all this was heard in easy analysis whenthe attention was calmly bent. 

The varied gestures of the multitude were seen to fine advantage, sothat one could recognize the different species at a distance of severalmiles by this means alone, as well as by their forms and colors, and theway they reflected the light. All seemed strong and comfortable, as ifreally enjoying the storm, while responding to its most enthusiasticgreetings. We hear much nowadays concerning the universal struggle forexistence, but no struggle in the common meaning of the word wasmanifest here; no recognition of danger by any tree; no deprecation; butrather an invincible gladness as remote from exultation as from fear. 

I kept my lofty perch for hours, frequently closing my eyes to enjoy themusic by itself, or to feast quietly on the delicious fragrance that wasstreaming past. The fragrance of the woods was less marked than thatproduced during warm rain, when so many balsamic buds and leaves aresteeped like tea; but, from the chafing of resiny branches against eachother, and the incessant attrition of myriads of needles, the gale wasspiced to a very tonic degree. And besides the fragrance from theselocal sources there were traces of scents brought from afar. For thiswind came first from the sea, rubbing against its fresh, briny waves, then distilled through the redwoods, threading rich ferny gulches, andspreading itself in broad undulating currents over many aflower-enameled ridge of the coast mountains, then across the goldenplains, up the purple foot-hills, and into these piny woods with thevaried incense gathered by the way. 

Winds are advertisements of all they touch, however much or little wemay be able to read them; telling their wanderings even by their scentsalone. Mariners detect the flowery perfume of land-winds far at sea, andsea-winds carry the fragrance of dulse and tangle far inland, where itis quickly recognized, though mingled with the scents of a thousandland-flowers. As an illustration of this, I may tell here that Ibreathed sea-air on the Firth of Forth, in Scotland, while a boy; thenwas taken to Wisconsin, where I remained nineteen years; then, withoutin all this time having breathed one breath of the sea, I walkedquietly, alone, from the middle of the Mississippi Valley to the Gulf ofMexico, on a botanical excursion, and while in Florida, far from thecoast, my attention wholly bent on the splendid tropical vegetationabout me, I suddenly recognized a sea-breeze, as it came sifting throughthe palmettos and blooming vine-tangles, which at once awakened and setfree a thousand dormant associations, and made me a boy again inScotland, as if all the intervening years had been annihilated. 

Most people like to look at mountain rivers, and bear them in mind; butfew care to look at the winds, though far more beautiful and sublime, and though they become at times about as visible as flowing water. Whenthe north winds in winter are making upward sweeps over the curvingsummits of the High Sierra, the fact is sometimes published with flyingsnow-banners a mile long. Those portions of the winds thus embodied canscarce be wholly invisible, even to the darkest imagination. And whenwe look around over an agitated forest, we may see something of the windthat stirs it, by its effects upon the trees. Yonder it descends in arush of water-like ripples, and sweeps over the bending pines from hillto hill. Nearer, we see detached plumes and leaves, now speeding by onlevel currents, now whirling in eddies, or, escaping over the edges ofthe whirls, soaring aloft on grand, upswelling domes of air, or tossingon flame-like crests. Smooth, deep currents, cascades, falls, andswirling eddies, sing around every tree and leaf, and over all thevaried topography of the region with telling changes of form, likemountain rivers conforming to the features of their channels. 

After tracing the Sierra streams from their fountains to the plains, marking where they bloom white in falls, glide in crystal plumes, surgegray and foam-filled in boulder-choked gorges, and slip through thewoods in long, tranquil reaches--after thus learning their language andforms in detail, we may at length hear them chanting all together in onegrand anthem, and comprehend them all in clear inner vision, coveringthe range like lace. But even this spectacle is far less sublime and nota whit more substantial than what we may behold of these storm-streamsof air in the mountain woods. 

We all travel the milky way together, trees and men; but it neveroccurred to me until this storm-day, while swinging in the wind, thattrees are travelers, in the ordinary sense. They make many journeys, notextensive ones, it is true; but our own little journeys, away and backagain, are only little more than tree-wavings--many of them not so much. 

When the storm began to abate, I dismounted and sauntered down throughthe calming woods. The storm-tones died away, and, turning toward theeast, I beheld the countless hosts of the forests hushed and tranquil, towering above one another on the slopes of the hills like a devoutaudience. The setting sun filled them with amber light, and seemed tosay, while they listened, "My peace I give unto you. "

As I gazed on the impressive scene, all the so-called ruin of the stormwas forgotten, and never before did these noble woods appear so fresh, so joyous, so immortal. 

CHAPTER XI

THE RIVER FLOODS

The Sierra rivers are flooded every spring by the melting of the snow asregularly as the famous old Nile. They begin to rise in May, and in Junehigh-water mark is reached. But because the melting does not go onrapidly over all the fountains, high and low, simultaneously, and themelted snow is not reinforced at this time of year by rain, the springfloods are seldom very violent or destructive. The thousand falls, however, and the cascades in the cañons are then in full bloom, and singsongs from one end of the range to the other. Of course the snow on thelower tributaries of the rivers is first melted, then that on the higherfountains most exposed to sunshine, and about a month later the cooler, shadowy fountains send down their treasures, thus allowing the maintrunk streams nearly six weeks to get their waters hurried through thefoot-hills and across the lowlands to the sea. Therefore very violentspring floods are avoided, and will be as long as the shading, restraining forests last. The rivers of the north half of the range arestill less subject to sudden floods, because their upper fountains ingreat part lie protected from the changes of the weather beneath thickfolds of lava, just as many of the rivers of Alaska lie beneath folds ofice, coming to the light farther down the range in large springs, whilethose of the high Sierra lie on the surface of solid granite, exposed toevery change of temperature. More than ninety per cent. Of the waterderived from the snow and ice of Mount Shasta is at once absorbed anddrained away beneath the porous lava folds of the mountain, wheremumbling and groping in the dark they at length find larger fissures andtunnel-like caves from which they emerge, filtered and cool, in the formof large springs, some of them so large they give birth to rivers thatset out on their journeys beneath the sun without any visibleintermediate period of childhood. Thus the Shasta River issues from alarge lake-like spring in Shasta Valley, and about two thirds of thevolume of the McCloud River gushes forth suddenly from the face of alava bluff in a roaring spring seventy-five yards wide. 

These spring rivers of the north are of course shorter than those of thesouth whose tributaries extend up to the tops of the mountains. FallRiver, an important tributary of the Pitt or Upper Sacramento, is onlyabout ten miles long, and is all falls, cascades, and springs from itshead to its confluence with the Pitt. Bountiful springs, charminglyembowered, issue from the rocks at one end of it, a snowy fall a hundredand eighty feet high thunders at the other, and a rush of crystal rapidssing and dance between. Of course such streams are but little affectedby the weather. Sheltered from evaporation their flow is nearly as fullin the autumn as in the time of general spring floods. While those ofthe high Sierra diminish to less than the hundredth part of theirspringtime prime, shallowing in autumn to a series of silent pools amongthe rocks and hollows of their channels, connected by feeble, creepingthreads of water, like the sluggish sentences of a tired writer, connected by a drizzle of "ands" and "buts. " Strange to say, thegreatest floods occur in winter, when one would suppose all the wildwaters would be muffled and chained in frost and snow. The same long, all-day storms of the so-called Rainy Season in California, that giverain to the lowlands, give dry frosty snow to the mountains. But at rareintervals warm rains and warm winds invade the mountains and push backthe snow line from 2000 feet to 8000, or even higher, and then come thebig floods. 

I was usually driven down out of the High Sierra about the end ofNovember, but the winter of 1874 and 1875 was so warm and calm that Iwas tempted to seek general views of the geology and topography of thebasin of Feather River in January. And I had just completed a hastysurvey of the region, and made my way down to winter quarters, when oneof the grandest flood-storms that I ever saw broke on the mountains. Iwas then in the edge of the main forest belt at a small foot-hill towncalled Knoxville, on the divide between the waters of the Feather andYuba rivers. The cause of this notable flood was simply a sudden andcopious fall of warm wind and rain on the basins of these rivers at atime when they contained a considerable quantity of snow. The rain wasso heavy and long-sustained that it was, of itself, sufficient to make agood wild flood, while the snow which the warm wind and rain melted onthe upper and middle regions of the basins was sufficient to makeanother flood equal to that of the rain. Now these two distinct harvestsof flood waters were gathered simultaneously and poured out on the plainin one magnificent avalanche. The basins of the Yuba and Feather, likemany others of the Sierra, are admirably adapted to the growth of floodsof this kind. Their many tributaries radiate far and wide, comprehendingextensive areas, and the tributaries are steeply inclined, while thetrunks are comparatively level. While the flood-storm was in progressthe thermometer at Knoxville ranged between 44° and 50°; and when warmwind and warm rain fall simultaneously on snow contained in basins likethese, both the rain and that portion of the snow which the rain andwind melt are at first sponged up and held back until the combined massbecomes sludge, which at length, suddenly dissolving, slips and descendsall together to the trunk channel; and since the deeper the stream thefaster it flows, the flooded portion of the current above overtakes theslower foot-hill portion below it, and all sweeping forward togetherwith a high, overcurling front, debouches on the open plain with aviolence and suddenness that at first seem wholly unaccountable. Thedestructiveness of the lower portion of this particular flood wassomewhat augmented by mining gravel in the river channels, and by leveeswhich gave way after having at first restrained and held back theaccumulating waters. These exaggerating conditions did not, however, greatly influence the general result, the main effect having been causedby the rare combination of flood factors indicated above. It is a pitythat but few people meet and enjoy storms so noble as this in theirhomes in the mountains, for, spending themselves in the open levels ofthe plains, they are likely to be remembered more by the bridges andhouses they carry away than by their beauty or the thousand blessingsthey bring to the fields and gardens of Nature. 

On the morning of the flood, January 19th, all the Feather and Yubalandscapes were covered with running water, muddy torrents filled everygulch and ravine, and the sky was thick with rain. The pines had longbeen sleeping in sunshine; they were now awake, roaring and waving withthe beating storm, and the winds sweeping along the curves of hill anddale, streaming through the woods, surging and gurgling on the tops ofrocky ridges, made the wildest of wild storm melody. 

It was easy to see that only a small part of the rain reached the groundin the form of drops. Most of it was thrashed into dusty spray like thatinto which small waterfalls are divided when they dash on shelvingrocks. Never have I seen water coming from the sky in denser or morepassionate streams. The wind chased the spray forward in choking drifts, and compelled me again and again to seek shelter in the dell copses andback of large trees to rest and catch my breath. Wherever I went, onridges or in hollows, enthusiastic water still flashed and gurgled aboutmy ankles, recalling a wild winter flood in Yosemite when a hundredwaterfalls came booming and chanting together and filled the grandvalley with a sea-like roar. 

After drifting an hour or two in the lower woods, I set out for thesummit of a hill 900 feet high, with a view to getting as near the heartof the storm as possible. In order to reach it I had to cross Dry Creek, a tributary of the Yuba that goes crawling along the base of the hill onthe northwest. It was now a booming river as large as the Tuolumne atordinary stages, its current brown with mining-mud washed down from manya "claim, " and mottled with sluice-boxes, fence-rails, and logs that hadlong lain above its reach. A slim foot-bridge stretched across it, nowscarcely above the swollen current. Here I was glad to linger, gazingand listening, while the storm was in its richest mood--the grayrain-flood above, the brown river-flood beneath. The language of theriver was scarcely less enchanting than that of the wind and rain; thesublime overboom of the main bouncing, exulting current, the swash andgurgle of the eddies, the keen dash and clash of heavy waves breakingagainst rocks, and the smooth, downy hush of shallow currents feelingtheir way through the willow thickets of the margin. And amid all thisvaried throng of sounds I heard the smothered bumping and rumbling ofboulders on the bottom as they were shoving and rolling forward againstone another in a wild rush, after having lain still for probably 100years or more. 

The glad creek rose high above its banks and wandered from its channelout over many a briery sand-flat and meadow. Alders and willowswaist-deep were bearing up against the current with nervous tremblinggestures, as if afraid of being carried away, while supple branchesbending confidingly, dipped lightly and rose again, as if stroking thewild waters in play. Leaving the bridge and passing on through thestorm-thrashed woods, all the ground seemed to be moving. Pine-tassels, flakes of bark, soil, leaves, and broken branches were being sweptforward, and many a rock-fragment, weathered from exposed ledges, wasnow receiving its first rounding and polishing in the wild streams ofthe storm. On they rushed through every gulch and hollow, leaping, gliding, working with a will, and rejoicing like living creatures. 

Nor was the flood confined to the ground. Every tree had a water systemof its own spreading far and wide like miniature Amazons andMississippis. 

Toward midday, cloud, wind, and rain reached their highest development. The storm was in full bloom, and formed, from my commanding outlook onthe hilltop, one of the most glorious views I ever beheld. As far as theeye could reach, above, beneath, around, wind-driven rain filled the airlike one vast waterfall. Detached clouds swept imposingly up the valley, as if they were endowed with independent motion and had special work todo in replenishing the mountain wells, now rising above the pine-tops, now descending into their midst, fondling their arrowy spires andsoothing every branch and leaf with gentleness in the midst of all thesavage sound and motion. Others keeping near the ground glided behindseparate groves, and brought them forward into relief with admirabledistinctness; or, passing in front, eclipsed whole groves in succession, pine after pine melting in their gray fringes and bursting forth againseemingly clearer than before. 

The forms of storms are in great part measured, and controlled by thetopography of the regions where they rise and over which they pass. When, therefore, we attempt to study them from the valleys, or from gapsand openings of the forest, we are confounded by a multitude of separateand apparently antagonistic impressions. The bottom of the storm isbroken up into innumerable waves and currents that surge against thehillsides like sea-waves against a shore, and these, reacting on thenether surface of the storm, erode immense cavernous hollows and cañons, and sweep forward the resulting detritus in long trains, like themoraines of glaciers. But, as we ascend, these partial, confusingeffects disappear and the phenomena are beheld united and harmonious. 

The longer I gazed into the storm, the more plainly visible it became. The drifting cloud detritus gave it a kind of visible body, whichexplained many perplexing phenomena, and published its movements inplain terms, while the texture of the falling mass of rain rounded itout and rendered it more complete. Because raindrops differ in size theyfall at different velocities and overtake and clash against one another, producing mist and spray. They also, of course, yield unequal complianceto the force of the wind, which gives rise to a still greater degree ofinterference, and passionate gusts sweep off clouds of spray from thegroves like that torn from wave-tops in a gale. All these factors ofirregularity in density, color, and texture of the general rain masstend to make it the more appreciable and telling. It is then seen as onegrand flood rushing over bank and brae, bending the pines like weeds, curving this way and that, whirling in huge eddies in hollows and dells, while the main current pours grandly over all, like ocean currents overthe landscapes that lie hidden at the bottom of the sea. 

I watched the gestures of the pines while the storm was at its height, and it was easy to see that they were not distressed. Several largeSugar Pines stood near the thicket in which I was sheltered, bowingsolemnly and tossing their long arms as if interpreting the very wordsof the storm while accepting its wildest onsets with passionateexhilaration. The lions were feeding. Those who have observed sunflowersfeasting on sunshine during the golden days of Indian summer know thatnone of their gestures express thankfulness. Their celestial food is tooheartily given, too heartily taken to leave room for thanks. The pineswere evidently accepting the benefactions of the storm in the samewhole-souled manner; and when I looked down among the budding hazels, and still lower to the young violets and fern-tufts on the rocks, Inoticed the same divine methods of giving and taking, and the sameexquisite adaptations of what seems an outbreak of violent anduncontrollable force to the purposes of beautiful and delicate life. Calms like sleep come upon landscapes, just as they do on people andtrees, and storms awaken them in the same way. In the dry midsummer ofthe lower portion of the range the withered hills and valleys seem tolie as empty and expressionless as dead shells on a shore. Even thehighest mountains may be found occasionally dull and uncommunicative asif in some way they had lost countenance and shrunk to less than halftheir real stature. But when the lightnings crash and echo in thecañons, and the clouds come down wreathing and crowning their bald snowyheads, every feature beams with expression and they rise again in alltheir imposing majesty. 

Storms are fine speakers, and tell all they know, but their voices oflightning, torrent, and rushing wind are much less numerous than thenameless still, small voices too low for human ears; and because we arepoor listeners we fail to catch much that is fairly within reach. Ourbest rains are heard mostly on roofs, and winds in chimneys; and when bychoice or compulsion we are pushed into the heart of a storm, theconfusion made by cumbersome equipments and nervous haste and mean fear, prevent our hearing any other than the loudest expressions. Yet we maydraw enjoyment from storm sounds that are beyond hearing, and stormmovements we cannot see. The sublime whirl of planets around their sunsis as silent as raindrops oozing in the dark among the roots of plants. In this great storm, as in every other, there were tones and gesturesinexpressibly gentle manifested in the midst of what is called violenceand fury, but easily recognized by all who look and listen for them. Therain brought out the colors of the woods with delightful freshness, therich brown of the bark of the trees and the fallen burs and leaves anddead ferns; the grays of rocks and lichens; the light purple of swellingbuds, and the warm yellow greens of the libocedrus and mosses. The airwas steaming with delightful fragrance, not rising and wafting past inseparate masses, but diffused through all the atmosphere. Pine woods arealways fragrant, but most so in spring when the young tassels areopening and in warm weather when the various gums and balsams aresoftened by the sun. The wind was now chafing their innumerable needlesand the warm rain was steeping them. Monardella grows here in large bedsin the openings, and there is plenty of laurel in dells and manzanita onthe hillsides, and the rosy, fragrant chamoebatia carpets the groundalmost everywhere. These, with the gums and balsams of the woods, formthe main local fragrance-fountains of the storm. The ascending clouds ofaroma wind-rolled and rain-washed became pure like light and traveledwith the wind as part of it. Toward the middle of the afternoon the mainflood cloud lifted along its western border revealing a beautifulsection of the Sacramento Valley some twenty or thirty miles away, brilliantly sun-lighted and glistering with rain-sheets as if paved withsilver. Soon afterward a jagged bluff-like cloud with a sheer faceappeared over the valley of the Yuba, dark-colored and roughened withnumerous furrows like some huge lava-table. The blue Coast Range wasseen stretching along the sky like a beveled wall, and the somber, craggy Marysville Buttes rose impressively out of the flooded plain likeislands out of the sea. Then the rain began to abate and I sauntereddown through the dripping bushes reveling in the universal vigor andfreshness that inspired all the life about me. How clean and unworn andimmortal the woods seemed to be!--the lofty cedars in full bloom ladenwith golden pollen and their washed plumes shining; the pines rockinggently and settling back into rest, and the evening sunbeams spanglingon the broad leaves of the madroños, their tracery of yellow boughsrelieved against dusky thickets of Chestnut Oak; liverworts, lycopodiums, ferns were exulting in glorious revival, and every mossthat had ever lived seemed to be coming crowding back from the dead toclothe each trunk and stone in living green. The steaming ground seemedfairly to throb and tingle with life; smilax, fritillaria, saxifrage, and young violets were pushing up as if already conscious of the summerglory, and innumerable green and yellow buds were peeping and smilingeverywhere. 

As for the birds and squirrels, not a wing or tail of them was to beseen while the storm was blowing. Squirrels dislike wet weather morethan cats do; therefore they were at home rocking in their dry nests. The birds were hiding in the dells out of the wind, some of thestrongest of them pecking at acorns and manzanita berries, but most wereperched on low twigs, their breast feathers puffed out and keeping oneanother company through the hard time as best they could. 

When I arrived at the village about sundown, the good people bestirredthemselves, pitying my bedraggled condition as if I were some benumbedcastaway snatched from the sea, while I, in turn, warm with excitementand reeking like the ground, pitied them for being dry and defrauded ofall the glory that Nature had spread round about them that day. 

CHAPTER XII

SIERRA THUNDER-STORMS

The weather of spring and summer in the middle region of the Sierra isusually well flecked with rains and light dustings of snow, most ofwhich are far too obviously joyful and life-giving to be regarded asstorms; and in the picturesque beauty and clearness of outlines of theirclouds they offer striking contrasts to those boundless, all-embracingcloud-mantles of the storms of winter. The smallest and most perfectlyindividualized specimens present a richly modeled cumulous cloud risingabove the dark woods, about 11 A. M. , swelling with a visible motionstraight up into the calm, sunny sky to a height of 12, 000 to 14, 000feet above the sea, its white, pearly bosses relieved by gray and palepurple shadows in the hollows, and showing outlines as keenly defined asthose of the glacier-polished domes. In less than an hour it attainsfull development and stands poised in the blazing sunshine like somecolossal mountain, as beautiful in form and finish as if it were tobecome a permanent addition to the landscape. Presently a thunderboltcrashes through the crisp air, ringing like steel on steel, sharp andclear, its startling detonation breaking into a spray of echoes againstthe cliffs and cañon walls. Then down comes a cataract of rain. The bigdrops sift through the pine-needles, plash and patter on the granitepavements, and pour down the sides of ridges and domes in a network ofgray, bubbling rills. In a few minutes the cloud withers to a mesh ofdim filaments and disappears, leaving the sky perfectly clear andbright, every dust-particle wiped and washed out of it. Everything isrefreshed and invigorated, a steam of fragrance rises, and the storm isfinished--one cloud, one lightning-stroke, and one dash of rain. This isthe Sierra mid-summer thunder-storm reduced to its lowest terms. Butsome of them attain much larger proportions, and assume a grandeur andenergy of expression hardly surpassed by those bred in the depths ofwinter, producing those sudden floods called "cloud-bursts, " which arelocal, and to a considerable extent periodical, for they appear nearlyevery day about the same time for weeks, usually about eleven o'clock, and lasting from five minutes to an hour or two. One soon becomes soaccustomed to see them that the noon sky seems empty and abandonedwithout them, as if Nature were forgetting something. When the gloriouspearl and alabaster clouds of these noonday storms are being built Inever give attention to anything else. No mountain or mountain-range, however divinely clothed with light, has a more enduring charm thanthose fleeting mountains of the sky--floating fountains bearing waterfor every well, the angels of the streams and lakes; brooding in thedeep azure, or sweeping softly along the ground over ridge and dome, over meadow, over forest, over garden and grove; lingering with coolingshadows, refreshing every flower, and soothing rugged rock-brows with agentleness of touch and gesture wholly divine. 

The most beautiful and imposing of the summer storms rise just above theupper edge of the Silver Fir zone, and all are so beautiful that it isnot easy to choose any one for particular description. The one that Iremember best fell on the mountains near Yosemite Valley, July 19, 1869, while I was encamped in the Silver Fir woods. A range of bossy cumulitook possession of the sky, huge domes and peaks rising one beyondanother with deep cañons between them, bending this way and that in longcurves and reaches, interrupted here and there with white upboilingmasses that looked like the spray of waterfalls. Zigzag lances oflightning followed each other in quick succession, and the thunder wasso gloriously loud and massive it seemed as if surely an entire mountainwas being shattered at every stroke. Only the trees were touched, however, so far as I could see, --a few firs 200 feet high, perhaps, andfive to six feet in diameter, were split into long rails and sliversfrom top to bottom and scattered to all points of the compass. Then camethe rain in a hearty flood, covering the ground and making it shine witha continuous sheet of water that, like a transparent film or skin, fitted closely down over all the rugged anatomy of the landscape. 

It is not long, geologically speaking, since the first raindrop fell onthe present landscapes of the Sierra; and in the few tens of thousandsof years of stormy cultivation they have been blest with, how beautifulthey have become! The first rains fell on raw, crumbling moraines androcks without a plant. Now scarcely a drop can fail to find a beautifulmark: on the tops of the peaks, on the smooth glacier pavements, on thecurves of the domes, on moraines full of crystals, on the thousand formsof yosemitic sculpture with their tender beauty of balmy, floweryvegetation, laving, plashing, glinting, pattering; some falling softlyon meadows, creeping out of sight, seeking and finding every thirstyrootlet, some through the spires of the woods, sifting in dust throughthe needles, and whispering good cheer to each of them; some fallingwith blunt tapping sounds, drumming on the broad leaves of veratrum, cypripedium, saxifrage; some falling straight into fragrant corollas, kissing the lips of lilies, glinting on the sides of crystals, onshining grains of gold; some falling into the fountains of snow to swelltheir well-saved stores; some into the lakes and rivers, patting thesmooth glassy levels, making dimples and bells and spray, washing themountain windows, washing the wandering winds; some plashing into theheart of snowy falls and cascades as if eager to join in the dance andthe song and beat the foam yet finer. Good work and happy work for themerry mountain raindrops, each one of them a brave fall in itself, rushing from the cliffs and hollows of the clouds into the cliffs andhollows of the mountains; away from the thunder of the sky into thethunder of the roaring rivers. And how far they have to go, and how manycups to fill--cassiope-cups, holding half a drop, and lake basinsbetween the hills, each replenished with equal care--every drop God'smessenger sent on its way with glorious pomp and display ofpower--silvery new-born stars with lake and river, mountain andvalley--all that the landscape holds--reflected in their crystal depths. 

CHAPTER XIII

THE WATER-OUZEL

The waterfalls of the Sierra are frequented by only one bird, --the Ouzelor Water Thrush (_Cinclus Mexicanus_, SW. ). He is a singularlyjoyous and lovable little fellow, about the size of a robin, clad in aplain waterproof suit of bluish gray, with a tinge of chocolate on thehead and shoulders. In form he is about as smoothly plump and compact asa pebble that has been whirled in a pot-hole, the flowing contour of hisbody being interrupted only by his strong feet and bill, the crispwing-tips, and the up-slanted wren-like tail. Among all the countlesswaterfalls I have met in the course of ten years' exploration in theSierra, whether among the icy peaks, or warm foot-hills, or in theprofound yosemitic cañons of the middle region, not one was foundwithout its Ouzel. No cañon is too cold for this little bird, none toolonely, provided it be rich in falling water. Find a fall, or cascade, or rushing rapid, anywhere upon a clear stream, and there you willsurely find its complementary Ouzel, flitting about in the spray, divingin foaming eddies, whirling like a leaf among beaten foam-bells; evervigorous and enthusiastic, yet self-contained, and neither seeking norshunning your company. 

[Illustration: WATER-OUZEL DIVING AND FEEDING. ]

If disturbed while dipping about in the margin shallows, he either setsoff with a rapid whir to some other feeding-ground up or down thestream, or alights on some half-submerged rock or snag out in thecurrent, and immediately begins to nod and courtesy like a wren, turninghis head from side to side with many other odd dainty movements thatnever fail to fix the attention of the observer. 

He is the mountain streams' own darling, the humming-bird of bloomingwaters, loving rocky ripple-slopes and sheets of foam as a bee lovesflowers, as a lark loves sunshine and meadows. Among all the mountainbirds, none has cheered me so much in my lonely wanderings, --none sounfailingly. For both in winter and summer he sings, sweetly, cheerily, independent alike of sunshine and of love, requiring no otherinspiration than the stream on which he dwells. While water sings, somust he, in heat or cold, calm or storm, ever attuning his voice in sureaccord; low in the drought of summer and the drought of winter, butnever silent. 

During the golden days of Indian summer, after most of the snow has beenmelted, and the mountain streams have become feeble, --a succession ofsilent pools, linked together by shallow, transparent currents andstrips of silvery lacework, --then the song of the Ouzel is at its lowestebb. But as soon as the winter clouds have bloomed, and the mountaintreasuries are once more replenished with snow, the voices of thestreams and ouzels increase in strength and richness until the floodseason of early summer. Then the torrents chant their noblest anthems, and then is the flood-time of our songster's melody. As for weather, dark days and sun days are the same to him. The voices of mostsong-birds, however joyous, suffer a long winter eclipse; but the Ouzelsings on through all the seasons and every kind of storm. Indeed nostorm can be more violent than those of the waterfalls in the midst ofwhich he delights to dwell. However dark and boisterous the weather, snowing, blowing, or cloudy, all the same he sings, and with never anote of sadness. No need of spring sunshine to thaw _his_ song, forit never freezes. Never shall you hear anything wintry from _his_warm breast; no pinched cheeping, no wavering notes between sorrow andjoy; his mellow, fluty voice is ever tuned to downright gladness, asfree from dejection as cock-crowing. 

It is pitiful to see wee frost-pinched sparrows on cold mornings in themountain groves shaking the snow from their feathers, and hopping aboutas if anxious to be cheery, then hastening back to their hidings out ofthe wind, puffing out their breast-feathers over their toes, andsubsiding among the leaves, cold and breakfastless, while the snowcontinues to fall, and there is no sign of clearing. But the Ouzel nevercalls forth a single touch of pity; not because he is strong to endure, but rather because he seems to live a charmed life beyond the reach ofevery influence that makes endurance necessary. 

One wild winter morning, when Yosemite Valley was swept its length fromwest to east by a cordial snow-storm, I sallied forth to see what Imight learn and enjoy. A sort of gray, gloaming-like darkness filled thevalley, the huge walls were out of sight, all ordinary sounds weresmothered, and even the loudest booming of the falls was at times buriedbeneath the roar of the heavy-laden blast. The loose snow was alreadyover five feet deep on the meadows, making extended walks impossiblewithout the aid of snow-shoes. I found no great difficulty, however, inmaking my way to a certain ripple on the river where one of my ouzelslived. He was at home, busily gleaning his breakfast among the pebblesof a shallow portion of the margin, apparently unaware of anythingextraordinary in the weather. Presently he flew out to a stone againstwhich the icy current was beating, and turning his back to the wind, sang as delightfully as a lark in springtime. 

After spending an hour or two with my favorite, I made my way across thevalley, boring and wallowing through the drifts, to learn as definitelyas possible how the other birds were spending their time. The Yosemitebirds are easily found during the winter because all of them exceptingthe Ouzel are restricted to the sunny north side of the valley, thesouth side being constantly eclipsed by the great frosty shadow of thewall. And because the Indian Cañon groves, from their peculiar exposure, are the warmest, the birds congregate there, more especially in severeweather. 

I found most of the robins cowering on the lee side of the largerbranches where the snow could not fall upon them, while two or three ofthe more enterprising were making desperate efforts to reach themistletoe berries by clinging nervously to the under side of thesnow-crowned masses, back downward, like woodpeckers. Every now and thenthey would dislodge some of the loose fringes of the snow-crown, whichwould come sifting down on them and send them screaming back to camp, where they would subside among their companions with a shiver, mutteringin low, querulous chatter like hungry children. 

Some of the sparrows were busy at the feet of the larger trees gleaningseeds and benumbed insects, joined now and then by a robin weary of hisunsuccessful attempts upon the snow-covered berries. The bravewoodpeckers were clinging to the snowless sides of the larger boles andoverarching branches of the camp trees, making short nights from side toside of the grove, pecking now and then at the acorns they had stored inthe bark, and chattering aimlessly as if unable to keep still, yetevidently putting in the time in a very dull way, like storm-boundtravelers at a country tavern. The hardy nut-hatches were threading theopen furrows of the trunks in their usual industrious manner, anduttering their quaint notes, evidently less distressed than theirneighbors. The Steller jays were of course making more noisy stir thanall the other birds combined; ever coming and going with loud bluster, screaming as if each had a lump of melting sludge in his throat, andtaking good care to improve the favorable opportunity afforded by thestorm to steal from the acorn stores of the woodpeckers. I also noticedone solitary gray eagle braving the storm on the top of a tallpine-stump just outside the main grove. He was standing bolt uprightwith his back to the wind, a tuft of snow piled on his square shoulders, a monument of passive endurance. Thus every snow-bound bird seemed moreor less uncomfortable if not in positive distress. 

The storm was reflected in every gesture, and not one cheerful note, notto say song, came from a single bill; their cowering, joyless enduranceoffering a striking contrast to the spontaneous, irrepressible gladnessof the Ouzel, who could no more help exhaling sweet song than a rosesweet fragrance. He _must_ sing though the heavens fall. I remembernoticing the distress of a pair of robins during the violent earthquakeof the year 1872, when the pines of the Valley, with strange movements, flapped and waved their branches, and beetling rock-brows camethundering down to the meadows in tremendous avalanches. It did notoccur to me in the midst of the excitement of other observations to lookfor the ouzels, but I doubt not they were singing straight on through itall, regarding the terrible rock-thunder as fearlessly as they do thebooming of the waterfalls. 

What may be regarded as the separate songs of the Ouzel are exceedinglydifficult of description, because they are so variable and at the sametime so confluent. Though I have been acquainted with my favorite tenyears, and during most of this time have heard him sing nearly everyday, I still detect notes and strains that seem new to me. Nearly all ofhis music is sweet and tender, lapsing from his round breast like waterover the smooth lip of a pool, then breaking farther on into a sparklingfoam of melodious notes, which, glow with subdued enthusiasm, yetwithout expressing much of the strong, gushing ecstasy of the bobolinkor skylark. 

The more striking strains are perfect arabesques of melody, composed ofa few full, round, mellow notes, embroidered with delicate trills whichfade and melt in long slender cadences. In a general way his music isthat of the streams refined and spiritualized. The deep booming notes ofthe falls are in it, the trills of rapids, the gurgling of margineddies, the low whispering of level reaches, and the sweet tinkle ofseparate drops oozing from the ends of mosses and falling into tranquilpools. 

The Ouzel never sings in chorus with other birds, nor with his kind, butonly with the streams. And like flowers that bloom beneath the surfaceof the ground, some of our favorite's best song-blossoms never riseabove the surface of the heavier music of the water. I have oftenobserved him singing in the midst of beaten spray, his music completelyburied beneath the water's roar; yet I knew he was surely singing by hisgestures and the movements of his bill. 

His food, as far as I have noticed, consists of all kinds of waterinsects, which in summer are chiefly procured along shallow margins. Here he wades about ducking his head under water and deftly turning overpebbles and fallen leaves with his bill, seldom choosing to go into deepwater where he has to use his wings in diving. 

He seems to be especially fond of the larvae; of mosquitos, found inabundance attached to the bottom of smooth rock channels where thecurrent is shallow. When feeding in such places he wades up-stream, andoften while his head is under water the swift current is deflectedupward along the glossy curves of his neck and shoulders, in the form ofa clear, crystalline shell, which fairly incloses him like a bell-glass, the shell being broken and re-formed as he lifts and dips his head;while ever and anon he sidles out to where the too powerful currentcarries him off his feet; then he dexterously rises on the wing and goesgleaning again in shallower places. 

But during the winter, when the stream-banks are embossed in snow, andthe streams themselves are chilled nearly to the freezing-point, so thatthe snow falling into them in stormy weather is not wholly dissolved, but forms a thin, blue sludge, thus rendering the current opaque--thenhe seeks the deeper portions of the main rivers, where he may dive toclear water beneath the sludge. Or he repairs to some open lake ormill-pond, at the bottom of which he feeds in safety. 

When thus compelled to betake himself to a lake, he does not plunge intoit at once like a duck, but always alights in the first place upon somerock or fallen pine along the shore. Then flying out thirty or fortyyards, more or less, according to the character of the bottom, healights with a dainty glint on the surface, swims about, looks down, finally makes up his mind, and disappears with a sharp stroke of hiswings. After feeding for two or three minutes he suddenly reappears, showers the water from his wings with one vigorous shake, and risesabruptly into the air as if pushed up from beneath, comes back to hisperch, sings a few minutes, and goes out to dive again; thus coming andgoing, singing and diving at the same place for hours. 

[Illustration: ONE OF THE LATE-SUMMER FEEDING-GROUNDS OF THE OUZEL. ]

The Ouzel is usually found singly; rarely in pairs, excepting during thebreeding season, and _very_ rarely in threes or fours. I onceobserved three thus spending a winter morning in company, upon a smallglacier lake, on the Upper Merced, about 7500 feet above the level ofthe sea. A storm had occurred during the night, but the morning sunshone unclouded, and the shadowy lake, gleaming darkly in its setting offresh snow, lay smooth and motionless as a mirror. My camp chanced to bewithin a few feet of the water's edge, opposite a fallen pine, some ofthe branches of which leaned out over the lake. Here my three dearlywelcome visitors took up their station, and at once began to embroiderthe frosty air with their delicious melody, doubly delightful to me thatparticular morning, as I had been somewhat apprehensive of danger inbreaking my way down through the snow-choked cañons to the lowlands. 

The portion of the lake bottom selected for a feeding-ground lies at adepth of fifteen or twenty feet below the surface, and is covered with ashort growth of algae and other aquatic plants, --facts I had previouslydetermined while sailing over it on a raft. After alighting on theglassy surface, they occasionally indulged in a little play, chasing oneanother round about in small circles; then all three would suddenly divetogether, and then come ashore and sing. 

The Ouzel seldom swims more than a few yards on the surface, for, notbeing web-footed, he makes rather slow progress, but by means of hisstrong, crisp wings he swims, or rather flies, with celerity under thesurface, often to considerable distances. But it is in withstanding theforce of heavy rapids that his strength of wing in this respect is moststrikingly manifested. The following may be regarded as a fairillustration of his power of sub-aquatic flight. One stormy morning inwinter when the Merced River was blue and green with unmelted snow, Iobserved one of my ouzels perched on a snag out in the midst of aswift-rushing rapid, singing cheerily, as if everything was just to hismind; and while I stood on the bank admiring him, he suddenly plungedinto the sludgy current, leaving his song abruptly broken off. Afterfeeding a minute or two at the bottom, and when one would suppose thathe must inevitably be swept far down-stream, he emerged just where hewent down, alighted on the same snag, showered the water-beads from hisfeathers, and continued his unfinished song, seemingly in tranquil easeas if it had suffered no interruption. 

[Illustration: OUZEL ENTERING A WHITE CURRENT. ]

The Ouzel alone of all birds dares to enter a white torrent. And thoughstrictly terrestrial in structure, no other is so inseparably relatedto water, not even the duck, or the bold ocean albatross, or thestormy-petrel. For ducks go ashore as soon as they finish feeding inundisturbed places, and very often make long flights over land from laketo lake or field to field. The same is true of most other aquatic birds. But the Ouzel, born on the brink of a stream, or on a snag or boulderin the midst of it, seldom leaves it for a single moment. For, notwithstanding he is often on the wing, he never flies overland, butwhirs with, rapid, quail-like beat above the stream, tracing all itswindings. Even when the stream is quite small, say from five to ten feetwide, he seldom shortens his flight by crossing a bend, however abruptit may be; and even when disturbed by meeting some one on the bank, heprefers to fly over one's head, to dodging out over the ground. When, therefore, his flight along a crooked stream is viewed endwise, itappears most strikingly wavered--a description on the air of every curvewith lightning-like rapidity. 

The vertical curves and angles of the most precipitous torrents hetraces with the same rigid fidelity, swooping down the inclines ofcascades, dropping sheer over dizzy falls amid the spray, and ascendingwith the same fearlessness and ease, seldom seeking to lessen thesteepness of the acclivity by beginning to ascend before reaching thebase of the fall. No matter though it may be several hundred feet inheight he holds straight on, as if about to dash headlong into thethrong of booming rockets, then darts abruptly upward, and, afteralighting at the top of the precipice to rest a moment, proceeds to feedand sing. His flight is solid and impetuous, without any intermission ofwing-beats, --one homogeneous buzz like that of a laden bee on its wayhome. And while thus buzzing freely from fall to fall, he is frequentlyheard giving utterance to a long outdrawn train of unmodulated notes, inno way connected with his song, but corresponding closely with hisflight in sustained vigor. 

Were the flights of all the ouzels in the Sierra traced on a chart, theywould indicate the direction of the flow of the entire system of ancientglaciers, from about the period of the breaking up of the ice-sheetuntil near the close of the glacial winter; because the streams whichthe ouzels so rigidly follow are, with the unimportant exceptions of afew side tributaries, all flowing in channels eroded for them out of thesolid flank of the range by the vanished glaciers, --the streams tracingthe ancient glaciers, the ouzels tracing the streams. Nor do we find socomplete compliance to glacial conditions in the life of any othermountain bird, or animal of any kind. Bears frequently accept thepathways laid down by glaciers as the easiest to travel; but they oftenleave them and cross over from cañon to cañon. So also, most of thebirds trace the moraines to some extent, because the forests are growingon them. But they wander far, crossing the cañons from grove to grove, and draw exceedingly angular and complicated courses. 

The Ouzel's nest is one of the most extraordinary pieces of birdarchitecture I ever saw, odd and novel in design, perfectly fresh andbeautiful, and in every way worthy of the genius of the little builder. It is about a foot in diameter, round and bossy in outline, with aneatly arched opening near the bottom, somewhat like an old-fashionedbrick oven, or Hottentot's hut. It is built almost exclusively of greenand yellow mosses, chiefly the beautiful fronded hypnum that covers therocks and old drift-logs in the vicinity of waterfalls. These are deftlyinterwoven, and felted together into a charming little hut; and sosituated that many of the outer mosses continue to flourish as if theyhad not been plucked. A few fine, silky-stemmed grasses are occasionallyfound interwoven with the mosses, but, with the exception of a thinlayer lining the floor, their presence seems accidental, as they are ofa species found growing with the mosses and are probably plucked withthem. The site chosen for this curious mansion is usually some littlerock-shelf within reach of the lighter particles of the spray of awaterfall, so that its walls are kept green and growing, at least duringthe time of high water. 

No harsh lines are presented by any portion of the nest as seen inplace, but when removed from its shelf, the back and bottom, andsometimes a portion of the top, is found quite sharply angular, becauseit is made to conform to the surface of the rock upon which and againstwhich it is built, the little architect always taking advantage ofslight crevices and protuberances that may chance to offer, to renderhis structure stable by means of a kind of gripping and dovetailing. 

In choosing a building-spot, concealment does not seem to be taken intoconsideration; yet notwithstanding the nest is large and guilelesslyexposed to view, it is far from being easily detected, chiefly becauseit swells forward like any other bulging moss-cushion growing naturallyin such situations. This is more especially the case where the nest iskept fresh by being well sprinkled. Sometimes these romantic little hutshave their beauty enhanced by rock-ferns and grasses that spring uparound the mossy walls, or in front of the door-sill, dripping withcrystal beads. 

Furthermore, at certain hours of the day, when the sunshine is poureddown at the required angle, the whole mass of the spray enveloping thefairy establishment is brilliantly irised; and it is through so gloriousa rainbow atmosphere as this that some of our blessed ouzels obtaintheir first peep at the world. 

Ouzels seem so completely part and parcel of the streams they inhabit, they scarce suggest any other origin than the streams themselves; andone might almost be pardoned in fancying they come direct from theliving waters, like flowers from the ground. At least, from whatevercause, it never occurred to me to look for their nests until more than ayear after I had made the acquaintance of the birds themselves, althoughI found one the very day on which I began the search. In making my wayfrom Yosemite to the glaciers at the heads of the Merced and Tuolumnerivers, I camped in a particularly wild and romantic portion of theNevada cañon where in previous excursions I had never failed to enjoythe company of my favorites, who were attracted here, no doubt, by thesafe nesting-places in the shelving rocks, and by the abundance of foodand falling water. The river, for miles above and below, consists of asuccession of small falls from ten to sixty feet in height, connected byflat, plume-like cascades that go flashing from fall to fall, free andalmost channelless, over waving folds of glacier-polished granite. 

On the south side of one of the falls, that portion of the precipicewhich is bathed by the spray presents a series of little shelves andtablets caused by the development of planes of cleavage in the granite, and by the consequent fall of masses through the action of the water. "Now here, " said I, "of all places, is the most charming spot for anOuzel's nest. " Then carefully scanning the fretted face of the precipicethrough the spray, I at length noticed a yellowish moss-cushion, growingon the edge of a level tablet within five or six feet of the outer foldsof the fall. But apart from the fact of its being situated where oneacquainted with the lives of ouzels would fancy an Ouzel's nest ought tobe, there was nothing in its appearance visible at first sight, todistinguish it from other bosses of rock-moss similarly situated withreference to perennial spray; and it was not until I had scrutinized itagain and again, and had removed my shoes and stockings and crept alongthe face of the rock within eight or ten feet of it, that I could decidecertainly whether it was a nest or a natural growth. 

In these moss huts three or four eggs are laid, white like foam-bubbles;and well may the little birds hatched from them sing water songs, forthey hear them all their lives, and even before they are born. 

I have often observed the young just out of the nest making their oddgestures, and seeming in every way as much at home as their experiencedparents, like young bees on their first excursions to the flower fields. No amount of familiarity with people and their ways seems to change themin the least. To all appearance their behavior is just the same onseeing a man for the first time, as when they have seen him frequently. 

[Illustration: THE OUZEL AT HOME. ]

On the lower reaches of the rivers where mills are built, they sing onthrough the din of the machinery, and all the noisy confusion of dogs, cattle, and workmen. On one occasion, while a wood-chopper was at workon the river-bank, I observed one cheerily singing within reach of theflying chips. Nor does any kind of unwonted disturbance put him in badhumor, or frighten him out of calm self-possession. In passing through anarrow gorge, I once drove one ahead of me from rapid to rapid, disturbing him four times in quick succession where he could not verywell fly past me on account of the narrowness of the channel. Most birdsunder similar circumstances fancy themselves pursued, and becomesuspiciously uneasy; but, instead of growing nervous about it, he madehis usual dippings, and sang one of his most tranquil strains. Whenobserved within a few yards their eyes are seen to express remarkablegentleness and intelligence; but they seldom allow so near a view unlessone wears clothing of about the same color as the rocks and trees, andknows how to sit still. On one occasion, while rambling along the shoreof a mountain lake, where the birds, at least those born that season, had never seen a man, I sat down to rest on a large stone close to thewater's edge, upon which it seemed the ouzels and sandpipers were in thehabit of alighting when they came to feed on that part of the shore, andsome of the other birds also, when they came down to wash or drink. In afew minutes, along came a whirring Ouzel and alighted on the stonebeside me, within reach of my hand. Then suddenly observing me, hestooped nervously as if about to fly on the instant, but as I remainedas motionless as the stone, he gained confidence, and looked me steadilyin the face for about a minute, then flew quietly to the outlet andbegan to sing. Next came a sandpiper and gazed at me with much the sameguileless expression of eye as the Ouzel. Lastly, down with a swoop camea Steller's jay out of a fir-tree, probably with the intention ofmoistening his noisy throat. But instead of sitting confidingly as myother visitors had done, he rushed off at once, nearly tumbling heelsover head into the lake in his suspicious confusion, and with loudscreams roused the neighborhood. 

Love for song-birds, with their sweet human voices, appears to be morecommon and unfailing than love for flowers. Every one loves flowers tosome extent, at least in life's fresh morning, attracted by them asinstinctively as humming-birds and bees. Even the young Digger Indianshave sufficient love for the brightest of those found growing on themountains to gather them and braid them, as decorations for the hair. And I was glad to discover, through the few Indians that could beinduced to talk on the subject, that they have names for the wild roseand the lily, and other conspicuous flowers, whether available as foodor otherwise. Most men, however, whether savage or civilized, becomeapathetic toward all plants that have no other apparent use than the useof beauty. But fortunately one's first instinctive love of song-birds isnever wholly obliterated, no matter what the influences upon our livesmay be. I have often been delighted to see a pure, spiritual glow comeinto the countenances of hard business-men and old miners, when asong-bird chanced to alight near them. Nevertheless, the little mouthfulof meat that swells out the breasts of some song-birds is too often thecause of their death. Larks and robins in particular are brought tomarket in hundreds. But fortunately the Ouzel has no enemy so eager toeat his little body as to follow him into the mountain solitudes. Inever knew him to be chased even by hawks. 

An acquaintance of mine, a sort of foot-hill mountaineer, had a pet cat, a great, dozy, overgrown creature, about as broad-shouldered as a lynx. During the winter, while the snow lay deep, the mountaineer sat in hislonely cabin among the pines smoking his pipe and wearing the dull timeaway. Tom was his sole companion, sharing his bed, and sitting besidehim on a stool with much the same drowsy expression of eye as hismaster. The good-natured bachelor was content with his hard fare ofsoda-bread and bacon, but Tom, the only creature in the worldacknowledging dependence on him, must needs be provided with fresh meat. Accordingly he bestirred himself to contrive squirrel-traps, and wadedthe snowy woods with his gun, making sad havoc among the few winterbirds, sparing neither robin, sparrow, nor tiny nuthatch, and thepleasure of seeing Tom eat and grow fat was his great reward. 

One cold afternoon, while hunting along the river-bank, he noticed aplain-feathered little bird skipping about in the shallows, andimmediately raised his gun. But just then the confiding songster beganto sing, and after listening to his summery melody the charmed hunterturned away, saying, "Bless your little heart, I can't shoot you, noteven for Tom. "

[Illustration: YOSEMITE BIRDS, SNOW-BOUND AT THE FOOT OF INDIAN CAÑON. ]

Even so far north as icy Alaska, I have found my glad singer. When I wasexploring the glaciers between Mount Fairweather and the Stikeen River, one cold day in November, after trying in vain to force a way throughthe innumerable icebergs of Sum Dum Bay to the great glaciers at thehead of it, I was weary and baffled and sat resting in my canoeconvinced at last that I would have to leave this part of my work foranother year. Then I began to plan my escape to open water before theyoung ice which was beginning to form should shut me in. While I thuslingered drifting with the bergs, in the midst of these gloomyforebodings and all the terrible glacial desolation and grandeur, Isuddenly heard the well-known whir of an Ouzel's wings, and, looking up, saw my little comforter coming straight across the ice from the shore. In a second or two he was with me, flying three times round my head witha happy salute, as if saying, "Cheer up, old friend; you see I'm here, and all's well. " Then he flew back to the shore, alighted on the topmostjag of a stranded iceberg, and began to nod and bow as though he were onone of his favorite boulders in the midst of a sunny Sierra cascade. 

The species is distributed all along the mountain-ranges of the PacificCoast from Alaska to Mexico, and east to the Rocky Mountains. Nevertheless, it is as yet comparatively little known. Audubon andWilson did not meet it. Swainson was, I believe, the first naturalist todescribe a specimen from Mexico. Specimens were shortly afterwardprocured by Drummond near the sources of the Athabasca River, betweenthe fifty-fourth and fifty-sixth parallels; and it has been collected bynearly all of the numerous exploring expeditions undertaken of latethrough our Western States and Territories; for it never fails to engagethe attention of naturalists in a very particular manner. 

Such, then, is our little cinclus, beloved of every one who is sofortunate as to know him. Tracing on strong wing every curve of the mostprecipitous torrents from one extremity of the Sierra to the other; notfearing to follow them through their darkest gorges and coldestsnow-tunnels; acquainted with every waterfall, echoing their divinemusic; and throughout the whole of their beautiful lives interpretingall that we in our unbelief call terrible in the utterances of torrentsand storms, as only varied expressions of God's eternal love. 

CHAPTER XIV

THE WILD SHEEP(_Ovis montana_)

The wild sheep ranks highest among the animal mountaineers of theSierra. Possessed of keen sight and scent, and strong limbs, he dwellssecure amid the loftiest summits, leaping unscathed from crag to crag, up and down the fronts of giddy precipices, crossing foaming torrentsand slopes of frozen snow, exposed to the wildest storms, yetmaintaining a brave, warm life, and developing from generation togeneration in perfect strength and beauty. 

Nearly all the lofty mountain-chains of the globe are inhabited by wildsheep, most of which, on account of the remote and all but inaccessibleregions where they dwell, are imperfectly known as yet. They areclassified by different naturalists under from five to ten distinctspecies or varieties, the best known being the burrhel of the Himalaya(_Ovis burrhel_, Blyth); the argali, the large wild sheep ofcentral and northeastern Asia (_O. Ammon_, Linn. , or _Caprovisargali_); the Corsican mouflon (_O. Musimon_, Pal. ); the aoudadof the mountains of northern Africa (_Ammotragus tragelaphus_); andthe Rocky Mountain bighorn (_O. Montana_, Cuv. ). To this last-namedspecies belongs the wild sheep of the Sierra. Its range, according tothe late Professor Baird of the Smithsonian Institution, extends "fromthe region of the upper Missouri and Yellowstone to the Rocky Mountainsand the high grounds adjacent to them on the eastern slope, and as farsouth as the Rio Grande. Westward it extends to the coast ranges ofWashington, Oregon, and California, and follows the highlands somedistance into Mexico. "[1] Throughout the vast region bounded on the eastby the Wahsatch Mountains and on the west by the Sierra there are morethan a hundred subordinate ranges and mountain groups, trending northand south, range beyond range, with summits rising from eight to twelvethousand feet above the level of the sea, probably all of which, according to my own observations, is, or has been, inhabited by thisspecies. 

Compared with the argali, which, considering its size and the vastextent of its range, is probably the most important of all the wildsheep, our species is about the same size, but the horns are lesstwisted and less divergent. The more important characteristics are, however, essentially the same, some of the best naturalists maintainingthat the two are only varied forms of one species. In accordance withthis view, Cuvier conjectures that since central Asia seems to be theregion where the sheep first appeared, and from which it has beendistributed, the argali may have been distributed over this continentfrom Asia by crossing Bering Strait on ice. This conjecture is not soill founded as at first sight would appear; for the Strait is only aboutfifty miles wide, is interrupted by three islands, and is jammed withice nearly every winter. Furthermore the argali is abundant on themountains adjacent to the Strait at East Cape, where it is well known tothe Tschuckchi hunters and where I have seen many of their horns. 

On account of the extreme variability of the sheep under culture, it isgenerally supposed that the innumerable domestic breeds have all beenderived from the few wild species; but the whole question is involved inobscurity. According to Darwin, sheep have been domesticated from a veryancient period, the remains of a small breed, differing from any nowknown, having been found in the famous Swiss lake-dwellings. 

Compared with the best-known domestic breeds, we find that our wildspecies is much larger, and, instead of an all-wool garment, wears athick over-coat of hair like that of the deer, and an under-covering offine wool. The hair, though rather coarse, is comfortably soft andspongy, and lies smooth, as if carefully tended with comb and brush. Thepredominant color during most of the year is brownish-gray, varying tobluish-gray in the autumn; the belly and a large, conspicuous patch onthe buttocks are white; and the tail, which is very short, like that ofa deer, is black, with a yellowish border. The wool is white, and growsin beautiful spirals down out of sight among the shining hair, likedelicate climbing vines among stalks of corn. 

The horns of the male are of immense size, measuring in their greaterdiameter from five to six and a half inches, and from two and a half tothree feet in length around the curve. They are yellowish-white incolor, and ridged transversely, like those of the domestic ram. Theircross-section near the base is somewhat triangular in outline, andflattened toward the tip. Rising boldly from the top of the head, theycurve gently backward and outward, then forward and outward, until aboutthree fourths of a circle is described, and until the flattened, blunttips are about two feet or two and a half feet apart. Those of thefemale are flattened throughout their entire length, are less curvedthan those of the male, and much smaller, measuring less than a footalong the curve. 

A ram and ewe that I obtained near the Modoc lava-beds, to the northeastof Mount Shasta, measured as follows:

 _Ram. Ewe. _ _ft. In. Ft. In. _ Height at shoulders 3 6 3 0 Girth around shoulders 3 11 3 3-3/4 Length from nose to root of tail 5 10-1/4 4 3-1/2 Length of ears 0 4-3/4 0 5 Length of tail 0 4-1/2 0 4-1/2 Length of horns around curve 2 9 0 11-1/2 Distance across from tip to tip of horns 2 5-1/2 Circumference of horns at base 1 4 0 6

The measurements of a male obtained in the Rocky Mountains by Audubonvary but little as compared with the above. The weight of his specimenwas 344 pounds, [2] which is, perhaps, about an average for full-grownmales. The females are about a third lighter. 

Besides these differences in size, color, hair, etc. , as noted above, wemay observe that the domestic sheep, in a general way, is expressionless, like a dull bundle of something only half alive, while the wild is aselegant and graceful as a deer, every movement manifesting admirablestrength and character. The tame is timid; the wild is bold. The tameis always more or less ruffled and dirty; while the wild is as smoothand clean as the flowers of his mountain pastures. 

The earliest mention that I have been able to find of the wild sheep inAmerica is by Father Picolo, a Catholic missionary at Monterey, in theyear 1797, who, after describing it, oddly enough, as "a kind of deerwith a sheep-like head, and about as large as a calf one or two yearsold, " naturally hurries on to remark: "I have eaten of these beasts;their flesh is very tender and delicious. " Mackenzie, in his northerntravels, heard the species spoken of by the Indians as "white buffaloes. "And Lewis and Clark tell us that, in a time of great scarcity on thehead waters of the Missouri, they saw plenty of wild sheep, but theywere "too shy to be shot. "

A few of the more energetic of the Pah Ute Indians hunt the wild sheepevery season among the more accessible sections of the High Sierra, inthe neighborhood of passes, where, from having been pursued, they havebecome extremely wary; but in the rugged wilderness of peaks and cañons, where the foaming tributaries of the San Joaquin and King's rivers taketheir rise, they fear no hunter save the wolf, and are more guilelessand approachable than their tame kindred. 

While engaged in the work of exploring high regions where they delightto roam I have been greatly interested in studying their habits. In themonths of November and December, and probably during a considerableportion of midwinter, they all flock together, male and female, old andyoung. I once found a complete band of this kind numbering upward offifty, which, on being alarmed, went bounding away across a jaggedlava-bed at admirable speed, led by a majestic old ram, with the lambssafe in the middle of the flock. 

In spring and summer, the full-grown rams form separate bands of fromthree to twenty, and are usually found feeding along the edges ofglacier meadows, or resting among the castle-like crags of the highsummits; and whether quietly feeding, or scaling the wild cliffs, theirnoble forms and the power and beauty of their movements never fail tostrike the beholder with lively admiration. 

Their resting-places seem to be chosen with reference to sunshine and awide outlook, and most of all to safety. Their feeding-grounds are amongthe most beautiful of the wild gardens, bright with daisies and gentiansand mats of purple bryanthus, lying hidden away on rocky headlands andcañon sides, where sunshine is abundant, or down in the shady glaciervalleys, along the banks of the streams and lakes, where the plushy sodis greenest. Here they feast all summer, the happy wanderers, perhapsrelishing the beauty as well as the taste of the lovely flora on whichthey feed. 

[Illustration: SNOW-BOUND ON MOUNT SHASTA. ]

When the winter storms set in, loading their highland pastures withsnow, then, like the birds, they gather and go to lower climates, usually descending the eastern flank of the range to the rough, volcanictable-lands and treeless ranges of the Great Basin adjacent to theSierra. They never make haste, however, and seem to have no dread ofstorms, many of the strongest only going down leisurely to bare, wind-swept ridges, to feed on bushes and dry bunch-grass, and thenreturning up into the snow. Once I was snow-bound on Mount Shasta forthree days, a little below the timber line. It was a dark and stormytime, well calculated to test the skill and endurance of mountaineers. The snow-laden gale drove on night and day in hissing, blinding floods, and when at length it began to abate, I found that a small band of wildsheep had weathered the storm in the lee of a clump of Dwarf Pines a fewyards above my storm-nest, where the snow was eight or ten feet deep. Iwas warm back of a rock, with blankets, bread, and fire. My bravecompanions lay in the snow, without food, and with only the partialshelter of the short trees, yet they made no sign of suffering orfaint-heartedness. 

In the months of May and June, the wild sheep bring forth their young insolitary and almost inaccessible crags, far above the nesting-rocks ofthe eagle. I have frequently come upon the beds of the ewes and lambs atan elevation of from 12, 000 to 13, 000 feet above sea-level. These bedsare simply oval-shaped hollows, pawed out among loose, disintegratingrock-chips and sand, upon some sunny spot commanding a good outlook, andpartially sheltered from the winds that sweep those lofty peaks almostwithout intermission. Such is the cradle of the little mountaineer, aloft in the very sky; rocked in storms, curtained in clouds, sleepingin thin, icy air; but, wrapped in his hairy coat, and nourished by astrong, warm mother, defended from the talons of the eagle and the teethof the sly coyote, the bonny lamb grows apace. He soon learns to nibblethe tufted rock-grasses and leaves of the white spirsea; his horns beginto shoot, and before summer is done he is strong and agile, and goesforth with the flock, watched by the same divine love that tends themore helpless human lamb in its cradle by the fireside. 

Nothing is more commonly remarked by noisy, dusty trail-travelers inthe Sierra than the want of animal life--no song-birds, no deer, nosquirrels, no game of any kind, they say. But if such could only go awayquietly into the wilderness, sauntering afoot and alone with naturaldeliberation, they would soon learn that these mountain mansions are notwithout inhabitants, many of whom, confiding and gentle, would not tryto shun their acquaintance. 

[Illustration: HEAD OF THE MERINO RAM (DOMESTIC). ]

In the fall of 1873 I was tracing the South Fork of the San Joaquin upits wild cañon to its farthest glacier fountains. It was the season ofalpine Indian summer. The sun beamed lovingly; the squirrels werenutting in the pine-trees, butterflies hovered about the last of thegoldenrods, the willow and maple thickets were yellow, the meadowsbrown, and the whole sunny, mellow landscape glowed like a countenancein the deepest and sweetest repose. On my way over the glacier-polishedrocks along the river, I came to an expanded portion of the cañon, abouttwo miles long and half a mile wide, which formed a level park inclosedwith picturesque granite walls like those of Yosemite Valley. Downthrough the middle of it poured the beautiful river shining andspangling in the golden light, yellow groves on its banks, and strips ofbrown meadow; while the whole park was astir with wild life, some ofwhich even the noisiest and least observing of travelers must have seenhad they been with me. Deer, with their supple, well-grown fawns, bounded from thicket to thicket as I advanced; grouse kept rising fromthe brown grass with a great whirring of wings, and, alighting on thelower branches of the pines and poplars, allowed a near approach, as ifcurious to see me. Farther on, a broad-shouldered wildcat showedhimself, coming out of a grove, and crossing the river on a flood-jambof logs, halting for a moment to look back. The bird-like tamias friskedabout my feet everywhere among the pine-needles and seedy grass-tufts;cranes waded the shallows of the river-bends, the kingfisher rattledfrom perch to perch, and the blessed ouzel sang amid the spray of everycascade. Where may lonely wanderer find a more interesting family ofmountain-dwellers, earth-born companions and fellow-mortals? It wasafternoon when I joined them, and the glorious landscape began to fadein the gloaming before I awoke from their enchantment. Then I sought acamp-ground on the river-bank, made a cupful of tea, and lay down tosleep on a smooth place among the yellow leaves of an aspen grove. Nextday I discovered yet grander landscapes and grander life. Following theriver over huge, swelling rock-bosses through a majestic cañon, and pastinnumerable cascades, the scenery in general became gradually wilder andmore alpine. The Sugar Pine and Silver Firs gave place to the hardierCedar and Hemlock Spruce. The cañon walls became more rugged and bare, and gentians and arctic daisies became more abundant in the gardens andstrips of meadow along the streams. Toward the middle of the afternoon Icame to another valley, strikingly wild and original in all itsfeatures, and perhaps never before touched by human foot. As regardsarea of level bottom-land, it is one of the very smallest of theYosemite type, but its walls are sublime, rising to a height of from2000 to 4000 feet above the river. At the head of the valley the maincañon forks, as is found to be the case in all yosemites. The formationof this one is due chiefly to the action of two great glaciers, whosefountains lay to the eastward, on the flanks of Mounts Humphrey andEmerson and a cluster of nameless peaks farther south. 

[Illustration: HEAD OF ROCKY MOUNTAIN WILD SHEEP. ]

The gray, boulder-chafed river was singing loudly through the valley, but above its massy roar I heard the booming of a waterfall, which drewme eagerly on; and just as I emerged from the tangled groves andbrier-thickets at the head of the valley, the main fork of the rivercame in sight, falling fresh from its glacier fountains in a snowycascade, between granite walls 2000 feet high. The steep incline downwhich the glad waters thundered seemed to bar all farther progress. Itwas not long, however, before I discovered a crooked seam in the rock, by which I was enabled to climb to the edge of a terrace that crossesthe cañon, and divides the cataract nearly in the middle. Here I satdown to take breath and make some entries in my note-book, takingadvantage, at the same time, of my elevated position above the trees togaze back over the valley into the heart of the noble landscape, littleknowing the while what neighbors were near. 

After spending a few minutes in this way, I chanced to look across thefall, and there stood three sheep quietly observing me. Never did thesudden appearance of a mountain, or fall, or human friend more forciblyseize and rivet my attention. Anxiety to observe accurately held meperfectly still. Eagerly I marked the flowing undulations of their firm, braided muscles, their strong legs, ears, eyes, heads, their gracefulrounded necks, the color of their hair, and the bold, upsweeping curvesof their noble horns. When they moved I watched every gesture, whilethey, in no wise disconcerted either by my attention or by thetumultuous roar of the water, advanced deliberately alongside therapids, between the two divisions of the cataract, turning now and thento look at me. Presently they came to a steep, ice-burnished acclivity, which they ascended by a succession of quick, short, stiff-legged leaps, reaching the top without a struggle. This was the most startling feat ofmountaineering I had ever witnessed, and, considering only the mechanicsof the thing, my astonishment could hardly have been greater had theydisplayed wings and taken to flight. "Surefooted" mules on such groundwould have fallen and rolled like loosened boulders. Many a time, wherethe slopes are far lower, I have been compelled to take off my shoes andstockings, tie them to my belt, and creep barefooted, with the utmostcaution. No wonder then, that I watched the progress of these animalmountaineers with keen sympathy, and exulted in the boundlesssufficiency of wild nature displayed in their invention, construction, and keeping. A few minutes later I caught sight of a dozen more in oneband, near the foot of the upper fall. They were standing on the sameside of the river with me, only twenty-five or thirty yards away, looking as unworn and perfect as if created on the spot. It appeared bytheir tracks, which I had seen in the Little Yosemite, and by theirpresent position, that when I came up the cañon they were all feedingtogether down in the valley, and in their haste to reach highground, where they could look about them to ascertain the nature of thestrange disturbance, they were divided, three ascending on one side theriver, the rest on the other. 

The main band, headed by an experienced chief, now began to cross thewild rapids between the two divisions of the cascade. This was anotherexciting feat; for, among all the varied experiences of mountaineers, the crossing of boisterous, rock-dashed torrents is found to be one ofthe most trying to the nerves. Yet these fine fellows walked fearlesslyto the brink, and jumped from boulder to boulder, holding themselves ineasy poise above the whirling, confusing current, as if they were doingnothing extraordinary. 

[Illustration: CROSSING A CAÑON STREAM. ]

In the immediate foreground of this rare picture there was a fold ofice-burnished granite, traversed by a few bold lines in which rock-fernsand tufts of bryanthus were growing, the gray cañon walls on the sides, nobly sculptured and adorned with brown cedars and pines; lofty peaks inthe distance, and in the middle ground the snowy fall, the voice andsoul of the landscape; fringing bushes beating time to itsthunder-tones, the brave sheep in front of it, their gray forms slightlyobscured in the spray, yet standing out in good, heavy relief againstthe close white water, with their huge horns rising like the upturnedroots of dead pine-trees, while the evening sunbeams streaming up thecañon colored all the picture a rosy purple and made it glorious. Aftercrossing the river, the dauntless climbers, led by their chief, at oncebegan to scale the cañon wall, turning now right, now left, in long, single file, keeping well apart out of one another's way, and leaping inregular succession from crag to crag, now ascending slipperydome-curves, now walking leisurely along the edges of precipices, stopping at times to gaze down at me from some flat-topped rock, withheads held aslant, as if curious to learn what I thought about it, orwhether I was likely to follow them. After reaching the top of the wall, which, at this place, is somewhere between 1500 and 2000 feet high, theywere still visible against the sky as they lingered, looking down ingroups of twos or threes. 

Throughout the entire ascent they did not make a single awkward step, oran unsuccessful effort of any kind. I have frequently seen tame sheep inmountains jump upon a sloping rock-surface, hold on tremulously a fewseconds, and fall back baffled and irresolute. But in the most tryingsituations, where the slightest want or inaccuracy would have beenfatal, these always seemed to move in comfortable reliance on theirstrength and skill, the limits of which they never appeared to know. Moreover, each one of the flock, while following the guidance of themost experienced, yet climbed with intelligent independence as a perfectindividual, capable of separate existence whenever it should wish or becompelled to withdraw from the little clan. The domestic sheep, on thecontrary, is only a fraction of an animal, a whole flock being requiredto form an individual, just as numerous flowerets are required to makeone complete sunflower. 

Those shepherds who, in summer, drive their flocks to the mountainpastures, and, while watching them night and day, have seen themfrightened by bears and storms, and scattered like wind-driven chaff, will, in some measure, be able to appreciate the self-reliance andstrength and noble individuality of Nature's sheep. 

Like the Alp-climbing ibex of Europe, our mountaineer is said to plungeheadlong down the faces of sheer precipices, and alight on his bighorns. I know only two hunters who claim to have actually witnessed thisfeat; I never was so fortunate. They describe the act as a divinghead-foremost. The horns are so large at the base that they cover theupper portion of the head down nearly to a level with the eyes, and theskull is exceedingly strong. I struck an old, bleached specimen on MountRitter a dozen blows with my ice-ax without breaking it. Such skullswould not fracture very readily by the wildest rock-diving, but otherbones could hardly be expected to hold together in such a performance;and the mechanical difficulties in the way of controlling theirmovements, after striking upon an irregular surface, are, in themselves, sufficient to show this boulder-like method of progression to beimpossible, even in the absence of all other evidence on the subject;moreover, the ewes follow wherever the rams may lead, although theirhorns are mere spikes. I have found many pairs of the horns of the oldrams considerably battered, doubtless a result of fighting. I wasparticularly interested in the question, after witnessing theperformances of this San Joaquin band upon the glaciated rocks at thefoot of the falls; and as soon as I procured specimens and examinedtheir feet, all the mystery disappeared. The secret, considered inconnection with exceptionally strong muscles, is simply this: the wideposterior portion of the bottom of the foot, instead of wearing down andbecoming flat and hard, like the feet of tame sheep and horses, bulgesout in a soft, rubber-like pad or cushion, which not only grips andholds well on smooth rocks, but fits into small cavities, and down uponor against slight protuberances. Even the hardest portions of the edgeof the hoof are comparatively soft and elastic; furthermore, the toesadmit of an extraordinary amount of both lateral and vertical movement, allowing the foot to accommodate itself still more perfectly to theirregularities of rock surfaces, while at the same time increasing thegripping power. 

At the base of Sheep Rock, one of the winter strongholds of the Shastaflocks, there lives a stock-raiser who has had the advantage ofobserving the movements of wild sheep every winter; and, in the courseof a conversation with him on the subject of their diving habits, hepointed to the front of a lava headland about 150 feet high, which isonly eight or ten degrees out of the perpendicular. "There, " said he, "Ifollowed a band of them fellows to the back of that rock yonder, andexpected to capture them all, for I thought I had a dead thing on them. I got behind them on a narrow bench that runs along the face of the wallnear the top and comes to an end where they couldn't get away withoutfalling and being killed; but they jumped off, and landed all right, asif that were the regular thing with them. "

"What!" said I, "jumped 150 feet perpendicular! Did you see them do it?"

"No, " he replied, "I didn't see them going down, for I was behind them;but I saw them go off over the brink, and then I went below and foundtheir tracks where they struck on the loose rubbish at the bottom. Theyjust _sailed right off_, and landed on their feet right side up. That is the kind of animal _they_ is--beats anything else that goeson four legs. "

[Illustration: WILD SHEEP JUMPING OVER A PRECIPICE. ]

On another occasion, a flock that was pursued by hunters retreated toanother portion of this same cliff where it is still higher, and, onbeing followed, they were seen jumping down in perfect order, one behindanother, by two men who happened to be chopping where they had a fairview of them and could watch their progress from top to bottom of theprecipice. Both ewes and rams made the frightful descent withoutevincing any extraordinary concern, hugging the rock closely, andcontrolling the velocity of their half falling, half leaping movementsby striking at short intervals and holding back with their cushioned, rubber feet upon small ledges and roughened inclines until near thebottom, when they "sailed off" into the free air and alighted on theirfeet, but with their bodies so nearly in a vertical position that theyappeared to be diving. 

It appears, therefore, that the methods of this wild mountaineeringbecome clearly comprehensible as soon as we make ourselves acquaintedwith the rocks, and the kind of feet and muscles brought to bear uponthem. 

The Modoc and Pah Ute Indians are, or rather have been, the mostsuccessful hunters of the wild sheep in the regions that have come undermy own observation. I have seen large numbers of heads and horns in thecaves of Mount Shasta and the Modoc lava-beds, where the Indians hadbeen feasting in stormy weather; also in the cañons of the Sierraopposite Owen's Valley; while the heavy obsidian arrow-heads found onsome of the highest peaks show that this warfare has long been going on. 

In the more accessible ranges that stretch across the desert regions ofwestern Utah and Nevada, considerable numbers of Indians used to hunt incompany like packs of wolves, and being perfectly acquainted with thetopography of their hunting-grounds, and with the habits and instinctsof the game, they were pretty successful. On the tops of nearly everyone of the Nevada mountains that I have visited, I found small, nest-like inclosures built of stones, in which, as I afterward learned, one or more Indians would lie in wait while their companions scoured theridges below, knowing that the alarmed sheep would surely run to thesummit, and when they could be made to approach with the wind they wereshot at short range. 

[Illustration: INDIANS HUNTING WILD SHEEP. ]

Still larger bands of Indians used to make extensive hunts upon somedominant mountain much frequented by the sheep, such as Mount Grant onthe Wassuck Range to the west of Walker Lake. On some particular spot, favorably situated with reference to the well-known trails of the sheep, they built a high-walled corral, with long guiding wings diverging fromthe gateway; and into this inclosure they sometimes succeeded in drivingthe noble game. Great numbers of Indians were of course required, more, indeed, than they could usually muster, counting in squaws, children, and all; they were compelled, therefore, to build rows of dummy huntersout of stones, along the ridge-tops which they wished to prevent thesheep from crossing. And, without discrediting the sagacity of the game, these dummies were found effective; for, with a few live Indians movingabout excitedly among them, they could hardly be distinguished at alittle distance from men, by any one not in the secret. The wholeridge-top then seemed to be alive with hunters. 

The only animal that may fairly be regarded as a companion or rival ofthe sheep is the so-called Rocky Mountain goat (_Aplocerus montana_, Rich. ), which, as its name indicates, is more antelope than goat. He, too, is a brave and hardy climber, fearlessly crossing the wildestsummits, and braving the severest storms, but he is shaggy, short-legged, and much less dignified in demeanor than the sheep. His jet-black hornsare only about five or six inches in length, and the long, white hairwith which he is covered obscures the expression of his limbs. I havenever yet seen a single specimen in the Sierra, though possibly a fewflocks may have lived on Mount Shasta a comparatively short time ago. 

The ranges of these two mountaineers are pretty distinct, and they seebut little of each other; the sheep being restricted mostly to the dry, inland mountains; the goat or chamois to the wet, snowy glacier-ladenmountains of the northwest coast of the continent in Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska. Probably more than 200 dwell on the icy, volcanic cone of Mount Rainier; and while I was exploring the glaciersof Alaska I saw flocks of these admirable mountaineers nearly every day, and often followed their trails through the mazes of bewilderingcrevasses, in which they are excellent guides. 

Three species of deer are found in California, --the black-tailed, white-tailed, and mule deer. The first mentioned (_Cervus Columbianus_)is by far the most abundant, and occasionally meets the sheep duringthe summer on high glacier meadows, and along the edge of the timberline; but being a forest animal, seeking shelter and rearing its youngin dense thickets, it seldom visits the wild sheep in its higher homes. The antelope, though not a mountaineer, is occasionally met in winterby the sheep while feeding along the edges of the sage-plains and barevolcanic hills to the east of the Sierra. So also is the mule deer, which is almost restricted in its range to this eastern region. Thewhite-tailed species belongs to the coast ranges. 

Perhaps no wild animal in the world is without enemies, but highlanders, as a class, have fewer than lowlanders. The wily panther, slipping andcrouching among long grass and bushes, pounces upon the antelope anddeer, but seldom crosses the bald, craggy thresholds of the sheep. Neither can the bears be regarded as enemies; for, though they seek tovary their every-day diet of nuts and berries by an occasional meal ofmutton, they prefer to hunt tame and helpless flocks. Eagles andcoyotes, no doubt, capture an unprotected lamb at times, or someunfortunate beset in deep, soft snow, but these cases are little morethan accidents. So, also, a few perish in long-continued snow-storms, though, in all my mountaineering, I have not found more than five or sixthat seemed to have met their fate in this way. A little band of threewere discovered snow-bound in Bloody Canon a few years ago, and werekilled with an ax by mountaineers, who chanced to be crossing the rangein winter. 

Man is the most dangerous enemy of all, but even from him our bravemountain-dweller has little to fear in the remote solitudes of the HighSierra. The golden plains of the Sacramento and San Joaquin were latelythronged with bands of elk and antelope, but, being fertile andaccessible, they were required for human pastures. So, also, are many ofthe feeding-grounds of the deer--hill, valley, forest, and meadow--butit will be long before man will care to take the highland castles of thesheep. And when we consider here how rapidly entire species of nobleanimals, such as the elk, moose, and buffalo, are being pushed to thevery verge of extinction, all lovers of wildness will rejoice with me inthe rocky security of _Ovis montana_, the bravest of all the Sierramountaineers. 

[1] Pacific Railroad Survey, Vol. VIII, page 678. 

[2] Audubon and Bachman's "Quadrupeds of North America. "

CHAPTER XV

IN THE SIERRA FOOT-HILLS

Murphy's camp is a curious old mining-town in Calaveras County, at anelevation of 2400 feet above the sea, situated like a nest in the centerof a rough, gravelly region, rich in gold. Granites, slates, lavas, limestone, iron ores, quartz veins, auriferous gravels, remnants of deadfire-rivers and dead water-rivers are developed here side by side withina radius of a few miles, and placed invitingly open before the studentlike a book, while the people and the region beyond the camp furnishmines of study of never-failing interest and variety. 

When I discovered this curious place, I was tracing the channels of theancient pre-glacial rivers, instructive sections of which have been laidbare here and in the adjacent regions by the miners. Rivers, accordingto the poets, "go on forever"; but those of the Sierra are young as yetand have scarcely learned the way down to the sea; while at least onegeneration of them have died and vanished together with most of thebasins they drained. All that remains of them to tell their history is aseries of interrupted fragments of channels, mostly choked with gravel, and buried beneath broad, thick sheets of lava. These are known as the"Dead Rivers of California, " and the gravel deposited in them iscomprehensively called the "Blue Lead. " In some places the channels ofthe present rivers trend in the same direction, or nearly so, as thoseof the ancient rivers; but, in general, there is little correspondencebetween them, the entire drainage having been changed, or, rather, madenew. Many of the hills of the ancient landscapes have become hollows, and the old hollows have become hills. Therefore the fragmentarychannels, with their loads of auriferous gravel, occur in all kinds ofunthought-of places, trending obliquely, or even at right angles to thepresent drainage, across the tops of lofty ridges or far beneath them, presenting impressive illustrations of the magnitude of the changesaccomplished since those ancient streams were annihilated. The lastvolcanic period preceding the regeneration of the Sierra landscapesseems to have come on over all the range almost simultaneously, like theglacial period, notwithstanding lavas of different age occur together inmany places, indicating numerous periods of activity in the Sierrafire-fountains. The most important of the ancient river-channels in thisregion is a section that extends from the south side of the town beneathCoyote Creek and the ridge beyond it to the Cañon of the Stanislaus; buton account of its depth below the general surface of the present valleysthe rich gold gravels it is known to contain cannot be easily worked ona large scale. Their extraordinary richness may be inferred from thefact that many claims were profitably worked in them by sinking shaftsto a depth of 200 feet or more, and hoisting the dirt by a windlass. Should the dip of this ancient channel be such as to make the StanislausCañon available as a dump, then the grand deposit might be worked by thehydraulic method, and although a long, expensive tunnel would berequired, the scheme might still prove profitable, for there is"millions in it. "

The importance of these ancient gravels as gold fountains is well knownto miners. Even the superficial placers of the present streams havederived much of their gold from them. According to all accounts, theMurphy placers have been very rich--"terrific rich, " as they say here. The hills have been cut and scalped, and every gorge and gulch andvalley torn to pieces and disemboweled, expressing a fierce anddesperate energy hard to understand. Still, any kind of effort-making isbetter than inaction, and there is something sublime in seeing menworking in dead earnest at anything, pursuing an object withglacier-like energy and persistence. Many a brave fellow has recorded amost eventful chapter of life on these Calaveras rocks. But most of thepioneer miners are sleeping now, their wild day done, while the fewsurvivors linger languidly in the washed-out gulches or sleepy villagelike harried bees around the ruins of their hive. "We have no industryleft _now_, " they told me, "and no men; everybody and everythinghereabouts has gone to decay. We are only bummers--out of the game, athin scatterin' of poor, dilapidated cusses, compared with what we usedto be in the grand old gold-days. We were giants then, and you can lookaround here and see our tracks. " But although these lingering pioneersare perhaps more exhausted than the mines, and about as dead as the deadrivers, they are yet a rare and interesting set of men, with much goldmixed with the rough, rocky gravel of their characters; and theymanifest a breeding and intelligence little looked for in suchsurroundings as theirs. As the heavy, long-continued grinding of theglaciers brought out the features of the Sierra, so the intenseexperiences of the gold period have brought out the features of theseold miners, forming a richness and variety of character little known asyet. The sketches of Bret Harte, Hayes, and Miller have not exhaustedthis field by any means. It is interesting to note the extremes possiblein one and the same character: harshness and gentleness, manliness andchildishness, apathy and fierce endeavor. Men who, twenty years ago, would not cease their shoveling to save their lives, now play in thestreets with children. Their long, Micawber-like waiting after theexhaustion of the placers has brought on an exaggerated form of dotage. I heard a group of brawny pioneers in the street eagerly discussing thequantity of tail required for a boy's kite; and one graybeard undertookthe sport of flying it, volunteering the information that he was a boy, "always was a boy, and d--n a man who was not a boy inside, howeverancient outside!" Mines, morals, politics, the immortality of the soul, etc. , were discussed beneath shade-trees and in saloons, the time foreach being governed apparently by the temperature. Contact with Nature, and the habits of observation acquired in gold-seeking, had made themall, to some extent, collectors, and, like wood-rats, they had gatheredall kinds of odd specimens into their cabins, and now required me toexamine them. They were themselves the oddest and most interestingspecimens. One of them offered to show me around the old diggings, giving me fair warning before setting out that I might not like him, "because, " said he, "people say I'm eccentric. I notice everything, andgather beetles and snakes and anything that's queer; and so some don'tlike me, and call me eccentric. I'm always trying to find out things. Now, there's a weed; the Indians eat it for greens. What do you callthose long-bodied flies with big heads?" "Dragon-flies, " I suggested. "Well, their jaws work sidewise, instead of up and down, andgrasshoppers' jaws work the same way, and therefore I think they are thesame species. I always notice everything like that, and just because Ido, they say I'm eccentric, " etc. 

Anxious that I should miss none of the wonders of their old gold-field, the good people had much to say about the marvelous beauty of Cave CityCave, and advised me to explore it. This I was very glad to do, andfinding a guide who knew the way to the mouth of it, I set out fromMurphy the next morning. 

The most beautiful and extensive of the mountain caves of Californiaoccur in a belt of metamorphic limestone that is pretty generallydeveloped along the western flank of the Sierra from the McCloud Riveron the north to the Kaweah on the south, a distance of over 400 miles, at an elevation of from 2000 to 7000 feet above the sea. Besides thisregular belt of caves, the California landscapes are diversified by longimposing ranks of sea-caves, rugged and variable in architecture, carvedin the coast headlands and precipices by centuries of wave-dashing; andinnumerable lava-caves, great and small, originating in the unequalflowing and hardening of the lava sheets in which they occur, fineillustrations of which are presented in the famous Modoc Lava Beds, andaround the base of icy Shasta. In this comprehensive glance we may alsonotice the shallow wind-worn caves in stratified sandstones along themargins of the plains; and the cave-like recesses in the Sierra slatesand granites, where bears and other mountaineers find shelter during thefall of sudden storms. In general, however, the grand massive uplift ofthe Sierra, as far as it has been laid-bare to observation, is about assolid and caveless as a boulder. 

Fresh beauty opens one's eyes wherever it is really seen, but the veryabundance and completeness of the common beauty that besets our stepsprevents its being absorbed and appreciated. It is a good thing, therefore, to make short excursions now and then to the bottom of thesea among dulse and coral, or up among the clouds on mountain-tops, orin balloons, or even to creep like worms into dark holes and cavernsunderground, not only to learn something of what is going on in thoseout-of-the-way places, but to see better what the sun sees on our returnto common every-day beauty. 

Our way from Murphy's to the cave lay across a series of picturesque, moory ridges in the chaparral region between the brown foot-hills andthe forests, a flowery stretch of rolling hill-waves breaking here andthere into a kind of rocky foam on the higher summits, and sinking intodelightful bosky hollows embowered with vines. The day was a finespecimen of California summer, pure sunshine, unshaded most of the timeby a single cloud. As the sun rose higher, the heated air began to flowin tremulous waves from every southern slope. The sea-breeze thatusually comes up the foot-hills at this season, with cooling on itswings, was scarcely perceptible. The birds were assembled beneath leafyshade, or made short, languid flights in search of food, all save themajestic buzzard; with broad wings outspread he sailed the warm airunwearily from ridge to ridge, seeming to enjoy the fervid sunshine likea butterfly. Squirrels, too, whose spicy ardor no heat or cold mayabate, were nutting among the pines, and the innumerable hosts of theinsect kingdom were throbbing and wavering unwearied as sunbeams. 

This brushy, berry-bearing region used to be a deer and bear pasture, but since the disturbances of the gold period these fine animals havealmost wholly disappeared. Here, also, once roamed the mastodon andelephant, whose bones are found entombed in the river gravels andbeneath thick folds of lava. Toward noon, as we were riding slowly overbank and brae, basking in the unfeverish sun-heat, we witnessed theupheaval of a new mountain-range, a Sierra of clouds abounding inlandscapes as truly sublime and beautiful--if only we have a mind tothink so and eyes to see--as the more ancient rocky Sierra beneath it, with its forests and waterfalls; reminding us that, as there is a lowerworld of caves, so, also, there is an upper world of clouds. Huge, bossycumuli developed with astonishing rapidity from mere buds, swelling withvisible motion into colossal mountains, and piling higher, higher, inlong massive ranges, peak beyond peak, dome over dome, with many apicturesque valley and shadowy cave between; while the dark firs andpines of the upper benches of the Sierra were projected against theirpearl bosses with exquisite clearness of outline. These cloud mountainsvanished in the azure as quickly as they were developed, leaving nodetritus; but they were not a whit less real or interesting on thisaccount. The more enduring hills over which we rode were vanishing assurely as they, only not so fast, a difference which is great or smallaccording to the standpoint from which it is contemplated. 

At the bottom of every dell we found little homesteads embosomed in wildbrush and vines wherever the recession of the hills left patches ofarable ground. These secluded flats are settled mostly by Italians andGermans, who plant a few vegetables and grape-vines at odd times, whiletheir main business is mining and prospecting. In spite of all thenatural beauty of these dell cabins, they can hardly be called homes. They are only a better kind of camp, gladly abandoned whenever thehoped-for gold harvest has been gathered. There is an air of profoundunrest and melancholy about the best of them. Their beauty is thrustupon them by exuberant Nature, apart from which they are only a few logsand boards rudely jointed and without either ceiling or floor, a roughfireplace with corresponding cooking utensils, a shelf-bed, and stool. The ground about them is strewn with battered prospecting-pans, picks, sluice-boxes, and quartz specimens from many a ledge, indicating thetrend of their owners' hard lives. 

The ride from Murphy's to the cave is scarcely two hours long, but welingered among quartz-ledges and banks of dead river gravel until longafter noon. At length emerging from a narrow-throated gorge, a smallhouse came in sight set in a thicket of fig-trees at the base of alimestone hill. "That, " said my guide, pointing to the house, "is CaveCity, and the cave is in that gray hill. " Arriving at the one house ofthis one-house city, we were boisterously welcomed by three drunken menwho had come to town to hold a spree. The mistress of the house tried tokeep order, and in reply to our inquiries told us that the cave guidewas then in the cave with a party of ladies. "And must we wait until hereturns?" we asked. No, that was unnecessary; we might take candles andgo into the cave alone, provided we shouted from time to time so as tobe found by the guide, and were careful not to fall over the rocks orinto the dark pools. Accordingly taking a trail from the house, we wereled around the base of the hill to the mouth of the cave, a smallinconspicuous archway, mossy around the edges and shaped like the doorof a water-ouzel's nest, with no appreciable hint or advertisement ofthe grandeur of the many crystal chambers within. Lighting our candles, which seemed to have no illuminating power in the thick darkness, wegroped our way onward as best we could along narrow lanes and alleys, from chamber to chamber, around rustic columns and heaps of fallenrocks, stopping to rest now and then in particularly beautifulplaces--fairy alcoves furnished with admirable variety of shelves andtables, and round bossy stools covered with sparkling crystals. Some ofthe corridors were muddy, and in plodding along these we seemed to be inthe streets of some prairie village in spring-time. Then we would cometo handsome marble stairways conducting right and left into upperchambers ranged above one another three or four stories high, floors, ceilings, and walls lavishly decorated with innumerable crystallineforms. After thus wandering exploringly, and alone for a mile or so, fairly enchanted, a murmur of voices and a gleam of light betrayed theapproach of the guide and his party, from whom, when they came up, wereceived a most hearty and natural stare, as we stood half concealed ina side recess among stalagmites. I ventured to ask the dripping, crouching company how they had enjoyed their saunter, anxious to learnhow the strange sunless scenery of the underworld had impressed them. "Ah, it's nice! It's splendid!" they all replied and echoed. "The BridalChamber back here is just glorious! This morning we came down from theCalaveras Big Tree Grove, and the trees are nothing to it. " After makingthis curious comparison they hastened sunward, the guide promising tojoin us shortly on the bank of a deep pool, where we were to wait forhim. This is a charming little lakelet of unknown depth, never yetstirred by a breeze, and its eternal calm excites the imagination evenmore profoundly than the silvery lakes of the glaciers rimmed withmeadows and snow and reflecting sublime mountains. 

Our guide, a jolly, rollicking Italian, led us into the heart of thehill, up and down, right and left, from chamber to chamber more and moremagnificent, all a-glitter like a glacier cave with icicle-likestalactites and stalagmites combined in forms of indescribable beauty. We were shown one large room that was occasionally used as adancing-hall; another that was used as a chapel, with natural pulpit andcrosses and pews, sermons in every stone, where a priest had said mass. Mass-saying is not so generally developed in connection with naturalwonders as dancing. One of the first conceits excited by the giantSequoias was to cut one of them down and dance on its stump. We havealso seen dancing in the spray of Niagara; dancing in the famous BowerCave above Coulterville; and nowhere have I seen so much dancing as inYosemite. A dance on the inaccessible South Dome would likely follow themaking of an easy way to the top of it. 

It was delightful to witness here the infinite deliberation of Nature, and the simplicity of her methods in the production of such mightyresults, such perfect repose combined with restless enthusiastic energy. Though cold and bloodless as a landscape of polar ice, building wasgoing on in the dark with incessant activity. The archways and ceilingswere everywhere hung with down-growing crystals, like inverted groves ofleafless saplings, some of them large, others delicately attenuated, each tipped with a single drop of water, like the terminal bud of apine-tree. The only appreciable sounds were the dripping and tinkling ofwater failing into pools or faintly plashing on the crystal floors. 

In some places the crystal decorations are arranged in graceful flowingfolds deeply plicated like stiff silken drapery. In others straightlines of the ordinary stalactite forms are combined with reference tosize and tone in a regularly graduated system like the strings of a harpwith musical tones corresponding thereto; and on these stone harps weplayed by striking the crystal strings with a stick. The deliciousliquid tones they gave forth seemed perfectly divine as they sweetlywhispered and wavered through the majestic halls and died away infaintest cadence, --the music of fairy-land. Here we lingered andreveled, rejoicing to find so much music in stony silence, so muchsplendor in darkness, so many mansions in the depths of the mountains, buildings ever in process of construction, yet ever finished, developingfrom perfection to perfection, profusion without overabundance; everyparticle visible or invisible in glorious motion, marching to the musicof the spheres in a region regarded as the abode of eternal stillnessand death. 

The outer chambers of mountain caves are frequently selected as homes bywild beasts. In the Sierra, however, they seem to prefer homes andhiding-places in chaparral and beneath shelving precipices, as I havenever seen their tracks in any of the caves. This is the more remarkablebecause notwithstanding the darkness and oozing water there is nothinguncomfortably cellar-like or sepulchral about them. 

When we emerged into the bright landscapes of the sun everything lookedbrighter, and we felt our faith in Nature's beauty strengthened, and sawmore clearly that beauty is universal and immortal, above, beneath, onland and sea, mountain and plain, in heat and cold, light and darkness. 

CHAPTER XVI

THE BEE-PASTURES

When California was wild, it was one sweet bee-garden throughout itsentire length, north and south, and all the way across from the snowySierra to the ocean. 

Wherever a bee might fly within the bounds of this virginwilderness--through the redwood forests, along the banks of the rivers, along the bluffs and headlands fronting the sea, over valley and plain, park and grove, and deep, leafy glen, or far up the piny slopes of themountains--throughout every belt and section of climate up to the timberline, bee-flowers bloomed in lavish, abundance. Here they grew more orless apart in special sheets and patches of no great size, there inbroad, flowing folds hundreds of miles in length--zones of pollenyforests, zones of flowery chaparral, stream-tangles of rubus and wildrose, sheets of golden composite, beds of violets, beds of mint, beds ofbryanthus and clover, and so on, certain species blooming somewhere allthe year round. 

But of late years plows and sheep have made sad havoc in these gloriouspastures, destroying tens of thousands of the flowery acres like a fire, and banishing many species of the best honey-plants to rocky cliffs andfence-corners, while, on the other hand, cultivation thus far has givenno adequate compensation, at least in kind; only acres of alfalfa formiles of the richest wild pasture, ornamental roses and honeysucklesaround cottage doors for cascades of wild roses in the dells, and small, square orchards and orange-groves for broad mountain-belts of chaparral. 

The Great Central Plain of California, during the months of March, April, and May, was one smooth, continuous bed of honey-bloom, somarvelously rich that, in walking from one end of it to the other, adistance of more than 400 miles, your foot would press about a hundredflowers at every step. Mints, gilias, nemophilas, castilleias, andinnumerable compositae were so crowded together that, had ninety-nineper cent. Of them been taken away, the plain would still have seemed toany but Californians extravagantly flowery. The radiant, honeyfulcorollas, touching and overlapping, and rising above one another, glowedin the living light like a sunset sky--one sheet of purple and gold, with the bright Sacramento pouring through the midst of it from thenorth, the San Joaquin from the south, and their many tributariessweeping in at right angles from the mountains, dividing the plain intosections fringed with trees. 

Along the rivers there is a strip of bottom-land, countersunk beneaththe general level, and wider toward the foot-hills, where magnificentoaks, from three to eight feet in diameter, cast grateful masses ofshade over the open, prairie-like levels. And close along the water'sedge there was a fine jungle of tropical luxuriance, composed ofwild-rose and bramble bushes and a great variety of climbing vines, wreathing and interlacing the branches and trunks of willows and alders, and swinging across from summit to summit in heavy festoons. Here thewild bees reveled in fresh bloom long after the flowers of the drierplain had withered and gone to seed. And in midsummer, when the"blackberries" were ripe, the Indians came from the mountains tofeast--men, women, and babies in long, noisy trains, often joined by thefarmers of the neighborhood, who gathered this wild fruit withcommendable appreciation of its superior flavor, while their homeorchards were full of ripe peaches, apricots, nectarines, and figs, andtheir vineyards were laden with grapes. But, though these luxuriant, shaggy river-beds were thus distinct from the smooth, treeless plain, they made no heavy dividing lines in general views. The whole appearedas one continuous sheet of bloom bounded only by the mountains. 

When I first saw this central garden, the most extensive and regular ofall the bee-pastures of the State, it seemed all one sheet of plantgold, hazy and vanishing in the distance, distinct as a new map alongthe foot-hills at my feet. 

Descending the eastern slopes of the Coast Range through beds of giliasand lupines, and around many a breezy hillock and bush-crowned headland, I at length waded out into the midst of it. All the ground was covered, not with grass and green leaves, but with radiant corollas, aboutankle-deep next the foot-hills, knee-deep or more five or six miles out. Here were bahia, madia, madaria, burrielia, chrysopsis, corethrogyne, grindelia, etc. , growing in close social congregations of various shadesof yellow, blending finely with the purples of clarkia, orthocarpus, andoenothera, whose delicate petals were drinking the vital sunbeamswithout giving back any sparkling glow. 

[Illustration: A BEE-RANCH IN LOWER CALIFORNIA. ]

Because so long a period of extreme drought succeeds the rainy season, most of the vegetation is composed of annuals, which spring upsimultaneously, and bloom together at about the same height above theground, the general surface being but slightly ruffled by the tallerphacelias, pentstemons, and groups of _Salvia carduacea_, the king ofthe mints. 

Sauntering in any direction, hundreds of these happy sun-plants brushedagainst my feet at every step, and closed over them as if I were wadingin liquid gold. The air was sweet with fragrance, the larks sang theirblessed songs, rising on the wing as I advanced, then sinking out ofsight in the polleny sod, while myriads of wild bees stirred the lowerair with their monotonous hum--monotonous, yet forever fresh and sweetas every-day sunshine. Hares and spermophiles showed themselves inconsiderable numbers in shallow places, and small bands of antelopeswere almost constantly in sight, gazing curiously from some slightelevation, and then bounding swiftly away with unrivaled grace ofmotion. Yet I could discover no crushed flowers to mark their track, nor, indeed, any destructive action of any wild foot or tooth whatever. 

The great yellow days circled by uncounted, while I drifted toward thenorth, observing the countless forms of life thronging about me, lyingdown almost anywhere on the approach of night. And what gloriousbotanical beds I had! Oftentimes on awaking I would find several newspecies leaning over me and looking me full in the face, so that mystudies would begin before rising. 

About the first of May I turned eastward, crossing the San Joaquin Riverbetween the mouths of the Tuolumne and Merced, and by the time I hadreached the Sierra foot-hills most of the vegetation had gone to seedand become as dry as hay. 

All the seasons of the great plain are warm or temperate, andbee-flowers are never wholly wanting; but the grand springtime--theannual resurrection--is governed by the rains, which usually set inabout the middle of November or the beginning of December. Then theseeds, that for six months have lain on the ground dry and fresh as ifthey had been gathered into barns, at once unfold their treasured life. The general brown and purple of the ground, and the dead vegetation ofthe preceding year, give place to the green of mosses and liverworts andmyriads of young leaves. Then one species after another comes intoflower, gradually overspreading the green with yellow and purple, whichlasts until May. 

The "rainy season" is by no means a gloomy, soggy period of constantcloudiness and rain. Perhaps nowhere else in North America, perhaps inthe world, are the months of December, January, February, and March sofull of bland, plant-building sunshine. Referring to my notes of thewinter and spring of 1868-69, every day of which I spent out of doors, on that section of the plain lying between the Tuolumne and Mercedrivers, I find that the first rain of the season fell on December 18th. January had only six rainy days--that is, days on which rain fell;February three, March five, April three, and May three, completing theso-called rainy season, which was about an average one. The ordinaryrain-storm of this region is seldom very cold or violent. The winds, which in settled weather come from the northwest, veer round into theopposite direction, the sky fills gradually and evenly with one generalcloud, from which, the rain falls steadily, often for days insuccession, at a temperature of about 45° or 50°. 

More than seventy-five per cent. Of all the rain of this season camefrom the northwest, down the coast over southeastern Alaska, BritishColumbia, Washington, and Oregon, though the local winds of thesecircular storms blow from the southeast. One magnificent local stormfrom the northwest fell on March 21. A massive, round-browed cloud cameswelling and thundering over the flowery plain in most imposing majesty, its bossy front burning white and purple in the full blaze of the sun, while warm rain poured from its ample fountains like a cataract, beatingdown flowers and bees, and flooding the dry watercourses as suddenly asthose of Nevada are flooded by the so-called "cloudbursts. " But in lessthan half an hour not a trace of the heavy, mountain-like cloud-structurewas left in the sky, and the bees were on the wing, as if nothing moregratefully refreshing could have been sent them. 

By the end of January four species of plants were in flower, and five orsix mosses had already adjusted their hoods and were in the prime oflife; but the flowers were not sufficiently numerous as yet to affectgreatly the general green of the young leaves. Violets made theirappearance in the first week of February, and toward the end of thismonth the warmer portions of the plain were already golden with myriadsof the flowers of rayed composite. 

This was the full springtime. The sunshine grew warmer and richer, newplants bloomed every day; the air became more tuneful with hummingwings, and sweeter with the fragrance of the opening flowers. Ants andground squirrels were getting ready for their summer work, rubbing theirbenumbed limbs, and sunning themselves on the husk-piles before theirdoors, and spiders were busy mending their old webs, or weaving newones. 

In March, the vegetation was more than doubled in depth and color;claytonia, calandrinia, a large white gilia, and two nemophilas were inbloom, together with a host of yellow composite, tall enough now to bendin the wind and show wavering ripples of shade. 

In April, plant-life, as a whole, reached its greatest height, and theplain, over all its varied surface, was mantled with a close, furredplush of purple and golden corollas. By the end of this month, most ofthe species had ripened their seeds, but undecayed, still seemed to bein bloom from the numerous corolla-like involucres and whorls of chaffyscales of the composite. In May, the bees found in flower only a fewdeep-set liliaceous plants and eriogonums. 

June, July, August, and September is the season of rest and sleep, --awinter of dry heat, --followed in October by a second outburst of bloomat the very driest time of the year. Then, after the shrunken mass ofleaves and stalks of the dead vegetation crinkle and turn to dustbeneath the foot, as if it had been baked in an oven, _Hemizoniavirgata_, a slender, unobtrusive little plant, from six inches to threefeet high, suddenly makes its appearance in patches miles in extent, like a resurrection of the bloom of April. I have counted upward of 3000flowers, five eighths of an inch in diameter, on a single plant. Bothits leaves and stems are so slender as to be nearly invisible, at adistance of a few yards, amid so showy a multitude of flowers. The rayand disk flowers are both yellow, the stamens purple, and the texture ofthe rays is rich and velvety, like the petals of garden pansies. Theprevailing wind turns all the heads round to the southeast, so that infacing northwestward we have the flowers looking us in the face. In myestimation, this little plant, the last born of the brilliant host ofcompositae that glorify the plain, is the most interesting of all. Itremains in flower until November, uniting with two or three species ofwiry eriogonums, which continue the floral chain around December to thespring flowers of January. Thus, although the main bloom and honeyseason is only about three months long, the floral circle, however thinaround some of the hot, rainless months, is never completely broken. 

How long the various species of wild bees have lived in thishoney-garden, nobody knows; probably ever since the main body of thepresent flora gained possession of the land, toward the close of theglacial period. The first brown honey-bees brought to California aresaid to have arrived in San Francisco in March, 1853. A bee-keeper bythe name of Shelton purchased a lot, consisting of twelve swarms, fromsome one at Aspinwall, who had brought them from New York. When landedat San Francisco, all the hives contained live bees, but they finallydwindled to one hive, which was taken to San José. The little immigrantsflourished and multiplied in the bountiful pastures of the Santa ClaraValley, sending off three swarms the first season. The owner was killedshortly afterward, and in settling up his estate, two of the swarms weresold at auction for $105 and $110 respectively. Other importations weremade, from time to time, by way of the Isthmus, and, though great painswere taken to insure success, about one half usually died on the way. Four swarms were brought safely across the plains in 1859, the hivesbeing placed in the rear end of a wagon, which was stopped in theafternoon to allow the bees to fly and feed in the floweriest placesthat were within reach until dark, when the hives were closed. 

In 1855, two years after the time of the first arrivals from New York, asingle swarm was brought over from San José, and let fly in the GreatCentral Plain. Bee-culture, however, has never gained much attentionhere, notwithstanding the extraordinary abundance of honey-bloom, andthe high price of honey during the early years. A few hives are foundhere and there among settlers who chanced to have learned somethingabout the business before coming to the State. But sheep, cattle, grain, and fruit raising are the chief industries, as they require less skilland care, while the profits thus far have been greater. In 1856 honeysold here at from one and a half to two dollars per pound. Twelve yearslater the price had fallen to twelve and a half cents. In 1868 I satdown to dinner with a band of ravenous sheep-shearers at a ranch on theSan Joaquin, where fifteen or twenty hives were kept, and our hostadvised us not to spare the large pan of honey he had placed on thetable, as it was the cheapest article he had to offer. In all my walks, however, I have never come upon a regular bee-ranch in the CentralValley like those so common and so skilfully managed in the southerncounties of the State. The few pounds of honey and wax produced areconsumed at home, and are scarcely taken into account among the coarserproducts of the farm. The swarms that escape from their careless ownershave a weary, perplexing time of it in seeking suitable homes. Most ofthem make their way to the foot-hills of the mountains, or to the treesthat line the banks of the rivers, where some hollow log or trunk may befound. A friend of mine, while out hunting on the San Joaquin, came uponan old coon trap, hidden among some tall grass, near the edge of theriver, upon which he sat down to rest. Shortly afterward his attentionwas attracted to a crowd of angry bees that were flying excitedly abouthis head, when he discovered that he was sitting upon their hive, whichwas found to contain more than 200 pounds of honey. Out in the broad, swampy delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, the littlewanderers have been known to build their combs in a bunch of rushes, orstiff, wiry grass, only slightly protected from the weather, and indanger every spring of being carried away by floods. They have theadvantage, however, of a vast extent of fresh pasture, accessible onlyto themselves. 

The present condition of the Grand Central Garden is very different fromthat we have sketched. About twenty years ago, when the gold placers hadbeen pretty thoroughly exhausted, the attention of fortune-seekers--nothome-seekers--was, in great part, turned away from the mines to thefertile plains, and many began experiments in a kind of restless, wildagriculture. A load of lumber would be hauled to some spot on the freewilderness, where water could be easily found, and a rude box-cabinbuilt. Then a gang-plow was procured, and a dozen mustang ponies, worthten or fifteen dollars apiece, and with these hundreds of acres werestirred as easily as if the land had been under cultivation for years, tough, perennial roots being almost wholly absent. Thus a ranch wasestablished, and from these bare wooden huts, as centers of desolation, the wild flora vanished in ever-widening circles. But the archdestroyers are the shepherds, with their flocks of hoofed locusts, sweeping over the ground like a fire, and trampling down every rod thatescapes the plow as completely as if the whole plain were a cottagegarden-plot without a fence. But notwithstanding these destroyers, athousand swarms of bees may be pastured here for every one now gatheringhoney. The greater portion is still covered every season with arepressed growth of bee-flowers, for most of the species are annuals, and many of them are not relished by sheep or cattle, while the rapidityof their growth enables them to develop and mature their seeds beforeany foot has time to crush them. The ground is, therefore, kept sweet, and the race is perpetuated, though only as a suggestive shadow of themagnificence of its wildness. 

The time will undoubtedly come when the entire area of this noble valleywill be tilled like a garden, when the fertilizing waters of themountains, now flowing to the sea, will be distributed to every acre, giving rise to prosperous towns, wealth, arts, etc. Then, I suppose, there will be few left, even among botanists, to deplore the vanishedprimeval flora. In the mean time, the pure waste going on--the wantondestruction of the innocents--is a sad sight to see, and the sun maywell be pitied in being compelled to look on. 

The bee-pastures of the Coast Ranges last longer and are more variedthan those of the great plain, on account of differences of soil andclimate, moisture, and shade, etc. Some of the mountains are upward of4000 feet in height, and small streams, springs, oozy bogs, etc. , occurin great abundance and variety in the wooded regions, while open parks, flooded with sunshine, and hill-girt valleys lying at differentelevations, each with its own peculiar climate and exposure, possess therequired conditions for the development of species and families ofplants widely varied. 

Next the plain there is, first, a series of smooth hills, planted with arich and showy vegetation that differs but little from that of the plainitself--as if the edge of the plain had been lifted and bent intoflowing folds, with all its flowers in place, only toned down a littleas to their luxuriance, and a few new species introduced, such as thehill lupines, mints, and gilias. The colors show finely when thus heldto view on the slopes; patches of red, purple, blue, yellow, and white, blending around the edges, the whole appearing at a little distance likea map colored in sections. 

Above this lies the park and chaparral region, with oaks, mostlyevergreen, planted wide apart, and blooming shrubs from three to tenfeet high; manzanita and ceanothus of several species, mixed withrhamnus, cercis, pickeringia, cherry, amelanchier, and adenostoma, inshaggy, interlocking thickets, and many species of hosackia, clover, monardella, castilleia, etc. , in the openings. 

The main ranges send out spurs somewhat parallel to their axes, inclosing level valleys, many of them quite extensive, and containing agreat profusion of sun-loving bee-flowers in their wild state; but theseare, in great part, already lost to the bees by cultivation. 

Nearer the coast are the giant forests of the redwoods, extending fromnear the Oregon line to Santa Cruz. Beneath the cool, deep shade ofthese majestic trees the ground is occupied by ferns, chiefly woodwardiaand aspidiums, with only a few flowering plants--oxalis, trientalis, erythronium, fritillaria, smilax, and other shade-lovers. But all alongthe redwood belt there are sunny openings on hill-slopes looking to thesouth, where the giant trees stand back, and give the ground to thesmall sunflowers and the bees. Around the lofty redwood walls of theselittle bee-acres there is usually a fringe of Chestnut Oak, Laurel, andMadroño, the last of which is a surpassingly beautiful tree, and a greatfavorite with the bees. The trunks of the largest specimens are seven oreight feet thick, and about fifty feet high; the bark red and chocolatecolored, the leaves plain, large, and glossy, like those of _Magnoliagrandiflora_, while the flowers are yellowish-white, and urn-shaped, inwell-proportioned panicles, from five to ten inches long. When in fullbloom, a single tree seems to be visited at times by a whole hive ofbees at once, and the deep hum of such a multitude makes the listenerguess that more than the ordinary work of honey-winning must be goingon. 

How perfectly enchanting and care-obliterating are these withdrawngardens of the woods--long vistas opening to the sea--sunshine siftingand pouring upon the flowery ground in a tremulous, shifting mosaic, asthe light-ways in the leafy wall open and close with the swayingbreeze--shining leaves and flowers, birds and bees, mingling together inspringtime harmony, and soothing fragrance exhaling from a thousandthousand fountains! In these balmy, dissolving days, when the deepheart-beats of Nature are felt thrilling rocks and trees and everythingalike, common business and friends are happily forgotten, and even thenatural honey-work of bees, and the care of birds for their young, andmothers for their children, seem slightly out of place. 

To the northward, in Humboldt and the adjacent counties, whole hillsidesare covered with rhododendron, making a glorious melody of bee-bloom inthe spring. And the Western azalea, hardly less flowery, grows in massythickets three to eight feet high around the edges of groves and woodsas far south as San Luis Obispo, usually accompanied by manzanita; whilethe valleys, with their varying moisture and shade, yield a rich varietyof the smaller honey-flowers, such as mentha, lycopus, micromeria, audibertia, trichostema, and other mints; with vaccinium, wildstrawberry, geranium, calais, and goldenrod; and in the cool glens alongthe stream-banks, where the shade of trees is not too deep, spiraea, dog-wood, heteromeles, and calycanthus, and many species of rubus forminterlacing tangles, some portion of which continues in bloom formonths. 

Though the coast region was the first to be invaded and settled by whitemen, it has suffered less from a bee point of view than either of theother main divisions, chiefly, no doubt, because of the unevenness ofthe surface, and because it is owned and protected instead of lyingexposed to the flocks of the wandering "sheepmen. " These remarks applymore particularly to the north half of the coast. Farther south there isless moisture, less forest shade, and the honey flora is less varied. 

The Sierra region is the largest of the three main divisions of thebee-lands of the State, and the most regularly varied in itssubdivisions, owing to their gradual rise from the level of the CentralPlain to the alpine summits. The foot-hill region is about as dry andsunful, from the end of May until the setting in of the winter rains, asthe plain. There are no shady forests, no damp glens, at all like thoselying at the same elevations in the Coast Mountains. The socialcompositae of the plain, with a few added species, form the bulk of theherbaceous portion of the vegetation up to a height of 1500 feet ormore, shaded lightly here and there with oaks and Sabine Pines, andinterrupted by patches of ceanothus and buckeye. Above this, and justbelow the forest region, there is a dark, heath-like belt of chaparral, composed almost exclusively of _Adenostoma fasciculata_, a bushbelonging to the rose family, from five to eight feet high, with small, round leaves in fascicles, and bearing a multitude of small whiteflowers in panicles on the ends of the upper branches. Where it occursat all, it usually covers all the ground with a close, impenetrablegrowth, scarcely broken for miles. 

Up through the forest region, to a height of about 9000 feet abovesea-level, there are ragged patches of manzanita, and five or sixspecies of ceanothus, called deer-brush or California lilac. These arethe most important of all the honey-bearing bushes of the Sierra. _Chamaebatia foliolosa_, a little shrub about a foot high, with flowerslike the strawberry, makes handsome carpets beneath the pines, and seemsto be a favorite with the bees; while pines themselves furnish unlimitedquantities of pollen and honey-dew. The product of a single tree, ripening its pollen at the right time of year, would be sufficient forthe wants of a whole hive. Along the streams there is a rich growth oflilies, larkspurs, pedicularis, castilleias, and clover. The alpineregion contains the flowery glacier meadows, and countless small gardensin all sorts of places full of potentilla of several species, spraguea, ivesia, epilobium, and goldenrod, with beds of bryanthus and thecharming cassiope covered with sweet bells. Even the tops of themountains are blessed with flowers, --dwarf phlox, polemonium, ribes, hulsea, etc. I have seen wild bees and butterflies feeding at a heightof 13, 000 feet above the sea. Many, however, that go up these dangerousheights never come down again. Some, undoubtedly, perish in storms, andI have found thousands lying dead or benumbed on the surface of theglaciers, to which they had perhaps been attracted by the white glare, taking them for beds of bloom. 

From swarms that escaped their owners in the lowlands, the honey-bee isnow generally distributed throughout the whole length of the Sierra, upto an elevation of 8000 feet above sea-level. At this height theyflourish without care, though the snow every winter is deep. Even higherthan this several bee-trees have been cut which contained over 200pounds of honey. 

The destructive action of sheep has not been so general on the mountainpastures as on those of the great plain, but in many places it has beenmore complete, owing to the more friable character of the soil, and itssloping position. The slant digging and down-raking action of hoofs onthe steeper slopes of moraines has uprooted and buried many of thetender plants from year to year, without allowing them time to maturetheir seeds. The shrubs, too, are badly bitten, especially the variousspecies of ceanothus. Fortunately, neither sheep nor cattle care to feedon the manzanita, spiraea, or adenostoma; and these fine honey-bushesare too stiff and tall, or grow in places too rough and inaccessible, tobe trodden under foot. Also the cañon walls and gorges, which form soconsiderable a part of the area of the range, while inaccessible todomestic sheep, are well fringed with honey-shrubs, and containthousands of lovely bee-gardens, lying hid in narrow side-cañons andrecesses fenced with avalanche taluses, and on the top of flat, projecting headlands, where only bees would think to look for them. 

But, on the other hand, a great portion of the woody plants that escapethe feet and teeth of the sheep are destroyed by the shepherds by meansof running fires, which are set everywhere during the dry autumn for thepurpose of burning off the old fallen trunks and underbrush, with a viewto improving the pastures, and making more open ways for the flocks. These destructive sheep-fires sweep through nearly the entire forestbelt of the range, from one extremity to the other, consuming not onlythe underbrush, but the young trees and seedlings on which thepermanence of the forests depends; thus setting in motion a long trainof evils which will certainly reach far beyond bees and beekeepers. 

[Illustration: WILD BEE GARDEN. ]

The plow has not yet invaded the forest region to any appreciableextent, neither has it accomplished much in the foot-hills. Thousands ofbee-ranches might be established along the margin of the plain, and upto a height of 4000 feet, wherever water could be obtained. The climateat this elevation admits of the making of permanent homes, and by movingthe hives to higher pastures as the lower pass out of bloom, the annualyield of honey would be nearly doubled. The foot-hill pastures, as wehave seen, fail about the end of May, those of the chaparral belt andlower forests are in full bloom in June, those of the upper and alpineregion in July, August, and September. In Scotland, after the best ofthe Lowland bloom is past, the bees are carried in carts to theHighlands, and set free on the heather hills. In France, too, and inPoland, they are carried from pasture to pasture among orchards andfields in the same way, and along the rivers in barges to collect thehoney of the delightful vegetation of the banks. In Egypt they are takenfar up the Nile, and floated slowly home again, gathering thehoney-harvest of the various fields on the way, timing their movementsin accord with the seasons. Were similar methods pursued in Californiathe productive season would last nearly all the year. 

The average elevation of the north half of the Sierra is, as we haveseen, considerably less than that of the south half, and small streams, with the bank and meadow gardens dependent upon them, are less abundant. Around the head waters of the Yuba, Feather, and Pitt rivers, theextensive tablelands of lava are sparsely planted with pines, throughwhich the sunshine reaches the ground with little interruption. Hereflourishes a scattered, tufted growth of golden applopappus, linosyris, bahia, wyetheia, arnica, artemisia, and similar plants; with manzanita, cherry, plum, and thorn in ragged patches on the cooler hill-slopes. Atthe extremities of the Great Central Plain, the Sierra and Coast Rangescurve around and lock together in a labyrinth of mountains and valleys, throughout which their floras are mingled, making at the north, with itstemperate climate and copious rainfall, a perfect paradise for bees, though, strange to say, scarcely a single regular bee-ranch has yet beenestablished in it. 

Of all the upper flower fields of the Sierra, Shasta is the mosthoneyful, and may yet surpass in fame the celebrated honey hills ofHybla and hearthy Hymettus. Regarding this noble mountain from a beepoint of view, encircled by its many climates, and sweeping aloft fromthe torrid plain into the frosty azure, we find the first 5000 feet fromthe summit generally snow-clad, and therefore about as honeyless as thesea. The base of this arctic region is girdled by a belt of crumblinglava measuring about 1000 feet in vertical breadth, and is mostly freefrom snow in summer. Beautiful lichens enliven the faces of the cliffswith their bright colors, and in some of the warmer nooks there are afew tufts of alpine daisies, wall-flowers and pentstemons; but, notwithstanding these bloom freely in the late summer, the zone as awhole is almost as honeyless as the icy summit, and its lower edge maybe taken as the honey-line. Immediately below this comes the forestzone, covered with a rich growth of conifers, chiefly Silver Firs, richin pollen and honey-dew, and diversified with countless garden openings, many of them less than a hundred yards across. Next, in orderlysuccession, comes the great bee zone. Its area far surpasses that of theicy summit and both the other zones combined, for it goes sweepingmajestically around the entire mountain, with a breadth of six or sevenmiles and a circumference of nearly a hundred miles. 

Shasta, as we have already seen, is a fire-mountain created by asuccession of eruptions of ashes and molten lava, which, flowing overthe lips of its several craters, grew outward and upward like the trunkof a knotty exogenous tree. Then followed a strange contrast. Theglacial winter came on, loading the cooling mountain with ice, whichflowed slowly outward in every direction, radiating from the summit inthe form of one vast conical glacier--a down-crawling mantle of ice upona fountain of smoldering fire, crushing and grinding for centuries itsbrown, flinty lavas with incessant activity, and thus degrading andremodeling the entire mountain. When, at length, the glacial periodbegan to draw near its close, the ice-mantle was gradually melted offaround the bottom, and, in receding and breaking into its presentfragmentary condition, irregular rings and heaps of moraine matter werestored upon its flanks. The glacial erosion of most of the Shasta lavasproduces detritus, composed of rough, sub-angular boulders of moderatesize and of porous gravel and sand, which yields freely to thetransporting power of running water. Magnificent floods from the amplefountains of ice and snow working with sublime energy upon this preparedglacial detritus, sorted it out and carried down immense quantities fromthe higher slopes, and reformed it in smooth, delta-like beds around thebase; and it is these flood-beds joined together that now form the mainhoney-zone of the old volcano. 

Thus, by forces seemingly antagonistic and destructive, has MotherNature accomplished her beneficent designs--now a flood of fire, now aflood of ice, now a flood of water; and at length an outburst of organiclife, a milky way of snowy petals and wings, girdling the ruggedmountain like a cloud, as if the vivifying sunbeams beating against itssides had broken into a foam of plant-bloom and bees, as sea-waves breakand bloom on a rock shore. 

In this flowery wilderness the bees rove and revel, rejoicing in thebounty of the sun, clambering eagerly through bramble and hucklebloom, ringing the myriad bells of the manzanita, now humming aloft amongpolleny willows and firs, now down on the ashy ground among gilias andbuttercups, and anon plunging deep into snowy banks of cherry andbuckthorn. They consider the lilies and roll into them, and, likelilies, they toil not, for they are impelled by sun-power, aswater-wheels by water-power; and when the one has plenty ofhigh-pressure water, the other plenty of sunshine, they hum and quiveralike. Sauntering in the Shasta bee-lands in the sun-days of summer, onemay readily infer the time of day from the comparative energy ofbee-movements alone--drowsy and moderate in the cool of the morning, increasing in energy with the ascending sun, and, at high noon, thrilling and quivering in wild ecstasy, then gradually declining againto the stillness of night. In my excursions among the glaciers Ioccasionally meet bees that are hungry, like mountaineers who venturetoo far and remain too long above the bread-line; then they droop andwither like autumn leaves. The Shasta bees are perhaps better fed thanany others in the Sierra. Their field-work is one perpetual feast; but, however exhilarating the sunshine or bountiful the supply of flowers, they are always dainty feeders. Humming-moths and hummingbirds seldomset foot upon a flower, but poise on the wing in front of it, and reachforward as if they were sucking through straws. But bees, though, asdainty as they, hug their favorite flowers with profound cordiality, andpush their blunt, polleny faces against them, like babies on theirmother's bosom. And fondly, too, with eternal love, does Mother Natureclasp her small bee-babies, and suckle them, multitudes at once, on herwarm Shasta breast. 

Besides the common honey-bee there are many other species here--finemossy, burly fellows, who were nourished on the mountains thousands ofsunny seasons before the advent of the domestic species. Among these arethe bumblebees, mason-bees, carpenter-bees, and leaf-cutters. Butterflies, too, and moths of every size and pattern; some broad-wingedlike bats, flapping slowly, and sailing in easy curves; others likesmall, flying violets, shaking about loosely in short, crooked flightsclose to the flowers, feasting luxuriously night and day. Great numbersof deer also delight to dwell in the brushy portions of thebee-pastures. 

Bears, too, roam the sweet wilderness, their blunt, shaggy formsharmonizing well with the trees and tangled bushes, and with the bees, also, notwithstanding the disparity in size. They are fond of all goodthings, and enjoy them to the utmost, with but little troublesomediscrimination--flowers and leaves as well as berries, and the beesthemselves as well as their honey. Though the California bears have asyet had but little experience with honeybees, they often succeed inreaching their bountiful stores, and it seems doubtful whether beesthemselves enjoy honey with so great a relish. By means of theirpowerful teeth and claws they can gnaw and tear open almost any hiveconveniently accessible. Most honey-bees, however, in search of a homeare wise enough to make choice of a hollow in a living tree, aconsiderable distance above the ground, when such places are to be had;then they are pretty secure, for though the smaller black and brownbears climb well, they are unable to break into strong hives whilecompelled to exert themselves to keep from falling, and at the same timeto endure the stings of the fighting bees without having their paws freeto rub them off. But woe to the black bumblebees discovered in theirmossy nests in the ground! With a few strokes of their huge paws thebears uncover the entire establishment, and, before time is given for ageneral buzz, bees old and young, larvae, honey, stings, nest, and allare taken in one ravishing mouthful. 

Not the least influential of the agents concerned in the superiorsweetness of the Shasta flora are its storms--storms I mean that arestrictly local, bred and born on the mountain. The magical rapidity withwhich they are grown on the mountain-top, and bestow their charity inrain and snow, never fails to astonish the inexperienced lowlander. Often in calm, glowing days, while the bees are still on the wing, astorm-cloud may be seen far above in the pure ether, swelling its pearlbosses, and growing silently, like a plant. Presently a clear, ringingdischarge of thunder is heard, followed by a rush of wind that comessounding over the bending woods like the roar of the ocean, minglingraindrops, snow-flowers, honey-flowers, and bees in wild storm harmony. 

Still more impressive are the warm, reviving days of spring in themountain pastures. The blood of the plants throbbing beneath thelife-giving sunshine seems to be heard and felt. Plant growth goes onbefore our eyes, and every tree in the woods, and every bush and floweris seen as a hive of restless industry. The deeps of the sky are mottledwith singing wings of every tone and color; clouds of brilliantchrysididae dancing and swirling in exquisite rhythm, golden-barredvespidae, dragon-flies, butterflies, grating cicadas, and jolly, rattling grasshoppers, fairly enameling the light. 

[Illustration: IN THE SAN GABRIEL VALLEY. --WHITE SAGE. ]

On bright, crisp mornings a striking optical effect may frequently beobserved from the shadows of the higher mountains while the sunbeams arepouring past overhead. Then every insect, no matter what may be its ownproper color, burns white in the light. Gauzy-winged hymenoptera, moths, jet-black beetles, all are transfigured alike in pure, spiritualwhite, like snowflakes. 

In Southern California, where bee-culture has had so much skilfulattention of late years, the pasturage is not more abundant, or moreadvantageously varied as to the number of its honey-plants and theirdistribution over mountain and plain, than that of many other portionsof the State where the industrial currents flow in other channels. Thefamous White Sage (_Audibertia_), belonging to the mint family, flourishes here in all its glory, blooming in May, and yielding greatquantities of clear, pale honey, which is greatly prized in every marketit has yet reached. This species grows chiefly in the valleys and lowhills. The Black Sage on the mountains is part of a dense, thornychaparral, which is composed chiefly of adenostoma, ceanothus, manzanita, and cherry--not differing greatly from that of the southernportion of the Sierra, but more dense and continuous, and taller, andremaining longer in bloom. Stream-side gardens, so charming a feature ofboth the Sierra and Coast Mountains, are less numerous in SouthernCalifornia, but they are exceedingly rich in honey-flowers, whereverfound, --melilotus, columbine, collinsia, verbena, zauschneria, wildrose, honeysuckle, philadelphus, and lilies rising from the warm, moistdells in a very storm of exuberance. Wild buckwheat of many species isdeveloped in abundance over the dry, sandy valleys and lower slopes ofthe mountains, toward the end of summer, and is, at this time, the maindependence of the bees, reinforced here and there by orange groves, alfalfa fields, and small home gardens. 

The main honey months, in ordinary seasons, are April, May, June, July, and August; while the other months are usually flowery enough to yieldsufficient for the bees. 

According to Mr. J. T. Gordon, President of the Los Angeles CountyBee-keepers' Association, the first bees introduced into the county werea single hive, which cost $150 in San Francisco, and arrived inSeptember, 1854. [1] In April, of the following year, this hive sent outtwo swarms, which were sold for $100 each. From this small beginning thebees gradually multiplied to about 3000 swarms in the year 1873. In 1876it was estimated that there were between 15, 000 and 20, 000 hives in thecounty, producing an annual yield of about 100 pounds to the hive--insome exceptional cases, a much greater yield. 

In San Diego County, at the beginning of the season of 1878, there wereabout 24, 000 hives, and the shipments from the one port of San Diego forthe same year, from July 17 to November 10, were 1071 barrels, 15, 544cases, and nearly 90 tons. The largest bee-ranches have about a thousandhives, and are carefully and skilfully managed, every scientificappliance of merit being brought into use. There are few bee-keepers, however, who own half as many as this, or who give their undividedattention to the business. Orange culture, at present, is heavilyovershadowing every other business. 

A good many of the so-called bee-ranches of Los Angeles and San Diegocounties are still of the rudest pioneer kind imaginable. A manunsuccessful in everything else hears the interesting story of theprofits and comforts of bee-keeping, and concludes to try it; he buys afew colonies, or gets them, from some overstocked ranch on shares, takesthem back to the foot of some cañon, where the pasturage is fresh, squats on the land, with, or without, the permission of the owner, setsup his hives, makes a box-cabin for himself, scarcely bigger than abee-hive, and awaits his fortune. 

Bees suffer sadly from famine during the dry years which occasionallyoccur in the southern and middle portions of the State. If the rainfallamounts only to three or four inches, instead of from twelve to twenty, as in ordinary seasons, then sheep and cattle die in thousands, and sodo these small, winged cattle, unless they are carefully fed, or removedto other pastures. The year 1877 will long be remembered asexceptionally rainless and distressing. Scarcely a flower bloomed on thedry valleys away from the stream-sides, and not a single grain-fielddepending upon rain was reaped. The seed only sprouted, came up a littleway, and withered. Horses, cattle, and sheep grew thinner day by day, nibbling at bushes and weeds, along the shallowing edges of streams, many of which were dried up altogether, for the first time since thesettlement of the country. 

[Illustration: A BEE-RANCH ON A SPUR OF THE SAN GABRIEL RANGE. CARDINALFLOWER. ]

In the course of a trip I made during the summer of that year throughMonterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Los Angelescounties, the deplorable effects of the drought were everywherevisible--leafless fields, dead and dying cattle, dead bees, andhalf-dead people with dusty, doleful faces. Even the birds and squirrelswere in distress, though their suffering was less painfully apparentthan that of the poor cattle. These were falling one by one in slow, sure starvation along the banks of the hot, sluggish streams, whilethousands of buzzards correspondingly fat were sailing above them, orstanding gorged on the ground beneath the trees, waiting with easy faithfor fresh carcasses. The quails, prudently considering the hard times, abandoned all thought of pairing. They were too poor to marry, and socontinued in flocks all through the year without attempting to rearyoung. The ground-squirrels, though an exceptionally industrious andenterprising race, as every farmer knows, were hard pushed for a living;not a fresh leaf or seed was to be found save in the trees, whose bossymasses of dark green foliage presented a striking contrast to the ashenbaldness of the ground beneath them. The squirrels, leaving theiraccustomed feeding-grounds, betook themselves to the leafy oaks to gnawout the acorn stores of the provident woodpeckers, but the latter keptup a vigilant watch upon their movements. I noticed four woodpeckers inleague against one squirrel, driving the poor fellow out of an oak thatthey claimed. He dodged round the knotty trunk from side to side, asnimbly as he could in his famished condition, only to find a sharp billeverywhere. But the fate of the bees that year seemed the saddest ofall. In different portions of Los Angeles and San Diego counties, fromone half to three fourths of them died of sheer starvation. Not lessthan 18, 000 colonies perished in these two counties alone, while in theadjacent counties the death-rate was hardly less. 

[Illustration: WILD BUCKWHEAT. --A BEE RANCH IN THE WILDERNESS. ]

Even the colonies nearest to the mountains suffered this year, for thesmaller vegetation on the foot-hills was affected by the drought almostas severely as that of the valleys and plains, and even the hardy, deep-rooted chaparral, the surest dependence of the bees, bloomedsparingly, while much of it was beyond reach. Every swarm could havebeen saved, however, by promptly supplying them with food when their ownstores began to fail, and before they became enfeebled and discouraged;or by cutting roads back into the mountains, and taking them into theheart of the flowery chaparral. The Santa Lucia, San Rafael, SanGabriel, San Jacinto, and San Bernardino ranges are almost untouched asyet save by the wild bees. Some idea of their resources, and of theadvantages and disadvantages they offer to bee-keepers, may be formedfrom an excursion that I made into the San Gabriel Range about thebeginning of August of "the dry year. " This range, containing most ofthe characteristic features of the other ranges just mentioned, overlooks the Los Angeles vineyards and orange groves from the north, and is more rigidly inaccessible in the ordinary meaning of the wordthan any other that I ever attempted to penetrate. The slopes areexceptionally steep and insecure to the foot, and they are covered withthorny bushes from five to ten feet high. With the exception of littlespots not visible in general views, the entire surface is covered withthem, massed in close hedge growth, sweeping gracefully down into everygorge and hollow, and swelling over every ridge and summit in shaggy, ungovernable exuberance, offering more honey to the acre for half theyear than the most crowded clover-field. But when beheld from the openSan Gabriel Valley, beaten with dry sunshine, all that was seen of therange seemed to wear a forbidding aspect. From base to summit all seemedgray, barren, silent, its glorious chaparral appearing like dry mosscreeping over its dull, wrinkled ridges and hollows. 

Setting out from Pasadena, I reached the foot of the range aboutsundown; and being weary and heated with my walk across the shadelessvalley, concluded to camp for the night. After resting a few moments, Ibegan to look about among the flood-boulders of Eaton Creek for acamp-ground, when I came upon a strange, dark-looking man who had beenchopping cord-wood. He seemed surprised at seeing me, so I sat down withhim on the live-oak log he had been cutting, and made haste to give areason for my appearance in his solitude, explaining that I was anxiousto find out something about the mountains, and meant to make my way upEaton Creek next morning. Then he kindly invited me to camp with him, and led me to his little cabin, situated at the foot of the mountains, where a small spring oozes out of a bank overgrown with wild-rosebushes. After supper, when the daylight was gone, he explained that hewas out of candles; so we sat in the dark, while he gave me a sketch ofhis life in a mixture of Spanish and English. He was born in Mexico, hisfather Irish, his mother Spanish. He had been a miner, rancher, prospector, hunter, etc. , rambling always, and wearing his life away inmere waste; but now he was going to settle down. His past life, he said, was of "no account, " but the future was promising. He was going to "makemoney and marry a Spanish woman. " People mine here for water as forgold. He had been running a tunnel into a spur of the mountain back ofhis cabin. "My prospect is good, " he said, "and if I chance to strike agood, strong flow, I'll soon be worth $5000 or $10, 000. For that flatout there, " referring to a small, irregular patch of bouldery detritus, two or three acres in size, that had been deposited by Eaton Creekduring some flood season, --"that flat is large enough for a niceorange-grove, and the bank behind the cabin will do for a vineyard, andafter watering my own trees and vines I will have some water left tosell to my neighbors below me, down the valley. And then, " he continued, "I can keep bees, and make money that way, too, for the mountains abovehere are just full of honey in the summer-time, and one of my neighborsdown here says that he will let me have a whole lot of hives, on shares, to start with. You see I've a good thing; I'm all right now. " All thisprospective affluence in the sunken, boulder-choked flood-bed of amountain-stream! Leaving the bees out of the count, most fortune-seekerswould as soon think of settling on the summit of Mount Shasta. Nextmorning, wishing my hopeful entertainer good luck, I set out on myshaggy excursion. 

[Illustration: A BEE-PASTURE ON THE MORAINE DESERT, SPANISH BAYONET. ]

About half an hour's walk above the cabin, I came to "The Fall, " famousthroughout the valley settlements as the finest yet discovered in theSan Gabriel Mountains. It is a charming little thing, with a low, sweetvoice, singing like a bird, as it pours from a notch in a short ledge, some thirty-five or forty feet into a round mirror-pool. The face of thecliff back of it, and on both sides, is smoothly covered and embossedwith mosses, against which the white water shines out in showy relief, like a silver instrument in a velvet case. Hither come the San Gabriellads and lassies, to gather ferns and dabble away their hot holidays inthe cool water, glad to escape from their commonplace palm-gardens andorange-groves. The delicate maidenhair grows on fissured rocks withinreach of the spray, while broad-leaved maples and sycamores cast soft, mellow shade over a rich profusion of bee-flowers, growing amongboulders in front of the pool--the fall, the flowers, the bees, theferny rocks, and leafy shade forming a charming little poem of wildness, the last of a series extending down the flowery slopes of Mount SanAntonio through the rugged, foam-beaten bosses of the main Eaton Canon. 

From the base of the fall I followed the ridge that forms the westernrim of the Eaton basin to the summit of one of the principal peaks, which is about 5000 feet above sea-level. Then, turning eastward, Icrossed the middle of the basin, forcing a way over its many subordinateridges and across its eastern rim, having to contend almost everywherewith the floweriest and most impenetrable growth of honey-bushes I hadever encountered since first my mountaineering began. Most of the Shastachaparral is leafy nearly to the ground; here the main stems are nakedfor three or four feet, and interspiked with dead twigs, forming a stiff_chevaux de frise_ through which even the bears make their way withdifficulty. I was compelled to creep for miles on all fours, and infollowing the bear-trails often found tufts of hair on the bushes wherethey had forced themselves through. 

For 100 feet or so above the fall the ascent was made possible only bytough cushions of club-moss that clung to the rock. Above this the ridgeweathers away to a thin knife-blade for a few hundred yards, and thenceto the summit of the range it carries a bristly mane of chaparral. Hereand there small openings occur on rocky places, commanding fine viewsacross the cultivated valley to the ocean. These I found by the trackswere favorite outlooks and resting-places for the wild animals--bears, wolves, foxes, wildcats, etc. --which abound here, and would have to betaken into account in the establishment of bee-ranches. In the deepestthickets I found wood-rat villages--groups of huts four to six feethigh, built of sticks and leaves in rough, tapering piles, like musk-ratcabins. I noticed a good many bees, too, most of them wild. The tamehoney-bees seemed languid and wing-weary, as if they had come all theway up from the flowerless valley. 

After reaching the summit I had time to make only a hasty survey of thebasin, now glowing in the sunset gold, before hastening down into one ofthe tributary cañons in search, of water. Emerging from a particularlytedious breadth of chaparral, I found myself free and erect in abeautiful park-like grove of Mountain Live Oak, where the ground wasplanted with aspidiums and brier-roses, while the glossy foliage made aclose canopy overhead, leaving the gray dividing trunks bare to show thebeauty of their interlacing arches. The bottom of the cañon was drywhere I first reached it, but a bunch of scarlet mimulus indicated waterat no great distance, and I soon discovered about a bucketful in ahollow of the rock. This, however, was full of dead bees, wasps, beetles, and leaves, well steeped and simmered, and would, therefore, require boiling and filtering through fresh charcoal before it could bemade available. Tracing the dry channel about a mile farther down to itsjunction with a larger tributary cañon, I at length discovered a lot ofboulder pools, clear as crystal, brimming full, and linked together byglistening streamlets just strong enough to sing audibly. Flowers infull bloom adorned their margins, lilies ten feet high, larkspur, columbines, and luxuriant ferns, leaning and overarching in lavishabundance, while a noble old Live Oak spread its rugged arms over all. Here I camped, making my bed on smooth cobblestones. 

[Illustration: A BEE-KEEPER'S CABIN. --BURRIELIA (ABOVE). --MADIA(BELOW). ]

Next day, in the channel of a tributary that heads on Mount San Antonio, I passed about fifteen or twenty gardens like the one in which Islept--lilies in every one of them, in the full pomp of bloom. My thirdcamp was made near the middle of the general basin, at the head of along system of cascades from ten to 200 feet high, one following theother in close succession down a rocky, inaccessible cañon, making atotal descent of nearly 1700 feet. Above the cascades the main streampasses through a series of open, sunny levels, the largest of which areabout an acre in size, where the wild bees and their companions werefeasting on a showy growth of zauschneria, painted cups, and monardella;and gray squirrels were busy harvesting the burs of the Douglas Spruce, the only conifer I met in the basin. 

The eastern slopes of the basin are in every way similar to those wehave described, and the same may be said of other portions of the range. From the highest summit, far as the eye could reach, the landscape wasone vast bee-pasture, a rolling wilderness of honey-bloom, scarcelybroken by bits of forest or the rocky outcrops of hilltops and ridges. 

Behind the San Bernardino Range lies the wild "sage-brush country, "bounded on the east by the Colorado River, and extending in a generalnortherly direction to Nevada and along the eastern base of the Sierrabeyond Mono Lake. 

The greater portion of this immense region, including Owen's Valley, Death Valley, and the Sink of the Mohave, the area of which is nearlyone fifth that of the entire State, is usually regarded as a desert, notbecause of any lack in the soil, but for want of rain, and riversavailable for irrigation. Very little of it, however, is desert in theeyes of a bee. 

Looking now over all the available pastures of California, it appearsthat the business of beekeeping is still in its infancy. Even in themore enterprising of the southern counties, where so vigorous abeginning has been made, less than a tenth of their honey resources haveas yet been developed; while in the Great Plain, the Coast Ranges, theSierra Nevada, and the northern region about Mount Shasta, the businesscan hardly be said to exist at all. What the limits of its developmentsin the future may be, with the advantages of cheaper transportation andthe invention of better methods in general, it is not easy to guess. Nor, on the other hand, are we able to measure the influence on beeinterests likely to follow the destruction of the forests, now rapidlyfalling before fire and the ax. As to the sheep evil, that can hardlybecome greater than it is at the present day. In short, notwithstandingthe wide-spread deterioration and destruction of every kind alreadyeffected, California, with her incomparable climate and flora, is still, as far as I know, the best of all the bee-lands of the world. 

[1] Fifteen hives of Italian bees were introduced into Los AngelesCounty in 1855, and in 1876 they had increased to 500. The markedsuperiority claimed for them over the common species is now attractingconsiderable attention.