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THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
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THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
BY
JOHN MUIR
NEW YOEK
THE CENTURY CO.
1898
Copyright, 1894, by The Centurt Co.
F
The DeVinne Press.
CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I The Sierra Nevada 1
II The Glaciers 20
III The Snow 36
IV A Near View of the High Sierra 48
V The Passes 74
VI The Glacier Lakes 98
VII The Glacier Meadows 125
VIII The Forests 139
IX The Douglas Squirrel 226
X A Wind-Storm in the Forests 244
XI The River Floods 258
XII Sierra Thunder-Storms 271
XIII The Water-Ouzel 276
XIV The Wild Sheep 300
XV In the Sierra Foot-Hills 325
XVI The Bee-Pastures 338
IK
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
Hoofed Locusts Frontispiece
Mount Tamalpais — North of the Golden Gate . 5
Mount Shasta, looking Southwest 13
Mount Hood 19
Mount Rainier from Paradise Valley — Nisqually
Glacier 25
Map of the Yosemite Valley 67
Map of the Yosemite Valley, showing Present
Reservation Boundary 77
View of the Mono Plain from the Foot of Bloody
Canon 97
Lake Tenaya, one of the Yosemite Fountains . . 102
The Death of a Lake 107
Lake Starr King 119
View in the Sierra Forest 141
Edge of the Timber Line on Mount Shasta . . . 143 View in the Main Pine Belt of the Sierra Forest 145
Nut Pine 147
The Grove Form 149
Lower Margin of the Main Pine Belt, Showing
Open Character of Woods 151
xi
XU LIST OF ILLUSTKATIONS
Page
Sugar Pine on Exposed Ridge 157
Young Sugar Pine beginning to bear Cones . . . 160 Forest of Sequoia, Sugar Pine, and Douglas
Spruce 161
PiNUS Ponderosa 164
Sil\t:r Pine 210 Feet High 166
Incense Cedar in its Prime 171
Forest of Grand Sil^ter Firs 172
View of Forest of the Magnificent Silver Fir . 175 Silver-Fir Forest Growing on Moraines op the
Hoffman and Tenaya Glaciers 177
Juniper, or Red Cedar 205
Storm-Beaten Hemlock Spruce, Forty Feet High 208
Group of Erect Dwarf Pines 212
A Dwarf Pine 214
Oak Growing among Yellow Pines 217
Track of Douglas Squirrel once Down and Up a Pine-Tree when Showing off to a Spectator 231
Seeds, Wings, and Scale of Sugar Pine 234
Trying the Bow 243
A Wind-Storm in the California Forests ... 245
Water-Ouzel Diving and Feeding 277
One of the Late-Summer Feeding-Grounds of the
Ouzel 285
Ouzel Entering a White Current 287
The Ouzel at Home 293
YosEMiTE Birds, Snow-Bound at the Foot of In- dian Canon 297
Snow-Bound on Mount Shasta 306
LIST OF ILLUSTKATIONS Xlll
Page
Head op the Merino Raim 309
Head of Rocky Mountain Wild Sheep 311
Crossing a Canon Streajvi 314
Wild Sheep Jumping over a Precipice 319
Indians Hunting Wild Sheep 321
A Bee-Ranch in Lower California 341
Wild Bee Garden 357
In the San Gabriel Valley.— White Sage . . . 365 A Bee-Ranch on a Spur of the San Gabriel
Range. — Cardinal Flower . 369
Wild Buckwheat. — A Bee-Ranch in the Wilder- ness 371
A Bee-Pasture on the Moraine Desert. — Spanish
Bayonet 375
A Bee-Keeper's Cabin 379
THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
CHAPTER I
THE SIEEEA NEVADA
GO 'w here you may within tlie bounds of Cali- fornia, mountains are ever in sight, charming and glorifying every landscape. Yet so simple and massive is the topography of the State in general views, that the main central portion displays only one valley, and two chains of mountains which seem almost perfectly regular in trend and height : the Coast Range on the west side, the Sierra Nevada on the east. These two ranges coming together 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 miles wide. This is the grand Central Valley of California, the waters of which have only one outlet to the sea through the Golden Grate. But with this general simplicity of features there is great complexity of hidden detail. The Coast Range, rising as a grand green barrier against the ocean, from 2000 to 8000 feet high, is composed of innumerable forest-crowned spurs, ridges, and rolling hill-waves which inclose a multitude of smaller valleys; some looking out through long,
2 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
forest-lined vistas to the sea ; otliers, with hut few trees, to the Central Vallej^; while a thousand others yet smaller are embosomed and concealed 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 of any of the inner peaks or passes opposite San Francisco, in the clear spring- time, the grandest and most telling of all California landscapes is outspread before you. At your feet lies the great Central Valley glowing golden in the sunshine, extending north and south farther than the 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 so gloriously colored, and so luminous, it seems to be not clothed with light, 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-gray belt of snow ; and below it a belt of blue and dark purple, marking the extension of the for- ests ; and along the base of the range a broad belt of rose-purple and yellow, where lie the miner's gold- fields and the foot-hill gardens. All these colored belts blending smoothly make a av^ all of light inef- fably fine, and as beautiful as a rainbow, yet firm as adamant.
When I first enjoyed this superb ^dew, one glow- ing April day, from the summit of the Pacheco Pass, the Central Valley, but little trampled or plowed as yet, was one furred, rich sheet of golden com- positoe, and the luminous wall of the mountains
THE SIEERA NEVADA 6
shone in all its gloiy. Then it seemed to me the Sierra should be called not the Nevada, or Snowy Range, hut the Range of Light. And after ten years spent in the heart of it, rejoicing and wondering, bathing in its glorious floods of light, seeing the sunbursts of morning among the icy peaks, the noonday radiance on the trees and rocks and snow, the flush of the alpenglow, and a thousand dashing waterfalls with their marvelous abundance of irised spray, it still seems to me above all others the Range of Light, the most divinely beautiful of all the moun- tain-chains I have ever seen.
The Sierra is about 500 miles long, 70 miles wide, and from 7000 to nearly 15,000 feet high. In general views no mark of man is visible on it, nor anything to suggest the richness of the life it cherishes, or the depth and grandeur of its sculpture. None of its magnificent forest-crowned ridges rises much above the general level to publish its wealth. No great val- ley or lake is seen, or river, or group of well-marked features of any kind, standing out in distinct pic- tures. Even the summit-peaks, so clear and high in the sky, seem comparatively smooth and feature- less. Nevertheless, glaciers are still at work in the shadows of the peaks, and thousands of lakes and meadows shine and bloom l)eneatli them, and the whole range is furrowed with canons to a depth of from 2000 to 5000 feet, in which once flowed ma- jestic glaciers, and in which now flow and sing a band of beautiful rivers.
Though of such stupendous depth, these famous canons are not raw, gloomy, jagged- walled gorges, savage and inaccessible. With rough passages here
4 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
and there they still make delightful pathways for the moinitaiiieer, conducting from the fertile lowlands to the highest icy fountains, as a kind of mountain streets full of charming life and light, graded and sculptured by the ancient glaciers, and presenting, throughout all their courses, a rich variety of novel and attractive scenery, the most attractive that has yet been discovered in the mountain-ranges of the world.
In many places, especially in the middle region of the western flank of the range, the main canons widen into spacious valleys or parks, diversified like artificial landscape-gardens, with charming groves and meadows, and thickets of blooming ])ushes, while the lofty, retiring walls, infinitely varied in form and sculpture, are fringed with ferns, flowering-plants of many species, oaks, and ever- greens, which find anchorage on a thousand narrow steps and benches; while the whole is enlivened and made glorious with rejoicing streams that come dancing and foaming over the sunny brows of the cliffs to join the shining river that flows in tranquil beauty down ilic middle of each one of them.
The walls of these park valleys of the Yosemite kind are made up of rocks mountains in size, partly separated from each otli«}r by narrow gorges and side-canons; and they are so sheer in front, and so compactly 1 )uilt together on a level floor, that, com- prehensively seen, the x>i^i"ks they inclose look like innnense halls or temples lighted from above. Every rock seems to glow with life. Some lean back in majestic repose; others, absolutely sheer,
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b THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
or nearly so, for thousands of feet, advance their brows in thoughtful attitudes beyond their com- panions, giving welcome to storms and calms alike, seemingly conscious yet heedless of everything go- ing on about them, awful in stern majesty, types of permanence, yet associated with beauty of the frailest and most fleeting forms ; their feet set in pine-groves and gay emerald meadows, their brows in the sky; bathed in light, bathed in floods of singing water, while snow-clouds, avalanches, and the winds shine and surge and wreathe about them as the years go by, as if into these mountain man- sions Nature had taken pains to gather her choicest treasures to draw her lovers into close and confid- ing communion with her.
Here, too, in the middle region of deepest canons are the grandest forest-trees, the Sequoia, king of conifers, the noble Sugar and Yellow Pines, Doug- las Spruce, Libocedrus, and the Silver Firs, each a giant of its kind, assembled together in one and the same forest, surpassing all other coniferous forests in the world, both in the number of its sj^ecies and in the size and beauty of its trees. The winds flow in melody through their colossal spires, and they are vocal everywhere with the songs of birds and run- ning water. Miles of fragrant ceanothus and nian- zanita bushes bloom l^eneath them, and lily gardens and meadows, and damp, ferny glens in endless variety of fragrance and color, compelling the ad- miration of every observer. Sweeping on over ridge and valley, these noble trees extend a con- tinuous belt from end to end of the range, only slightly interrupted by sheer-walled canons at in-
THE SIERKA NEVADA 7
tervals of about fifteen and twenty miles. Here the great burly brown bears delight to roam, har- monizing with the brown boles of the trees be- neath which they feed. Deer, also, dwell here, and find food and shelter in the ceanothus tangles, with a multitude of smaller people. Above this region of giants, the trees grow smaller until the utmost limit of the timber line is reached on the stormy mountain-slopes at a height of from ten to twelve thousand feet above the sea, where the Dwarf Pine is so lowly and hard beset by storms and heavy snow, it is pressed into fiat tangles, over the tops of which we may easily walk. Below the main forest belt the trees likewise diminish in size, frost and burning drouth repressing and blasting alike.
The rose-purple zone along the base of the range comprehends nearly all the famous gold region of California. And here it was that miners from every country under the sun assembled in a wild, torrent- like rush to seek their fortunes. On the banks of every river, ravine, and gully they have left their marks. Every gravel- and boulcler-bed has been desperately riddled over and over again. But in this region the pick and shovel, once wielded with savage enthusiasm, have been laid away, and only quartz-mining is now being carried on to any con- siderable 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 of slate, colored gray and red with lichens. The smaller masses of slate, rising abruptly from the dry, grassy sod in leaning slabs, look like ancient tombstones in a deserted burying-ground. In early
8 THE MOUNTAINS OF C.ALIFOKNIA
spring, say from February to April, the whole of this foot-hill belt is a paradise of bees and flowers. Refreshing rains then fall freely, birds are busy building their nests, and the sunshine is balmy and delightful. But by the end of May the soil, plants, and sky seem to have been baked in an oven. ]\Iost of the plants crumble to dust beneath the foot, and the ground is full of cracks ; while the thirsty traveler gazes with eager longing through the burn- ing glare to the snowy summits looming like hazy clouds in the distance.
The trees, mostly Quercus Boiujlasii and rUius Sahiniana., thirty to forty feet high, with thin, pale- green foliage, stand far apart and cast but little shade. Lizards glide about on the rocks enjoying a constitution that no di'outh can dry, and ants in amazing numbers, whose tiny sparks of life seem to burn the brighter with tlie increasing heat, ramble industriously in long trains in search of food. Crows, ravens, magpies — friends in distress — gather on the ground beneath the best shade- trees, panting with drooping wings and bills wide open, 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 the chan- nels of the larger mid-river streams. Ral )l)its scurry from thicket to thicket among the ceanotlius bushes, and occasionally a long-eared hare is seen cantering gracefully across the wider openings. The nights are calm and dewless during the summer, and a thousand voices proclaim the abundance of life, not- withstanding the desolating effect of dry sunshine on the plants and larger animals. The liylas make
THE SIEERA NEVADA 9
a delightfully pure and tranquil music after sunset ; and coyotes, the little, despised dogs of the wilder- ness, brave, hardy fellows, looking like withered wisps of hay, bark in chorus for hours. Mining- towns, most of them dead, and a few living ones with bright bits of cultivation about them, occur at long intervals along the belt, and cottages covered with climbing roses, in the midst of orange and peach orchards, and sweet-scented hay-fields in fer- tile flats where water for irrigation may be had. But they are mostly far apart, and make scarce any mark in general views.
Every winter the High Sierra and the middle forest region get snow in glorious abundance, and even the foot-hills are at times whitened. Then all the range looks like a vast beveled wall of purest marble. The rough places are then made smooth, the death and decay of the year is covered gently and kindly, and the ground seems as clean as the sky. And though silent in its flight from the clouds, and when it is taking its place on rock, or tree, or grassy meadow, how soon the gentle snow finds a voice ! Slipping from the heights, gather- ing in avalanches, it booms and roars like thunder, and makes a glorious show as it sweeps down the mountain-side, arrayed in long, silken streamers and wreathing, swirling films of crystal dust.
The north half of the range is mostly covered with floods of lava, and dotted with volcanoes and craters, some of them recent and perfect in form, others in various stages of decay. The south half is composed of granite nearly from base to summit, while a considerable number of peaks, in the middle
10 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
of the range, are capped with metamorijhic slates, among which are Mounts Dana and Gibbs to the east of Yosemite Valley. Mount Whitney, the cul- minating point of the range near its southern ex- tremity, lifts its helmet-shaped crest to a height of nearly 14,700 feet. Mount Shasta, a colossal vol- canic cone, rises to a height of 14,4-1:0 feet at the northern extremity, and forms a noble landmark for all the surrounding region within a radius of a hundred miles. Residual masses of volcanic rocks occur throughout most of the granitic southern por- tion also, and a considerable number of old volca- noes on the flanks, especially along the eastern base of the range near Mono Lake and southward. But it is only to the northward that the entire range, from base to summit, is covered with lava.
From the summit of Mount Whitney only granite is seen. Innumeraljle peaks and spires but little lower than its own storm-beaten crags rise in groups like forest-trees, in full view, segi'egated by canons of tremendous depth and ruggedness. On Shasta nearly every feature in the vast view speaks of the old volcanic fires. Far to the northward, in Oregon, the icy volcanoes of Mount Pitt and the Three Sisters rise above the dark evergreen woods. Southward innumerable smaller craters and cones are distrilmted along the axis of the range and on each flank. Of these, Lassen's Butte is the highest, being nearly 11,000 feet above sea-level. Miles of its flanks are reeking and bubbling with hot springs, many of them so boisterous and sulphurous they seem ever ready to become spouting geysers like those of the Yellowstone.
THE SIERKA NEVADA 11
The Cinder Cone near marks the most recent vol- canic ernption in the Sierra. It is a symmetrical truncated cone about 700 feet high, covered with gray cinders and ashes, and has a regular unchanged crater on its summit, in which a few small Two- leaved Pines are growing. These show that the age of the cone is not less than eighty years. It stands between two lakes, which a short time ago were one. Before the cone was built, a flood of rough vesicular lava was poured into the lake, cutting it in two, and, overflowing its banks, the fiery flood advanced into the pine-woods, overwhelming the trees in its way, the charred ends of some of which may still be seen projecting from beneath the snout of the lava-stream where it came to rest. Later still there was an eruption of ashes and loose ob- sidian cinders, probably from the same vent, which, besides forming the Cinder Cone, scattered a heavy shower over the surrounding woods for miles to a depth of from six inches to several feet.
The history of this last Sierra eruption is also pre- served in tlie traditions of the Pitt River Indians. They tell of a fearful time of darkness, when the sky was black with ashes and smoke that threatened every living thing with death, and that when at length the sun appeared once more it was red like blood.
Less recent craters in great numbers roughen the adjacent region ; some of them with lakes in their throats, others overgrown with trees and flowers, Nature in these old hearths and flresides having literally given beauty for ashes. On the northwest side of Mount Shasta there is a subordinate cone
12 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
about 3000 feet below the summit, ■which has been active subsequent to tlie breaking up of the main ice-cap that once covered the mountain, as is shown by its comparatively unwasted crater and the streams of unglaciated lava radiating from it. The main summit is about a mile and a half in diameter, bounded by small crumbling peaks and ridges, among which we seek in vain for the outlines of the ancient crater.
These ruinous masses, and the deep glacial grooves that flute the sides of the mountain, show that it has been considerably lowered and wasted by ice ; how much we have no sure means of know- ing. Just below the extreme summit hot sul]_>liu- rous gases and vapor issue from irregular fissures, mixed with spray derived from melting snow, the last feeble expression of the mighty force that built the mountain. Not in one great convulsion was Shasta given birth. The crags of the summit and the sections exposed by the glaciers down the sides display enough of its internal framework to prove that comparatively long periods of quiescence in- tervened between many distinct eruptions, during which the cooling lavas ceased to flow, and became permanent additions to the bulk of the growing mountain. With alternate haste and deliberation eruption succeeded eruption till the old volcano sur- passed even its present sublime height.
Standing on the icy top of this, the grandest of all the fire-mountains of the Sierra, we can hardly fail to look forward to its next eruption. Grardens, vineyards, homes have been planted confidingly on the flanks of volcanoes which, after remaining stead-
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14 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
fast for ages, have suddenly blazed into violent ac- tion, and poured forth overwhelming floods of fire. It is known that more than a thousand years of cool calm have intervened between violent erup- tions. Like gigantic geysers spouting molten rock instead of water, volcanoes work and rest, and we have no sure means of knowing whether they are dead when still, or only sleeping.
Along the western base of the range a telling series of sedimentary rocks containing the early history of the Sierra are now being studied. But leaving for the present these first chapters, we see that only a very short geological time ago, just be- fore the coming on of that winter of winters called the glacial period, a vast deluge of molten rocks poured from many a chasm and crater on the flanks and summit of the range, fllling lake basins and river channels, and obliterating nearly every exist- ing feature on the northern portion. At length these all-destroying floods ceased to flow. But while the great volcanic cones built up along the axis still burned and smoked, the whole Sierra passed under the domain of ice and snow. Then over the bald, featureless, fire-blackened mountains, glaciers be- gan to crawl, covering them from the summits to the sea with a mantle of ice ; and then with in- finite deliberation the work went on of sculptur- ing the range anew. These mighty agents of ero- sion, halting never through unnumbered centuries, crushed and ground the flinty lavas and granites beneath their crystal folds, wasting and building until in the fullness of time the Sierra was born again, brought to light nearly as we behold it to-
THE SIERRA NEVADA 15
day, with glaciers and snow-cruslied pines at the top of the range, wheat-fields and orange-groves at the foot of it.
This change from icy darkness and death to life and beauty was slow, as we count time, and is still going on, north and south, over all the world wher- ever glaciers exist, whether in the form of distinct rivers, as in Switzerland, Norway, the mountains of Asia, and the Pacific Coast; or in continuous mant- ling folds, as in portions of Alaska, Greenland, Franz-Joseph-Land, Nova Zembla, Spitzbergen, and the lands about the South Pole. But in no country, as far as I know, may these majestic changes be studied to better advantage than in the plains and mountains of California.
Toward the close of the glacial period, when the snow-clouds became less fertile and the melting waste of sunshine became greater, the lower folds of the ice-sheet in California, discharging fleets of icebergs into the sea, began to shallow and recede from the lowlands, and then move slowly up the flanks of the Sierra in compliance with the changes of climate. The great white mantle on the moun- tains broke up into a series of glaciers more or less distinct and river-like, with many tributaries, and these again were melted and divided into still smaller glaciers, until now only a few of the small- est residual topmost branches of the grand system exist on the cool slopes of the summit peaks.
Plants and animals, biding their time, closely followed the retiring ice, bestowing quick and joyous animation on the new-born landscapes. Pine-trees marched up the sun-warmed moraines in
16 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
long, hopeful files, taking the groimd and establish- ing themselves as soon as it was ready for them ; brown-spiked sedges fringed the shores of the new- born lakes ; young rivers roared in the abandoned channels of the glaciers; flowers bloomed around the feet of the great burnished domes, — while with quick fertility mellow beds of soil, settling and warming, offered food to multitudes of Nature's waiting children, great and small, animals as well as plants; mice, squirrels, marmots, deer, bears, ele- phants, etc. The ground burst into bloom with magical rapidity, and the young forests into bird- song : life in every form warming and sweetening and growing richer as the years passed away over the mighty Sierra so lately suggestive of death and consummate desolation only.
It is hard without long and loving study to realize the magnitude of the work done on these mountains during the last glacial period by glaciers, which are only streams of closely compacted snow-crystals. Careful study of the phenomena presented goes to show that the pre-glacial condition of the range was comparatively simple : one vast wave of stone in which a thousand mountains, domes, canons, ridges, etc., lay concealed. And in the development of these Nature chose for a tool not the earthquake or lightning to rend and split asunder, not the stormy torrent or eroding rain, but the tender snow- flowers noiselessly falling through unnumbered cen- turies, the offspring of the sun and sea. Laboring harmoniously in united strength they crushed and ground and wore away the rocks in their march, making vast beds of soil, and at the same time de-
THE SIEKEA NEVADA 17
veloped and fashioned the landscapes into the de- hghtful variety of hill and dale and lordly moun- tain that mortals call beauty. Perhaps more than a mile in average depth has the range been thus de- graded during the last glacial period, — a quantity of mechanical work almost inconceivably great. And our admiration must be excited again and again as we toil and study and learn that this vast job of rockwork, so far-reaching in its influences, was done by agents so fragile and small as are these flowers of the mountain clouds. Strong only by force of numbers, they carried away entire mountains, par- ticle by particle, block by block, and cast them into the sea; sculptured, fashioned, modeled all the range, and developed its predestined beauty. All these new Sierra landscapes were evidently predes- tined, for the physical structure of the rocks on which the features of the scenery depend was ac- quired while they lay at least a mile deep below the pre-glacial surface. And it was while these f ea- tm^es were taking form in the depths of the range, the particles of the rocks marching to their ap- pointed places in the dark with reference to the com- ing beauty, that the particles of icy vapor in the sky marching to the same music assembled to bring them to the light. Then, after their grand task was done, these bands of snow-flowers, these mighty glaciers, were melted and removed as if of no more importance than dew destined to last but an hour. Few, however, of Nature's agents have left monu- ments so noble and enduring as they. The great granite domes a mile high, the canons as deep, the noble peaks, the Yosemite valleys, these, and indeed
18 THE MOUNTAINS OP CALIFORNIA
nearly all other features of the Sierra scenery, are glacier niouunients.
Contemplating the works of these flowers of the sky, one may easily fancy them endowed with life : messengers sent down to work in the mountain mines on errands of divine love. Silently flying through the darkened air, swirling, glinting, to their appointed places, they seem to have taken counsel together, saying, " Come, we are feeble ; let us help one another. We are many, and together we will be strong. Marching in close, deep ranks, let us roll away the stones from these mountain sepulchers, and set the landscapes free. Let us uncover these clustering domes. Here let us carve a lake basin ; there, a Yosemite Valley ; here, a channel for a river with fluted steps and brows for the plunge of song- ful cataracts. Yonder let us spread broad sheets of soil, that man and beast may be fed; and here pile trains of boulders for pines and giant Sequoias. Here make ground for a meadow ; there, for a garden and grove, making it smooth and fine for small daisies and violets and beds of heathy bryanthus, spicing it well with crystals, garnet feldspar, and zircon." Thus and so on it has oftentimes seemed to me sang and planned and labored the hearty snow-flower crusaders ; and nothing that I can ^\Tite can x^ossibly exaggerate the grandeur and beauty of their work. Like morning mist they have vanished in sunshine, all save the few small com- panies that still linger on the coolest mountain- sides, and, as residual glaciers, are still busily at work completing the last of the lake basins, the last beds of soil, and the sculpture of some of the highest peaks.
o n
a o o o
CHAPTER II
THE GLACIEKS
OF the small residual glaciers mentioned in the preceding chapter, I have found sixty-five in that portion of the range lying between latitude 36° 30' and 39°. They occur singly or in small gi'oups on the north sides of the peaks of the High Sierra, sheltered beneath l)road frosty shadows, in amphitheaters of their oAvn making, where the snow, shooting down from the surrounding heights in avalanches, is most almndant. 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 wasting remnants of mighty ice- floods that once filled the great valleys and poured into the sea. So, also, are those of Norway, Asia, and South America. Even the grand continuous mantles of ice that still cover Greenland, 8i)itz- bergen. Nova Zeml)la, Franz-Joseph-Land, parts of Alaska, and tlie south polar region are shallowing and shrinking. Every glacier in the world is smaller than it once was. All the world is growing warmer, or the crop of snow-flowers is diminishing. But in contemplating the condition of the glaciers of the
20
THE GLACIEES 21
world, we must l)eai' in mind while trying to ac- count for the changes going on that the same sun- shine that wastes them builds them. Every glacier records the expenditure of an enormous amount of sun-heat in lifting the vapor for the snow of which it is made from the ocean to the mountains, as Tyndall strikingly shows.
The number of glaciers in the Alps, according to the Schlagintweit brothers, is 1100, of which 100 may be regarded as primarj^, and the total area of ice, snow, and neve is estimated at 1177 square miles, or an average for each glacier of little more than one square mile. On the same authority, the average height above sea-level at which they melt is about 7414 feet. The Grindelwald glacier descends below 4000 feet, and one of the Mont Blanc glaciers reaches nearly as low a point. One of the largest of the Himalaya glaciers on the head waters of the Ganges does not, according to Captain Hodgson, descend below 12,914 feet. The largest of the Sierra glaciers on Mount Shasta descends to within 9500 feet of the level of the sea, which, as far as I have observed, is the lowest point reached by any glacier within the bounds of California, the average height of all being not far from 11,000 feet.
The changes that have taken place in the glacial conditions of the Sierra from the time of greatest extension is well illustrated by the series of glaciers of every size and form extending along the moun- tains of the coast to Alaska. A general explora- tion of this instructive region shows that to the north of California, through Oregon and Washing- ton, groups of active glaciers still exist on all the
22 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
high volcanic cones of the Cascade Range, — Mount Pitt, the Three Sisters, ]\Iounts Jefferson, Hood, St. Helens, Adams, Eainier, Baker, and others, — some of them of considerahle size, though none of them approach the sea. Of these mountains Rainier, in Washington, is the highest and iciest. Its dome-like summit, between 14,000 and 15,000 feet high, is capped with ice, and eight glaciers, seven to twelve miles long, radiate from it as a center, and form the sources of the principal streams of the State. The lowest-descending of this fine group flows through beautiful forests to within 3500 feet of the sea-level, and sends fortli a river laden with glacier mud and sand. On through British Columbia and southeastern Alaska the broad, sustained mountain- chain, extending along the coast, is generally glacier- bearing. The upper branches of nearly all the main canons and fiords are occupied by glaciers, which gradually increase in size, and descend lower until the high region between Mount Fairweather and Mount St. Elias is reached, where a considerable number discharge into the waters of the ocean. This is preeminently the ice-land of Alaska and of the entire Pacific Coast.
Northward from here the glaciers gradually di- minisli in size and thickness, and melt at higher levels. In Prince William Sound and Cook's Inlet inany fine glaciers are displayed, pouring from the surrounding mountains ; but to tlie north of latitude 62° few, if any, glaciers remain, the ground being mostly low and the sno's^'fall light. Between lati- tude 5(i° and 60° there are probably more than 5000 glaciers, not counting the smallest. Hundreds of
THE GLACIERS 23
the largest size descend through the forests to the level of the sea, or near it, though as far as my own observations have reached, after a pretty thorough examination of the region, not more than twenty-five discharge icebergs into the sea. All the long high- walled fiords into which these great glaciers of the first class flow are of course crowded with icebergs of every conceivable form, which are detached with thundering noise at intervals of a few minutes from an imposing ice-wall that is thrust forward into deep water. But these Pacific Coast icebergs are small as compared with those of Greenland and the Antarctic region, and only a few of them escape from the intricate system of chan- nels, with which this portion of the coast is fringed, into the open sea. Nearly all of them are swashed and drifted by wind and tide back and forth in the fiords until finally melted by the ocean water, the sunshine, the warm winds, and the copious rains 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 reach the sea occupies a narrow, picturesque fiord about twenty miles to the northwest of the mouth of the Stikeen Eiver, in latitude 56° 50'. The fiord is called by the natives "Hutli," or Thunder Bay, from the noise made by the discharge of the icebergs. About one degree farther north there are four of these complete glaciers, discharging at the heads of the long arms of Holkam Bay. At the head of the Tahkoo Inlet, still farther north, there is one ; and at the head and around the sides of Glacier Bay,
24 THE MOUNTAINS OP CALIFORNIA
trending in a general northerly direction from Cross Sound in latitude 58° to 59°, there are seven of these complete glaciers pouring bergs into the bay and its branches, and keeping up an eternal thundering. The largest of this group, the Muir, has upward of 200 tributaries, and a width below the confluence of the main tributaries of about twenty-five miles. Between the west side of this icy bay and the ocean all the ground, high and low, excepting the peaks of the Fairweather Range, is covered with a mantle of ice from 1000 to probably 3000 feet thick, which discharges by many distinct mouths.
This fragmentary ice-sheet, and the immense glaciers about Mount St. Elias, together with the multitude of separate river-like glaciers that load the slopes of the coast mountains, evidently once formed part of a continuous ice-sheet that flowed over all the region hereabouts, and only a compara- tively short time ago extended as far southward as the mouth of the Strait of Juiin de Fuca, j)rob- ably farther. All the islands of the Alexander Archipelago, as well as the headlands and prom- ontories of the mainland, display telling traces of this great mantle that are still fresh and unmistak- able. They all have the forms of the greatest strength with reference to the action of a vast rigid press of oversweeping ice from the north and north- west, and their surfaces have a smooth, rounded, overrubbed appearance, generally free from angles. The intricate labyrinth of canals, channels, straits, passages, sounds, narrows, etc., between the islands, and extending into the mainland, of course maui-
26 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
fest in their forms and trends and general char- acteristics the same subordination to the grinding action of universal glaciation as to their origin, and differ from the islands and banks of the fiords only in being portions of the pre-glacial margin of the continent more deeply eroded, and therefore covered by the ocean waters which flowed into them as the ice was melted out of them. The formation and extension of fiords in this manner is still going on, and may be witnessed in many places in Glacier Bay, Yakutat Bay, and adjacent regions. That the domain of the sea is being extended over the land by the wearing away of its shores, is well known, but in these icy regions of Alaska, and even as far south as Vancouver Island, the coast rocks have been so short a time exposed to wave-action they are but little wasted as yet. In these regions the extension of the sea effected by its own action in post-glacial time is scarcely appreciable as compared with that effected by ice-action.
Traces of the vanished glaciers made during the period of gi-eater extension abound on the Sierra as far south as latitude 36°. Even the polished rock surfaces, the most evanescent of glacial rec- ords, are still found in a wonderfully perfect state of preservation on the upper half of the middle ' portion of the range, and form the most striking of all the glacial phenomena. They occur in large irregular patches in the summit and middle regions, and thougli they have been subjected to the action of the weather with its corroding storms for thou- sands of years, their mechanical excellence is such that they still reflect the sunbeams like glass, and
THE GLACIEKS 27
attract the attention of every observer. The at- tention of the mountaineer is seldom arrested by moraines, however regular and high they may be, or by canons, however deep, or by rocks, however noble in form and sculpture; but he stoops and rubs his hands admiringly on the shining surfaces and tries hard to account for their mysterious smooth- ness. He has seen the snow descending in ava- lanches, but concludes this cannot be the work of snow, for he finds it where no avalanches occur. Nor can water have done it, for he sees this smooth- ness glowing on the sides and tops of the highest domes. Only the winds of all the agents he knows seem capable of flowing in the directions indicated by the scoring. Indians, usually so little curious about geological phenomena, have come to me oc- casionally and asked me, "What makeum the ground so smooth at Lake Tenaya I " Even horses and dogs gaze wonderingly at the strange brightness of the ground, and smell the polished spaces and place their feet cautiously on them when they come to them for the first time, as if afraid of sinking. The most perfect of the polished pavements and walls he at an elevation of from 7000 to 9000 feet above the sea, where the rock is compact silicious granite. Small dim patches may be found as low as 3000 feet on the driest and most enduring por- tions of sheer walls with a southern exposure, and on compact swelling bosses partially protected from rain by a covering of large boulders. On the north half of the range the striated and polished surfaces are less common, not only because this part of the chain is lower, but because the surface rocks are
28 - THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
chiefly porous lavas subject to comparatively rapid waste. The aucieut moraines also, though well preserved on most of the south half of the range, are nearly obliterated to the northward, but their material is found scattered and disintegi'ated.
A similar blurred condition of the superficial rec- ords of glacial action obtains throughout most of Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska, due in great part to the action of excessive mois- tm'e. Even in southeastern Alaska, where the most extensive glaciers on the continent are, the more evanescent of the traces of their former greater ex- tension, though comparatively recent, are more ob- scure than those of the ancient California glaciers where the climate is drier and the rocks more re- sisting.
These general views of the glaciers of the Pacific Coast will enable my readers to see something of the changes that have taken place in California, and will throw light on the residual glaciers of the High Sierra.
Prior to the autumn of 1871 the glaciers of the Sierra w^ere unknown. In October of that year I discovered the Black Mountain Glacier in a shadowy amphitheater between Black and Red Mountains, two of the peaks of the Merced group. This group is the highest portion of a spur that straggles out from the main axis of the range in the direction of Yosemite Valley. At the time of this interesting discovery I was exploring the neve am- phitheaters of the group, and ti'acing the courses of the ancient glaciers that once poured from its ample fountains through the Illilouette Basin and the
THE GLACIERS 29
Yosemite Valley, not expecting to find any active glaciers so far south in the land of sunshine.
Beginning on the northwestern extremity of the group, I explored the chief tributary basins in suc- cession, their moraines, roches moutonnees, and splendid glacier pavements, taking them in regular succession without any reference to the time con- sumed in their study. The monuments of the trib- utary that poured its ice from between Red and Black Mountains I found to be the most interest- ing of them all ; and when I saw its magnificent mo- raines extending in majestic curves from the spa- cious amphitheater between the mountains, I was exhilarated with the work that lay before me. It was one of the golden days of the Sierra Indian summer, when the rich sunshine glorifies every landscape however rocky and cold, and suggests anything rather than glaciers. The path of the vanished glacier was warm now, and shone in many places as if washed with silver. The tall pines growing on the moraines stood transfigured in the glowing light, the poplar groves on the levels of the basin were masses of orange-yellow, and the late- blooming goldenrods added gold to gold. Pushing on over my rosy glacial highway, I passed lake after lake set in solid basins of granite, and many a thicket and meadow watered by a stream that is- sues from the amphitheater and links the lakes to- gether; now wading through plushy bogs knee-deep in yellow and purple sphagnum ; now passing over bare rock. The main lateral moraines that bounded the view on either hand are from 100 to nearly 200 feet high, and about as regular as artificial em-
30 THE MOUNTAINS OF C-4X,IF0RNIA
bankments, aud covered with a superb growth of Silver Fir aud Piue. But this gardeu aud forest hixuriauce was speedily left beliiud. The trees were dwarfed as I ascended; patches of the alpiue bryauthus aud cassiope began to appear, aud arctic willows pressed iuto flat carpets by the winter snow. The lakelets, which a few miles down the valley were so richly emljroidered with flowery meadows, had here, at an elevation of 10,000 feet, only small brown mats of carex, leaving bare rocks around more than half their shores. Yet amid this alpine suppression the Mountain Piue bravely tossed his storm-beaten branches on the ledges and buttresses of Eed Mountain, some specimens being over 100 feet high, and 24 feet in circumference, seemingly as fresh and vigorous as the giants of the lower zones.
Evening came on just as I got fairly within the portal of the main amphitheater. It is about a mile wide, and a little less than two miles long. The crumljliiig spurs and battlements of Red Mountain bound it on the north, the somber, rudely sculptured precipices of Black Mountain on the south, and a hacked, splintery co/, curving around from moun- tain to mountain, shuts it in on the east.
I chose a camping-ground on the brink of one of the lakes where a thicket of Hemlock Spruce sheltered me from the night wind. Then, after mak- ing a tin-cupful of tea, I sat by my camp-flre reflect- ing on the grandeur aud significance of the glacial records I had seen. As the night advanced the mighty rock walls of my mountain mansion seemed to come nearer, while the starry sky in glorious brightness stretched across like a ceiling from wall
THE GLACIERS 31
to wall, and fitted closely down into all the spiky ir- regularities of the summits. Then, after a long fire- side rest 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 gi-and old glacier that had done so much for the beauty of the Yosemite region back to its farthest foun- tains, enjoying the charm that every explorer feels in Nature's untrodden wildernesses. The voices of the mountains were still asleejD. The wind scarce stirred the pine-needles. The sun was up, but it was yet too cold for the birds and the few burrow- ing animals that dwell here. Only the stream, cas- cading from pool to pool, seemed to be wholly awake. Yet the spirit of the opening day called to action. The sunbeams came streaming gloriously through the jagged openings of the co/, glancing on the burnished pavements and lighting the silvery lakes, while every sun-touched rock burned white on its edges like melting iron in a furnace. Passing round the north shore of my camp lake I followed the cen- tral stream past many cascades from lakelet to lakelet. The scenery became more rigidly arctic, the Dwarf Pines and Hemlocks disappeared, and the stream was bordered with icicles. As the sun rose higher rocks were loosened on shattered portions of the cliffs, and came down in rattling avalanches, echoing wildly from crag to crag.
The main lateral moraines that extend from the jaws of the amphitheater into the lUilouette Basin are continued in straggliug masses along the walls of the amphitheater, while separate boulders, hun-
32 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
dreds of tons in weight, are left stranded here and there out in the middle of the channel. Here, also, I observed a series of small terminal moraines ranged along the south wall of the amphitheater, corresponding in size and form with the shadows cast by the highest portions. The meaning of this correspondence between moraines and shadows was afterward made i^lain. Tracing the stream back to the last of its chain of lakelets, I noticed a deposit of fine gray mud on the bottom excejjt where the force of the entering current had prevented its set- tling. It looked like the mud worn from a grind- stone, and I at once suspected its glacial origin, for the stream that was carrjdng it came gurgling out of the base of a raw moraine that seemed in process of formation. Not a plant or weather-stain was visible on its rough, unsettled surface. It is from 60 to over 100 feet high, and plunges forward at an angle of 38°. Cautiously picking my way, I gained the top of the moraine and was delighted to see a small but well characterized glacier swooping down from the gloomy precipices of Bkiek Moun- tain in a finely graduated curve to the moraine on which I stood. The compact ice appeared on all the lower portions of the glacier, though gray with dirt and stones embedded in it. Farther up the ice disappeared beneath coarse granulated snow. The sui'face of tlie glacier was further characterized by dirt bands and the outcropping edges of the blue veins, showing the laminated structure of the ice. The upjiermost crevasse, or " bergschrund," where the neve was attached to the mountain, was from 12 to 14 feet wide, and was l)ridged in a few places
THE GLACIEES 33
by the remains of snow avalanches. Creeping along the edge of the schrund, holding on with benumbed fingers, I discovered clear sections where the bedded structure was beautifully revealed. The surface snow, though sprinkled with stones shot down from the cliffs, was in some places almost pure, grad- ually becoming crystalline and changing to whitish porous ice of different shades of color, and this again changing at a depth of 20 or 30 feet to blue ice, some of the ribbon-like bands of which were nearly pure, and blended with the paler bands in the most gradual and delicate manner imaginable. A series of rugged zigzags enabled me to make my way down into the weird under-world of the crevasse. Its chambered hollows were hung with a multitude of clustered icicles, amid which pale, subdued , light pulsed and shimmered with indescribable loveliness. "Water dripped and tinkled overhead, and from far below came strange, solemn murmurings from cur- rents that were feeling their way through veins and fissures in the dark. The chambers of a glacier are perfectly enchanting, notwithstanding one feels out of place in their frosty beauty. I was soon cold in my shirt-sleeves, and the leaning wall threatened to engulf me ; yet it was hard to leave the delicious music of the water and the lovely light. Coming again to the surface, I noticed boulders of every size on their journeys to the terminal moraine — journeys of more than a hundred years, without a single stop, night or day, winter or summer.
The sun gave birth to a network of sweet-voiced rills that ran gracefully down the glacier, curling and swirling in their shining channels, and cut-
34 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
ting clear sections tlirougli the porous surface-ice into the solid blue, where the structure of the glacier was beautifully illustrated.
The series of small terminal moraines which I had observed in the morning, along the south wall of the amphitheater, correspond in every way with the moraine of this glacier, and their distribution with reference to shadows was now understood. When the climatic changes came on that caused the melt- ing and retreat of the main glacier that filled the amphitheater, a series of residual glaciers were left in the cliff shadows, under the protection of which they lingered, until they formed the moraines we are studying. Then, as the snow became still less abundant, all of them vanished in succession, except the one just described; and the cause of its longer life is sufficiently apparent in the greater area of snow-basin it drains, and its more perfect protection from wasting sunshine. How nmch longer this little glacier will last depends, of course, on the amount of snow it receives from year 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 at first sight in the distance looked like extensive snow- fields, were in great part glaciers, busily at work completing the sculpture of the summit-peaks so grandly l)locked out by their giant predecessors.
On August 21, I set a series of stakes in the Maclure Glacier, near Mount Lyell, and found its rate of motion to be little more than an inch a day in the middle, showing a great contrast to the Muir
THE GLACIERS 35
Glacier in Alaska, whicli, near the front, flows at a rate of from five to ten feet in twenty-four hours. Mount Shasta has three glaciers, but Mount Whitney, although it is the highest mountain in the range, does not now cherish a single glacier. Small patches of lasting snow and ice occur on its northern slopes, but they are shallow, and present no well marked evidence of glacial motion. Its sides, how- ever, are scored and polished in many places by the action of its ancient glaciers that flowed east and west as tributaries of the great glaciers that once filled the valleys of the Kern and Owen's rivers.
CHAPTER III
THE SNOW
THE first snow that whitens the Sierra, iisnally falls about the end of October or early in No- vember, to a depth of a few inches, after months of the most charming Indian summer w^eather im- aginable. But in a few days, this light covering mostly melts from the slopes exposed to the sun and causes but little apprehension on the part of mountaineers who may be lingering among the high peaks at this time. The first general winter storm that yields snow that is to form a lasting portion of the season's supply, seldom breaks on the mountains before the end of November. Then, warned by the sky, cautious mountaineers, together with the wild sheep, deer, and most of the birds and bears, make haste to the lowlands or foot-hills ; and burrowing marmots, mountain beavers, wood- rats, and such people go into winter quarters, some of them not again to see the light of day until the general awakening and resurrection of the spring in June or July. The first heavy fall is usually from about two to four feet in depth. Then, with inter- vals of splendid sunshine, storm succeeds storm, heaping snow on snow, until thirty to fifty feet has fallen. But on account of its settling and compact- so
THE SNOW 37
ing, and the almost constant waste from melting and evaporation, the average depth actually found at any time seldom exceeds ten feet in the forest region, or fifteen feet along the slopes of the sum- mit peaks.
Even during the coldest weather evaporation never wholly ceases, and the sunshine that abounds between the storms is sufficiently powerful to melt the surface more or less through all the winter months. Waste from melting also goes on to some extent on the bottom from heat stored up in the rocks, and given off slowly to the snow in contact with them, as is shown by the rising of the streams on all the higher regions after the first snowfall, and their steady sustained flow all winter.
The greater portion of the snow deposited around the lofty summits of the range falls in small crisp flakes and broken crystals, or, when accompanied by strong winds and low temperature, the crystals, instead of being locked together in their fall to form tufted flakes, are beaten and broken into meal and fine dust. But down in the forest region the greater portion comes gently to the ground, light and feathery, some of the flakes in mild weather being nearly an inch in diameter, and it is evenly distributed and kept from drifting to any great ex- tent by the shelter afforded by the large trees. Every tree during the progress of gentle storms is loaded with fairy bloom at the coldest and darkest time 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 once begins to shift and settle and fall from the branches in
38 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
miniature avalauclies, and the white forest soon be- comes green again. The snow on the ground also settles and thaws every bright day, and freezes at night, until it becomes coarsely granulated, and loses every trace of its rayed crystalline structure, and then a man may walk firmly over its frozen surface as if on ice. The forest region up to an elevation of 7000 feet is usually in great part free from snow in June, but at this time the higher regions are still heavy-laden, and are not touched by spring weather to any considerable extent before the middle or end of July.
One of the most striking effects of the snow on the mountains is the burial of the rivers and small lakes.
As the snaw 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 thus suddenly; but in great storms, when the temperature is low, the abundance of the snow at length chills the water nearly to the freezing-point, and then, of course, it ceases to melt and consume the snow so suddenly. The falling flakes and crystals form cloud-like masses of blue sludge, which are swept forward with the current and carried down to warmer cli- mates many miles distant, while some are lodged against logs and rocks and projecting points of the banks, and last for days, piled high above the level of the water, and show white again, instead of being at once " lost forever," while the rivers themselves
THE SNOW 39
are at length lost for montlis during the snowy period. The snow is first built out from the banks in bossy, over-curling drifts, compacting and ce- menting until the streams are spanned. They then flow in the dark beneath a continuous covering across the snowy zone, which is about thirty miles wide. All the Sierra rivers and their tributaries in these high regions are thus lost every winter, as if another glacial period had come on. Not a drop of running water is to be seen excepting at a few points where large falls occur, though the rush and rumble of the heavier currents may still be heard. Toward spring, when the weather is warm during the day and frosty at night, repeated thawing and freezing and new layers of snow render the bridg- ing-masses dense and firm, so that one may safely walk across the streams, or even lead a horse across them without danger of falling through. In June the thinnest parts of the winter ceiling, and those most exposed to sunshine, begin to give way, form- ing dark, rugged-edged, pit-like sinks, at the bottom of which the rushing water may be seen. At the end of June only here and there may the moun- taineer find a secure snow-bridge. The most last- ing of the winter bridges, thawing from below as well as from above, because of warm currents of air passing through the tunnels, are strikingly arched and sculptured; and by the occasional freezing of the oozing, dripping water of the ceiling they be- come brightly and picturesquely 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
40 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNLi
roaring river fills all the arching way with impress- ively loud reverberating music, which is sweetened at times by the ouzel, a bird that is not afraid to go wherever a stream may go, and to sing wherever a stream sings.
All the small aljjine pools and lakelets are in like manner obliterated from the winter landscapes, either by being first frozen and then covered by snow, or by being filled in by avalanches. The first avalanche of the season shot into a lake basin may perhaps find the surface frozen. Then there is a grand crashing of breaking ice and dashing of waves mingled with the low, deep booming of the ava- lanche. Detached masses of the invading snow, mixed with fragments of ice, drift about in sludgy, island-like heaps, while the main body of it forms a talus with its base wholly or in part resting on the bottom of the basin, as controlled by its depth and the size of the avalanche. The next avalanche, of course, encroaches still farther, and so on with each in succession until the entire basin may be filled and its water sponged up or displaced. This huge mass of sludge, more or less mixed with sand, stones, and }>erliaps timber, is frozen to a consider- able depth, and much sun-heat is required to thaw it. Some of these unfortunate lakelets are not clear of ice and snow until near the end of summer. Others are never quite free, opening only on the side opposite the entrance of the avalanches. Some show only a narrow crescent of water lying between the shore and sheer bluffs of icy compacted snow, masses of which breaking oif float in front like ice- bergs in a miniature Arctic Ocean, while the ava-
THE SNOW 41
lanche heaps leaning back against the mountains look like small glaciers. The frontal cliffs are in some instances quite picturesque, and with the berg- dotted waters in front of them lighted with sun- shine are exceedingly beautiful. It often happens that while one side of a lake basin is hopelessly snow-buried and frozen, the other, enjoying sun- shine, is adorned with beautiful flower-gardens. Some of the smaller lakes are extinguished in an in- stant by a heavy avalanche either of rocks or snow. The rolling, sliding, ponderous mass entering on one side sweeps across the bottom and up the op- posite side, displacing the water and even scraping the basin clean, and shoving the accumulated rocks and sediments up the farther bank and taking full possession. The dislodged water is in part ab- sorbed, but most of it is sent around the front of the avalanche and down the channel of the outlet, roaring and hurrying as if frightened and glad to escape.
SNOW-BANNEES
The most magnificent storm phenomenon I ever saw, surpassing in showy grandeur the most im- posing effects of clouds, floods, or avalanches, was the peaks of the High Sierra, back of Yosemite Valley, decorated with snow-banners. Many of the starry snow-flowers, out of which these banners are made, fall before they are ripe, while most of those that do attain perfect development as six-rayed crystals glint and chafe against one another in their fall through the frosty air, and are broken into
42 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
fragments. This dry fragmentary snow is still further prepared for the formation of banners by the action of the wind. For, instead of finding rest at once, like the snow which falls into the tranquil depths of the forests, it is rolled over and over, beaten against rock-ridges, and swirled in pits and hollows, like boulders, pebbles, and sand in the pot-holes of a river, until finally the delicate angles of the crystals are worn off, and the whole mass is reduced to dust. And whenever storm- winds find this prepared snow-dust in a loose condition on ex- posed slopes, where there is a free upward sweep to leeward, it is tossed back into the sky, and borne onward from peak to peak in the form of banners or cloudy drifts, according to the velocity of the wind and the conformation of the slopes up or around which it is driven. While thus flying through the air, a small portion makes good its es- cape, and remains in the sky as vapor. But far the greater part, after being driven into the sky again and again, is at length locked fast in bossy drifts, or in the wombs of glaciers, some of it to remain silent and rigid for centuries before it is finally melted and sent singing down the mountain- sides 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 remains loose and exposed to their action, the occurrence of well-formed banners is, for causes we shall here- after note, comparatively rare. I have seen only one display of this kind that seemed in every way perfect. This was in the winter of 1873, when the
THE SNOW 43
snow-laden summits were swept l)y a wild " nortlier." I happened at the time to be wintering in Yoseniite Valley, that sublime Sierra temple where every day one may see the grandest sights. Yet even here the wild gala-day of the north wind seemed sur- passingly glorious. I was awakened in the morn- ing by the rocking of my cabin and the beating of pine-burs on the roof. Detached torrents and ava- lanches from the main wind-flood overhead were rushing wildly down the narrow side canons, and over the precipitous walls, with loud resounding roar, rousing the pines to enthusiastic action, and making the whole valley vibrate as though it were an instrument l)eing j^layed.
But afar on the lofty exposed i)eaks of the range standing so high in the sky, the storm was express- ing itself in still grander characters, w^hicli I was soon to see in all their glory. I had long been anxious to study some points in the structui'e of the ice-cone that is formed every winter at the f(^ot of the upper Yoseniite fall, Init the blinding spray by which it is invested had hitherto prevented me from making a sufficiently near a|)}»roach. This morning the entire body of the fall was torn into gauzy shreds, ;iiid blown linri/ont.-ill y ;ili>iig the face of the cliff, leaving tlic <*()ii(' dry; and wliile making my way to the top of an overlooking ledge to seize so favorable an opportunity to examine the interior of tiir cone, 1lir jx'aks of the ]\rerc(Ml gi-ou)) cnmo in sigiit oVi'V Ihc slioulder of the South Dome, cadi waving a ics))lcndcnt banner against the blue sky, as regular in forni, anil as (ii-ni in fcxhirc, as it' woven of fine silk. So I'av and spli-nilid a i>licnoni-
44 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENLi
enon, of coui'se, overbore all other considerations, and I at once let the ice-cone go, and began to force my way out of the vaUey to some dome or ridge siifficiently lofty to command a general view of the main summits, feeling assured that I should find them bannered still more gloriously ; nor was I in the least disappointed. Indian Canon, through which I chmbed, was choked with snow that had been shot down in avalanches from the high cliffs on either side, rendering the ascent difficult; but inspired by the roaring storm, the tedious wallow- ing brought no fatigue, and in four hours I gained the top of a ridge above the valley, 8000 feet high. And there in bold relief, like a clear painting, ap- peared a most imposing scene. Innumeraljle peaks, black and sharp, rose grandly into the dark blue sky, their bases set in solid white, their sides streaked and splashed with snow, like ocean rocks with foam ; and from every summit, all free and unconfused, was streaming a beautiful silky silvery banner, from half a mile to a mile in length, slender at the point of attachment, then Avidening gradually as it extended from the peak until it was about 1000 or 1500 feet in breadth, as near as I could estimate. The cluster of peaks called the " Crown of the Sierra," at the head of the Merced and Tuolumne rivers, — Mounts Dana, Gibbs, Conness, LyeU, Maclure, Ritter, with their nameless compeers, — ■ each had its own refulgent banner, waving with a clearly visiljle motion in the sunglow, and there was not a single cloud in the sky to mar their simple grandeur. Fancy yourself standing on this Yosem- ite ridge looking eastward. You notice a strange
I
I
THE SNOW 45
garish glitter in the air. The gale drives wildly overhead with a fierce, tempestuous roar, but its violeuce is uot felt, for you are looking through a sheltered opeuiug in the woods as through a win- dow. There, in the immediate foreground of your picture, rises a majestic forest of Silver Fir bloom- ing in eternal freshness, the foliage yellow-green, and the snow beneath the trees strewn with their beautiful plumes, jtlucked off by the wind. Beyond, and extending over all the middle ground, are somber swatlis of pine, interrupted by huge swell- ing ridges and domes; and just beyond the dark forest you see the monarehs of the High Sierra waving their magnificent banners. They are twenty miles away, but you would not wish them nearer, for every feature is distinct, and the whole glorious show is seen in its right proportions. After this general view, mark how sharply the dark snowless ribs and buttresses and summits of the peaks are defined, excepting the j^ortions veiled by the ban- ners, and how delicately their sides are streaked with snow, where it has come to rest in narrow flutings and gorges, ^lark, too, how grandly the banners wave as the wind is deflected against their sides, and how trimly each is attached to the very summit of its i)eak, like a streamer at a masthead; how smooth and silky they are in texture, and how finely th(.'ir fading fringes are penciled on the azure sky. See how donse and opa({ue they are at the point of atta<*hment, and liow fihny and translucent toward the end, so that the peaks ])a<'k of tli<'iii are seen dindy, as though you wore looking through gi'ound glass. Yet again oljserve how some of the
46 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
longest, belonging to the loftiest summits, stream perfectly free all the way across intervening notches and passes from j)eak to peak, while others overlap and partly hide each other. And consider how keenly every particle of this wondrous cloth of snow is flashing out jets of light. These are the main features of the beautiful and terrible picture as seen from the forest window ; and it would still be surpassingly glorious were the fore- and middle- grounds obliterated altogether, leaving only the black peaks, the white banners, and the blue sky. Glancing now in a general way at the formation of snow-banners, we find that the main causes of the wondrous beauty and perfection of those we have been contemplating were the favorable direc- tion and great force of the wind, the abundance of snow-dust, and the peculiar conformation of the slopes of the peaks. It is essential not only that the wind should move with great velocity and steadiness to supply a sufficiently copious and con- tinuous stream of snow-dust, but that it shoidd come from the north. No perfect banner is ever hung on the Sierra peaks by a south wind. Had the gale that day blown from the south, leaving other conditions unchanged, only a dull, confused, fog-like drift would have been produced; for the snow, instead of being spouted up over the tops of the peaks in concentrated currents to be drawn out as streamers, would have been shed off around the sides, and piled down into the glacier wombs. The cause of the concentrated action of the north wind is found in the peculiar form of the north sides of the peaks, where the amphitheaters of the
THE SNOW 47
residual glaciers are. In general the south sides are convex and irregular, while the north sides are con- cave both in their vertical and horizontal sections; the wind in ascending these curves converges to- ward the summits, carrying the snow in concentrat- ing cui-rents with it, shooting it almost straight \\i^ into the air above the peaks, from which it is then carried away in a horizontal direction.
This difference in form between the north and south sides of the peaks was almost wholly pro- duced by the difference in the kind and quantity of the glaciation to which tliey have been sub- jected, the north sides having been hollow^ed by residual shadow-glaciers of a form that never existed on the sun-beaten sides.
It appears, therefore, that shadows in gi'eat i>art determine not only the forms of lofty icy moun- tains, but also those of the snow-banners that the 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 the glacier meadows were still crisp with frost crystals, I set out from the foot of Mount Lyell, on my way down to Yosemite Valley, to replenish my exhausted store of bread and tea. I had sjDent the past summer, as many preceding ones, exploring the glaciers that lie on the head waters of the San Joaquin, Tuolumne, Merced, and Owen's rivers; measuring and study- ing their movements, trends, crevasses, moraines, etc., and the part they had played during the period of their greater extension in the creation and de- velo]3ment of the landscapes of this alpine wonder- land. The time for this kind of work was nearly over for the year, and I began to look forward with delight to the approaching winter with its wondrous storms, when I would l^e warmly snow-bound in my Yosemite cabin w^itli plenty of bread and books; but a tinge of regret came on when I considered that possibly I might not see this favorite region again until the next summer, excepting distant views from the heights about the Yosemite walls. To artists, few portions of the High Sierra are, strictly speaking, picturesque. The whole massive
48
A NEAli VIEW OF THE HIGH SIEERA 49
uplift of the range is one great iDicture, not clearly divisible into smaller ones ; differing much in this respect from the older, and what may be called, riper monntains of the Coast Range. All the landscapes of the Sierra, as we have seen, were born again, re- modeled from base to summit by the developing ice- floods of the last glacial winter. But all these new lands('a|)es were not brought forth simultaneously ; some of the highest, where the ice lingered longest, are tens of centuries younger than those of the warmer regions below them. In general, the younger the mountain-landscai:)es, — -younger, I mean, with reference to the time of their emergence from the ice of the glacial period, — the less sepa- rable are they into artistic })its capable of fjcing made into warm, sympathetic, lovable pictures with ap})recial)le humanity in them.
Here, however, on the head waters of the Tuol- umne, is a group of wild peaks on which the geol- ogist may say that the sun has but just begun to shine, which is yet in a liigli degTce picturesque, and in its main features so regular and evenly balanced as almost to appear conventional — one sombei- cluster of snow-laden ]>eaks with gray pine- fi-iiig<'d gi-anite b()ss<'s bi-aided ai"oun<l its base, tlie wiiolc sui'ging fre(» into the sky from tlie head of a iiiagiiificciit valley, whose l(>fty walls arc licvclcd away on bolli sides so as (o embrace it all wilhoiil admitting aiiytliing not strictly belonging to if. The foi-egrouiid was now aflame willi autumn c<tl- ors, brown ami pui'i»le and gold, ripe in llic mellow sunshine ; cont rasting })i'iglit ly wit li 1 lie (Icrp, cobjilt. blue of the sky, and tlir black and gray, and j»ure,
50 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
spiritual white of the rocks and glaciers. Down through the midst, the young Tuolumne was seen pouring from its crystal fountains, now resting in glassy pools as if changing back again into ice, now leaping in white cascades as if turning to snow; gliding right and left between granite bosses, then sweeping on through the smooth, meadowy levels of the valley, swaying pensively from side to side with calm, stately gestures past dipping willows and sedges, and around groves of arrowy pine; and throughout its whole eventful course, whether flow- ing fast or slow, singing loud or low, ever filling the landscajDe with spiritual animation, and manifesting the grandeur of its sources in every movement and tone.
Pursuing my lonely way down the valley, I turned again and again to gaze on the glorious picture, throwing up my arms to inclose it as in a frame. After long ages of growth in the darkness beneath the glaciers, through sunshine and storms, it seemed now to be ready and waiting for the elected artist, like yellow wheat for the reaper; and I could not help wishing that I might carry colors and brushes with me on my travels, and learn to paint. In the mean time I had to be content with photographs on my mind and sketches in my note-books. At length, after I had rounded a precipitous headland that puts out from the west wall of the valley, every peak vanished from sight, and I pushed rapidly along the frozen meadows, over the divide between the waters of the Merced and Tuolumne, and down through the forests that clothe the slopes of Cloud's Rest, arriving in Yosemite in due time — which.
A NEAR VIEW OF THE HIGH SIEREA 51
with iiie, is any time. And, strange to say, among the first people I met here were two artists who, with letters of introduction, were awaiting my re- tm'n. They inquired whether in the course of my explorations in the adjacent mountains I had ever come upon a landscape suitable for a large paint- ing; whereupon I began a description of the one that had so lately excited my admiration. Then, as I went on further and further into details, their faces began to glow, and I offered to guide them to it, while they declared that they would gladly follow, far 01' near, whithersoever I could spare the time to lead them.
Since storms might come breaking down through the fine weather at any time, burying the colors in snow, and cutting oft" the artists' retreat, I advised getting ready at once.
T led tliem out of the valley by the Vernal and Nevada Falls, thence over the main dividing ridge to the Big Tuolumne Meadows, by the old Mono trail, and thence along the upi)er Tuolumne River to its head. This was my companions' first excur- sion into the High Sierra, and as I was almost al- ways alone in my mountaineering, the way that the fresh beauty was refl<'cted in their faces made for 1110 a novel and interesting study. They naturally were affected most of ;ill by the colors — the in- tense azure of tlu^ sky, the purplish grays of the granite, tlu; red and browns of dry mejidows, an<l th«? translucent pui'jilc and crimson of huckleberry bogs; Ihe Jlaming yellow of aspen groves, the silvery flashing of the streams, and the bright green and blue of the glacier lakes. But the general expres-
52 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
sion of the scenery — rocky and savage — seemed sadly disappointing ; and as they threaded the for- est from ridge to ridge, eagerly scanning the land- scapes as they were unfolded, they said: "All this is huge and sublime, but we see nothing as yet at all available for effective pictures. Art is long, and art is limited, you know; and here are fore- grounds, middle-grounds, backgrounds, all alike; bare rock-waves, woods, groves, diminutive flecks of meadow, and strips of glittering water." " Never mind," I replied, " only bide a wee, and I will show you something you will like."
At length, toward the end of the second day, the Sierra Crown began to come into view, and when we had fairly rounded the projecting headland before mentioned, the whole picture stood revealed in the flush of the alpenglow. Their enthusiasm was ex- cited beyond, bounds, and the more impulsive of the two, a young Scotchman, dashed ahead, shout- ing and gesticulating and tossing his arms in the air like a madman. Here, at last, was a typical alpine landscape.
After feasting awhile on the view, I proceeded to make camp in a sheltered grove a little way back from the meadow, where pine-boughs could be ob- tained for beds, and where there was plenty of dry wood for fires, while the artists ran here and there, along the river-bends and up the sides of the canon, choosing foregrounds for sketches. After dark, when our tea was made and a rousing fire had been built, we began to make our plans. They decided to remain several days, at the least, while I con-
A NEAll VIEW OF THE HIGH SIEERA 53
eluded to make an excursion in the mean time to the untouched summit of Hitter.
It was now al>out the middle of October, the springtime of snow- flowers. The first winter-clouds had already Lloomod, and the peaks were strewn with fresh crystals, without, however, affecting the climhing to any dangerous extent. And as the weather was still profoundly calm, and the distance to tlie foot of the mountain only a little more than a day, I felt that I was running no great risk of being storm-bouud.
]\r()uut Kitter is king of the mountains of the middle portion of the High Sierra, as Shasta of the north and Whitney of the south sections. More- over, as far as I know, it had never been climl)ed. I had explored the adjacent wilderness summer after summer, but my studies thus far had never drawn me to the top of it. Its height above sea-level is about 13,300 feet, and it is fenced round by steeply inclined glaciers, and canons of tremendous depth and ruggednoss, which render it almost inaccessi- ble. But difficulties of this kind only exhilarate the mountaineer.
Next morning, the artists went ]ir;irlil>- \n (h.'ii- work and I to mine. Former experiences had given good reason to know that passionate storms, invisi- bl"' ;is yet, might be bivxxling in the c.-ilni sun- gold; tlicri'forc, Ix'foi'c bidding farewell, I wai-ncd the artists not to be alarmed should I fail toai)i)eai- befoi-o a week oi- ten days, and advis(Ml tlifin, in case a snow-storm sli(»uld set in, to kcc]* up liig fires and shelter themselves as best they could, and
54 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
on no account to become frightened and attempt to seek their way back to Yosemite alone through the drifts.
My general plan was simjily this: to scale the canon wall, cross over to the eastern flank of the range, and then make my way southward to the northern spurs of Mount Eitter in compliance with the intervening topography ; for to push on directly southward from camp through the innumerable peaks and pinnacles that adorn this portion of the axis of the range, however interesting, would take too much time, besides being extremely difficult and dangerous at this time of year.
All my first day was pure pleasure; simply mountaineering indulgence, crossing the dry path- ways of the ancient glaciers, tracing happy streams, and learning the habits of the birds and marmots in the groves and rocks. Before I had gone a mile from camp, I came to the foot of a white cascade that beats its way down a rugged gorge in the canon wall, from a height of about nine hundred feet, and pours its throbbing waters into the Tuol- umne. I was acquainted with its fountains, which, fortunately, lay in my course. What a fine travel- ing companion it proved to be, what songs it sang, and how passionately it told the mountain's own joy ! Gladl}^ I climbed along its dashing border, absorbing its divine music, and bathing from time to time in waftings of irised spray. Climbing higher, higher, new beauty came streaming on the sight: painted meadows, late-blooming gardens, peaks of rare architecture, lakes here and there, shining like silver, and glimpses of the forested
t^l^
A NEAB VIEW OF THE HIGH SIEllEA 00
middle region and the yellow lowlands far in the west. Beyond the range I saw the so-called Mono Desert, lying dreamily silent in thick pnrple light — a desert of heavy sun-glare heheld from a desert of ice-])urnislied granite. Here the waters divide, shouting in glorious enthusiasm, and falling east- ward to vanish in the volcanic sands and dry sky of the Great Basin, or westward to the Great Val- ley of California, and thence through the Bay of San Francisco and the Golden Gate to the sea.
Passing a little way down over the summit until I had reached an elevation of about 10,000 feet, I pushed on southward toward a group of savage peaks that stand guard about Ritter on the north and west, groping my way, and dealing instinctively with every obstacle as it presented itself. Here a huge gorge would be found cutting across my path, along the dizzy edge of which I scrambled until some less [>rccipitous point was discovered where I might safely venture to the bottom and then, se- lecting some feasible portion of the oi)i)osite wall, reascend with the same slow caution. Massive, flat-to})ped spurs alternate with tlie gorges, plunging abruptly from the shoulders of the snowy peaks, and planting th<'ir feet in the warm desert. These were ('verywhci-c marked and adorned with charac- teristic sculptur<'S()f tlie ancient ghu'iers that s\V(^pt over this entir*^ region lik(^ one vast ice-wind, and the polished sui'faces producetl l)y the ponderous flood ar(^ still so ])<'rtcctl\' |»i'(»served that in many places the sunliglit rcllcctcd I'lnni tlicin is about as trying to the eyes as sheets of snow. .God's gla<'i,il-iiiills L:rin<l sl(»\vly, l)ut they have
56 - THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
been kept in motion long enough in California to grind sufficient soil for a glorious abundance of life, though most of the grist has been carried to the lowlands, leaving these high regions comparatively lean and bare; while the post-glacial agents of erosion have not yet furnished sufficient available food over the general surface for more than a few tufts of the hardiest plants, chiefly carices and eri- ogonge. And it is interesting to learn in this con- nection that the sparseness and repressed character of the vegetation at this height is caused more by want of soil than by harshness of climate ; for, here and there, in sheltered hollows (countersunk beneath the general surface) into which a few rods of well- ground moraine chips have been dumped, we find groves of spruce and pine thirty to forty feet high, trimmed around the edges with willow and huckle- berry bushes, and oftentimes still further by an outer ring of tall grasses, bright with lupines, lark- spurs, 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 gardens wherever soil can be made to lie, which, though making scarce any show at a dis- tance, constitute charming surprises to the appreci- ative observer. In these bits of leafiness a few birds find grateful homes. Having no acquaintance with man, they fear no ill, and flock curiously about 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 sight and sound inspiring, leading one far out of himself, yet feeding and building up his individuality. . .
A NEAR "SaEW OF THE HIGH SIERRA 57
Now came the solemn, silent evening. Long, blue, spiky shadows crept out across the snow-fields, while a rosy glow, at first scarce discernible, gradu- ally deepened and suffused every mountain-top, flushing the glaciers and the harsh crags above them. This was the ali)englow, to me one of the most im- pressive of all the terrestrial manifestations of God. At the touch of this divine light, the mountains seemed to kindle to a rapt, religious consciousness, and stood hushed and waiting like devout wor- sliii»ers. Just before the alpenglow began to fade, two crimson clouds came streaming across the sum- mit like wings of flame, rendering the su])lime scene yet more impressive ; then came darkness and the stars.
Icy Ritter was still miles away, l)ut I could pro- ceed no farther that niglit. I found a good camj)- ground on the rim of a glacier basin about 11,UU0 feet above the sea. A small lake nestles in the bottom of it, from which I got water for my tea, uimI a stormbeaten thicket near by t'liniished abundance of resiny fii-e-wood. Somber peaks, hacked and shattered, circled half-way around the horizon, wearing a savage asi)ect in the gloaming, and a watci'f.ill cliniitiMl solemnly across tln^ lakeon its way down IVoiu the foot of a glacier. The fall and the lake and the glacier were almost eciually bare; whih^ the scraggy ]»inesanchoi-e<l in the rock- fissures wei-e so dwju-fed and sliorn li\- sloiiii-winds that you iniglit \v;ilk o\'ei- tlicir lo]»s. In tone ;ind aspect the scene was one of the most desolate I ever beheld. I*>nt the <lai'kest sci-ij)tui-es of the nioiin- tnins ni'c illnniiiie(l with bi'ight jtassages of lo\e
58 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
that never fail to make themselves felt when one is alone.
I made my bed in a nook of the pine-thicket, where the branches were pressed and crinkled over- head like a roof, and bent down aronnd the sides. These are the best bedchambers the high moun- tains afford — snug as squirrel-nests, well ventilated, full of spicy odors, and with plenty of wind-played needles to sing one asleep. I little expected com- pany, but, creeping in through a low side-door, I found five or six birds nestling among the tassels. The night-wind began to blow soon after dark ; at first only a gentle breathing, but increasing toward midnight to a rough gale that fell upon my leafy roof in ragged surges like a cascade, bearing wild sounds from the crags overhead. The waterfall sang in chorus, filling the old ice-fountain with its solemn roar, and seeming to increase in power as the night advanced — fit voice for such a landscape. 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 the morning star.
The dawn in the dry, wavering air of the desert was glorious. Everything encouraged my under- taking and betokened success. There was no cloud in the sky, no storm-tone in the wind. Breakfast of bread and tea was soon made. 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 moun- tain-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 moun-
A NEAR VIEW OF THE HIGH SIERKA 59
taius ! To Leliold this aloue is worth the pains of auy excursion a thousand times over. The hij!:hest peaks burned Uke ishmds in a sea of li(iuid shade. Then the lower peaks and spires caught the glow, and long lances of light, streaming through many a notch and pass, fell thick on the frozen meadows. The majestic form of Ritter was full in sight, and I pushed rapidly on over rounded rock-bosses and pavements, my iron-shod shoes making a clanking sound, suddenly hushed now and then in rugs of bryanthus, and sedgy lake-margins soft as moss. Here, too, in this so-called " land of desolation," I met cassiope, growing in fringes among the bat- tered rocks. Her blossoms had faded long ago, but they were still clinging with happy memories to the evergreen sprays, and still so beautiful 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. No evangel among all the mountain jilants speaks Nature's love more plainly than cassiojie. Where she dwells, the redemption of the coldest solitude is complete. The very rocks and glaciers seem to feel her presence, and become im- biKMJ with her own fountain sweetness. All things were warming and awakening. Frozen rills began to flow, the marmots came out of their nests in b()uld<'i--})i](>s and climbed sunny rocks to bask, and tlic diiii-lioa<l('d sparrows were fhtting al)out seek- ing tlicir breakfasts. TIk^ hikes seen from every I'idgc-top were lirilliaiill}' ri[»ple(l and spangled, sliinmieriiiL;- like llie tiiickets of tlie low Dwarf Pines. The rocks, too, seemed r(\sponsiv(^ to the vital li<at — i(»ek-<'i-ystals and snow-crystals tiirill-
60 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
ing alike. I strode on exhilarated, as if never more to feel fatigue, limbs moving of themselves, every sense unfolding like the thawing flowers, to take part in the new day harmony.
All along my com'se thus far, excepting when down in the canons, the landscapes were mostly open to me, and expansive, at least on one side. On the left were the purjjle plains of Mono, repos- ing dreamily and warm ; on the right, the near peaks springing keenly into the thin sky with more and more impressive sublimity. But these larger views were at length lost. Rugged spurs, and moraines, and huge, projecting buttresses began to shut me in. Every feature became more rigidly alpine, without, however, producing any chilling effect; for going to the mountains is like going home. We always find that the strangest objects in these fountain wilds are in some degree familiar, and we look upon them with a vague sense of having seen them before.
On the southern shore of a frozen lake, I en- countered an extensive field of hard, granular snow, up which I scampered in fine tone, intend- ing to follow 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. The surface was pitted with oval hollows, made by stones and drifted pine-needles that had melted themselves into the mass by the radiation of ab- sorbed sun-heat. These afforded good footholds, but the surface curved more and more steeply at the head, and the pits became shallower and less abundant, until I found myself in danger of being
A NEAE VIEW OF THE HIGH SIERKA 61
shed off like avalanehing snow. I persisted, how- ever, creeping on all fours, and slmftiing up the smoothest places on my back, as I had often done on burnished granite, until, after sli^Jijing several times, I was compelled to retrace my course to the bottom, and make my way around the west end of the lake, and thence up to the summit of the divide between the head waters of Rush Creek and the northernmost tributaries of the San Joaquin.
Arriving on the summit of this dividing crest, one of the most exciting pieces of pure wilderness was disclosed that I ever discovered in all my mountaineering. There, immediately in front, loomed the majestic mass of Mount Ritter, with a glacier swooping down its face nearly to my feet, then curving westward and pouring its frozen flood into a dark Ijlue lake, whose shores were bound with precii)ices of crystalline snow; whiL^ a dee}) chasm drawn between the divide and the glacier separated the massive i')icture from everything else. I could see only the one sul)lime mountain, the one glacier, the one lake ; the whole veiled with one l)lu(? shad(jw — rock, ice, and water close together witliout a single leaf or sign of life. After gazing spelll)ound, I began instinctively to scrutinize every ii<)li-li and gorge and weathered buttress of the iiioiiiitaiii, with r<'ference to making tlie ascent, The cntifc fi'ont above the glaciei" api)eai'ed as one 1i"emend()Us i>recipice, slighlly receding at the top, and l>ristling with s])ii-es and pinnacles set above one another in formidal)le array. IMassive liclien- staiued battlements stood I'orwai-d here and there,
62 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
hacked at the top with angular notches, and sepa- rated by frosty gullies and recesses that have been veiled in shadow ever since their creation; while to right and left, as far as I could see, were huge, crumbling buttresses, offering no hope to the climber. The head of the glacier sends up a few finger-like branches through narrow couloirs; but these seemed too steep and short to be available, especially as I had no ax with which to cut steps, and the numerous narrow-throated gullies down which stones and snow are avalanched seemed hope- lessly steep, besides being interrupted by vertical cliffs ; while the whole front was rendered still more terribly forbidding by the chiU shadow and the gloomy blackness of the rocks.
Descending the divide in a hesitating mood, I picked my way across the yawning chasm at the foot, and climbed out upon the glacier. There were no meadows now to cheer with their brave colors, nor could I hear the dun-headed sparrows, whose cheery notes so often relieve the silence of our highest mountains. The only sounds were the gurgling of small rills down in the veins and cre- vasses of the glacier, and now and then the rattling report of falling stones, with the echoes they shot out into the crisp air.
I could not distinctly hoj)e to reach the summit from this side, yet I moved on across the glacier as if driven by fate. Contending with myself, the season is too far spent, I said, and even should I be successful, I might be storm-bound on the moun- tain ; and in the cloud-darkness, with the cliffs and crevasses covered with snow, how could I escape ?
A NE.\R YIEW OF THE HIGH SIERRA G3
No; I must wait till next summer. I would only approach the mountain now, and inspect it, creep about its flanks, learn what I could of its history, holding myself ready to flee on the approach of the fii'st storm-cloud. But we little know until tried how much of the uncontrollable there is in ns, urg- ing across glaciers and torrents, and up dangerous heights, let the judgment forbid as it may.
I succeeded in gaining the foot of the cliff on the eastern extremity of the glacier, and there dis- covered the mouth of a narrow avalanche gully, through which I began to clinil), intending to follow it as far as possible, and at least obtain some fine wild views for my pains. Its general course is oblicpie to the plane of the mountain-face, and the metamorphic slates of which the mountain is built are cut by cleavage planes in such a way that they weather oft in angular blocks, giving rise to irregu- lar stei)S that greatly facilitate climbing on the sheer places. I thus made my way into a wilder- ness of crunil»ling satires and battlements, built to- gether in bewildering combinations, and glazed in many idaccs with a thin coating of ice, which I had lo li.tiiiiuer off with stones. The situation was becoming gradually more perilous; but, having passed several dangerous spots, T dai-ed not think of desccTiding; for, so st(H'p was the entire ascent, one would inevitably fall to tin' glaciei- in case a singl(> misstep were made. Knowing, therefore, the ti-ied danger beneath, I became all th(3 more anxious concerning the developments to bo made al)Ove, and Itegan to be conscious of a vague forel)oding of what actually ])efell; not that I was given In fear,
64 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
but rather because my instincts, usually so posi- tive and true, seemed vitiated in some way, and were leading me astray. At length, after attaining an elevation of about 12,800 feet, I found myself at the foot of a sheer drop in the bed of the avalanche channel I was tracing, which seemed absolutely to bar further i)rogress. It was only about forty-five or fifty feet high, and somewhat roughened by fissures and projections; but these seemed so slight and insecure, as footholds, that I tried hard to avoid the precipice altogether, l)y scaling the wall of the channel on either side. But, though less steep, the walls were smoother than the obstructing rock, and repeated efforts only showed that I must either go right ahead or turn back. The tried dangers be- neath seemed even greater than that of the cliff in front ; therefore, after scanning its face again and again, I began to scale it, picking my holds with intense caution. After gaining a point about half- way to the top, I was suddenly brought to a dead 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 a lifeless rumble down the one general pre- cipice to the glacier below.
When this final danger flashed upon me, I became nerve-shaken for the first time since setting foot on the mountains, and my mind seemed to fill with a stifling smoke. But this terrible jeclipse lasted only a moment, when life blazed forth again with pre- ternatural clearness. I seemed suddenly to become possessed of a new sense. The other self, bygone
A NEAR VIEAV OF THE HIGH SIERRA G5
experiences, lustiiict, or Guardian Angel, — call it what you will, — came forward and assumed control. Then my tremljling- muscles became firm again, every rit't and flaw in the rock was seen as through a microscope, and my limhs moved with a i)Osi- tiveness and precision with which I seemed to have nothing at all to do. Had I been borne aloft upon wings, my deliverance could not have been more complete.
Al)ove tliis memorable spot, the face of the mountain is still more savagely hacked and torn. It is a maze of yawning chasms and gullies, in the angles of which rise beetling crags and piles of detached boulders that seem to have been gotten ready to be launched below. But the strange in- flux of strengtli T had received seemed inexhaus- tible. I found a wav without efl'ort, and soon stood ui»on the topmost crag in the blessed light.
How truly glorious the hmdscape circled around this noljle summit ! — giant mountains, valleys in- numerable, glaciers and meadows, rivers and lakes, with the wide blue sky bent tenderly over them all. ]>ut ill ]ii\' first lioiir of fivedom from that terrible sluidow, tlic sunlight in which I was laving seemed all ill ;ill.
Looking scmthward along the axis of the range, the <'y«3 is first caught l)y a row of exceedingly sharp and slender s[)ii-es, which rise openly to a height of about ;i thousand feet, above a sei-ies of sliort, ]-esidual glaciers that lean back against their bases; th.ii- fantastic scul]>tui-(; and the uni'elieved sharpness witli whieh lliey spring out of the ice rendering them peculiarly wild and sti'ikiiig. These
66 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
are " The Minarets." Beyond them you behold a sublime wilderness of mountains, their snowy sum- mits towering together in crowded abundance, peak beyond peak, swelling higher, higher as they sweep on southward, until the culminating point of the range is reached on Mount Whitney, near the head of the Kern River, at an elevation of nearly 14,700 feet above the level of the sea.
Westward, the general flank of the range is seen flowing sublimely away from the sharp summits, in smooth undulations; a sea of huge gray granite waves dotted with lakes and meadows, and fluted with stupendous canons that grow steadily deejDer as they recede in the distance. Below this gray region lies the dark forest zone, broken here and there by upswelling ridges and domes; and yet beyond lies a yellow, hazy belt, marking the broad plain of the San Joaquin, bounded on its farther side by the blue mountains of the coast.
Turning now to the northward, there in the im- mediate foreground is the glorious Sierra Crown, with Cathedral Peak, a temple of marvelous archi- tecture, a few degrees to the left of it; the gray, massive form of Mammoth Mountain to the right ; while Mounts Ord, Gibbs, Dana, Conness, Tower Peak, Castle Peak, Silver Mountain, and a host of noble companions, as yet nameless, make a sub- lime show along the axis of the range.
Eastward, the whole region seems a land of deso- lation covered with beautiful light. The torrid volcanic basin of Mono, with its one bare lake fourteen miles long ; Owen's Valley and the broad lava table-land at its head, dotted with craters, and
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68 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
the massive Inyo Eange, rivaling even the Sierra in height ; these are spread, map-like, beneath you, with countless ranges beyond, passing and over- lapping one another and fading on the glowing horizon.
At a distance of less than 3,000 feet below the summit of Mount Eitter you may find tributaries of the San Joaquin and Owen's rivers, bursting forth from the ice and snow of the glaciers that load its flanks ; while a little to the north of here are found the highest affluents of the Tuolumne and Mei'ced. Thus, the fountains of four of the principal rivers of California are within a radius of four or five miles.
Lakes are seen gleaming in all sorts of places, — round, or oval, or square, like very mirrors ; others narrow and sinuous, drawn close around the peaks like silver zones, the highest reflecting only rocks, snow, and the sky. But neither these nor the gla- ciers, nor the bits of brown meadow and moorland that occur here and there, are large enough to make any marked impression upon the mighty wilderness of mountains. The eye, rejoicing in its freedom, roves about the vast expanse, yet returns again and again to the fountain peaks. Perhaps some one of the multitude excites special attention, some gigantic castle with turret and battlement, or some Gothic cathedral more abundantly spired than Milan's, But, generally, when looking for the first time from an all-embracing standpoint like this, the inexperienced observer is oppressed by the incomprehensible grandeur, variety, and abun- dance of the mountains rising shoulder to shoulder
A NEAR \^EW OF THE HIGH SIERRA 69
beyond the reach of vision ; and it is only after thev have l)een studied one bv one, Ion or and lov- iugly, that their far-reaching harmonies become manifest. Then, penetrate the wiklerness where you may, the main tehing- features, to which all the surrounding topography is subordinate, are quickly perceived, and the most complicated clus- ters of peaks stand revealed harmoniously corre- lated and fashioned like works of art — eloquent monuments of the ancient ice-rivers that brought tliem into relief from the genei'al mass of the range. The canons, too, some of them a mile deep, mazing wildly through the mighty host of mountains, however lawless and ungovernal^le at first sight they appear, are at length recognized as the necessary effects of causes which followed each other in harmonious sequence — Nature's poems carved on tables of stone — the simplest and most emphatic of her glacial com2)Ositi()ns.
Could we have been here to observe during the glacial period, we should have overlooked a wrinkled ocean of ice as cout iiiuous as that now covering the landscaf^es of Greenland; filling every valley and canon with only the tops of the fountain peaks ris- ing darkly above the rock-encumbered ice-waves like islets in a storiny sea — those islets the only hints of tlic glorious landscapes nowsTuiling in the sun. Stiiiidiiig lici'e in tln^ deep, In'ooding silence all tli(5 wilderness seems motionless, as if the work of creation were done, lint in the midst of this outer steadfastness we know lliei'e is incessant motion .-ind cli.in^c. |*]vei" and ;inon, ;i\;il;inclies are falling from yond<;r i>eaks. Tliesii cliff-l)oun<l
70 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
glaciers, seemingly wedged and immovable, are flowing like water and grinding the rocks beneath them. The lakes are lapping their granite shores and wearing them away, and every one of these rills and young rivers is fretting the air into music, and carrying the mountains to the plains. Here are the roots of all the life of the valleys, and here more simply than elsewhere is the eternal flux of nature manifested. Ice changing to water, lakes to meadows, and mountains to plains. And while we thus contemplate Nature's methods of landscape creation, and, reading the records she has carved on the rocks, reconstruct, however imperfectly, the landscapes of the past, we also learn that as these we now behold have succeeded those of the pre- glacial age, so they in turn are withering and van- ishing to be succeeded by others yet unborn.
But in the midst of these fine lessons and land- scapes, I had to remember that the sun was wheel- ing far to the west, while a new way down the mountain had to be discovered to some point on the timber line where I could have a fire ; for I had not even burdened myself with a coat. I first scanned the western spurs, hoping some way might appear through which I might reach the northern glacier, and cross its snout ; or pass around the lake into which it flows, and thus strike my morning track. This route was soon sufiiciently unfolded to show that, if practicable at all, it would require so much time that reaching camp that night would be out of the question. I therefore scrambled back east- ward, descending the southern slopes obliquely at the same time. Here the crags seemed less formid-
A NEAR VIEW OF THE HIGH SIEKKA 71
able, and the head of a glacier that flows north- east came in siglit, which I determined to follow as far as possible, hoping thus to make my way to the foot of the peak on the east side, and thence across the intervening canons and ridges to camp.
The inclination of the glacier is quite moderate at the head, and, as the sun had softened the neve, I made safe and rapid progress, running and sliding, and keeping up a sharp outlook for crevasses. Aljout half a mile from the head, there is an ice- cascade, where the glacier pom's over a sharp de- clivity and is shattered into massive blocks sepa- rated by deep, blue fissures. To thread my way through the slippery mazes of this crevassed por- tion seemed impossible, and I endeavored to avoid it by climbing oft' to the shoulder of the mountain. But the slopes rapidly steepened and at length fell away in sheer precipices, comix'lling a return to the ice. Fortunately, the day had Ijeen warm enough to loosen the ice-crystals so as to adndt of hollows l)eing dug in the rotten portions of the blocks, thus enabling me to j)ick my way with far less difficulty than I had anticipated. Continuing down over the snout, aii<l along the left lateral inoi-aine, was only a confident saunter, showing that the ascent of the iiioniiljiiii by way of this glarici- is easy, providecl on«^ is armed with an ax to cut stei)S here and tliei-e.
The lower end of the glacier was beautifnlly waved and bailed l)y the onteropi>ing edges of tht^ be(ld<Ml ice-layers which I'epresent the annnal snow- falls, aii<l to some extent the irregnlarities of stiMic- turn caused by tiif wi'.it liri-jng ot' llif walls of o'l'- vasses, and by sepai'atc snowfalls wliidi liavr hcvn
72 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
followed by rain, hail, thawing and freezing, etc. Small rills were gliding and swirling over the melt- ing surface with a smooth, oily appearance, ^n chan- nels of pure ice — their quick, compliant movements contrasting most impressively with the rigid, invi- sible flow of the glacier itself, on whose back they all were riding.
Night drew near before I reached the eastern base of the mountain, and my camp lay many a rugged mile to the north ; but ultimate success was assured. It was now only a matter of endurance and ordinary mountain-craft. The sunset was, if possible, yet more beautiful than that of the day before. The Mono landscape seemed to be fairly saturated with warm, purple light. The peaks marshaled along the summit were in shadow, but through every notch and pass streamed vivid sun- fire, soothing and irradiating their rough, black an- gles, while companies of small, luminous clouds hovered above them like very angels of light.
Darkness came on, but I found my way by the trends of the canons and the peaks projected against the sky. All excitement died with the light, and then I was weary. But the joyful sound of the waterfall across the lake was heard at last, and soon the stars were seen reflected in the lake itself. Taking my bearings from these, I dis- covered the little pine thicket in which my nest was, and then I had a rest such as only a tired mountaineer may enjoy. After lying loose and lost for awhile, I made a sunrise fire, went down to the lake, dashed water on my head, and dipped a cupful for tea. The revival brought about by bread and tea was as complete as the exhaustion
A NEAR VIEW OF THE HIGH SIEEEA , 73
from excessive enjoyment and toil. Then I crept beneath the pine-tassels to bed. Tlie wind was frosty and the fire l)nrned low, but my sleep was none the less sound, and the evening constellations had swept far to the west before I awoke.
After thawing and resting in tlie morning sun- shine, I sauntered home, — that is, back to the Tuol- umne cani|), — bearing away toward a cluster of peaks that hold the fountain snows of one of the north tributaries of Rush Creek. Here I discovered a group of beautiful glacier lakes, nestled toge- ther in a grand amphitheater. Toward evening, I crossed the divide separating the Mono waters from those of the Tuolumne, and entered the glacier basin that now holds the fountain snows of the stream that forms the upj)er Tuolumne cas- cades. Tliis stream I traced down through its many dells and gorges, meadows and l)Ogs, reach- ing the brink of the main Tuolumne at dusk.
A loud whoo]) for the artists was answered again and again. Tiicir cam]>-rii-<' came in sight, and half an liour afterward 1 was with them. They seemed unreasonal)ly glad to see me. I had been al)sent only three days; nevertheless, though the weather was fine, they had already been weighing chances as to whether I would ever return, .-mil trying to decide whether they should wait longer or begin to seek their way back to the lowlands. Now their eui'ious ti-oubles wei'e m'er. ^I'liey packed their precious sketches, and next inoiiiiiig we set out homeward bound, and in two days entered tlu^ Yosemite Valley from the north by way of Indian Canon.
CHAPTER V
THE PASSES
THE sustained grandeur of the High Sierra is strikingly ilkistrated by the great height of the passes. Between latitude 36° 20' and 38° the lowest pass, gap, gorge, or notch of any kind cut- ting across the axis of the range, as far as I have discovered, exceeds 9000 feet in height above the level of the sea; while the average height of all that are in use, either by Indians or whites, is per- haps not less than 11,000 feet, and not one of these is a carriage-pass.
Farther north a carriage-road has been con- structed through wdiat is known as the Sonora Pass, on the head waters of the Stanislaus and "Walker's rivers, the summit of which is about 10,000 feet above the sea. Substantial wagon-roads have also been Iniilt through the Carson and Johnson passes, near the head of Lake Tahoe, over which immense quantities of freight were hauled from California to the mining regions of Nevada, before the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad.
Still farther north a considerable number of com- paratively low passes occur, some of which are ac- cessible to wheeled vehicles, and through these rugged defiles during the exciting years of the gold
74
THE PASSES 75
period long emigrant-trains with foot-sore cattle wearily toiled. xVfter the toil-worn adventnrers had escaped a tlicnisaiid dangers and had crawled thousands of miles across the plains the snowy Sierra at last loomed in sight, the eastern wall of the land of gold. And as with shaded eyes they gazed through the tremulous haze of the desert, witli what joy nuist they have descried the iiixss through which they were to enter the better land of their hopes and dreams !
Between the Sonora Pass and the southern ex- tremity of the High Siei'ra, a distance of nearly KiO miles, there are only five passes through which trails conduct from one side of the range to the other. These are barely practicable for animals ; a pass in these regions meaning simply any notch or canon llnougli wliidi one may, by the exercise of unlimit('(l patience, make out to lead a mule, or a sure-footed nuistang; animals that can slide or .imii]) as well n'^ walk. Only three of the five passes may l»e said to lie in use, viz.: the Keai-sai'g(\ IMono, and A'irginia Creek; the tracks leading through the others ])eing only obscure Indian trails, not graded ill the least, and scarcely traceal)le liy white men; t'"f iimeli of ilie way is over solid rock and earth- quake axalam-lie taluses, where the unshod ponies of the iiKliaiis leave no appreciable sign. ()iily skilled nioiintaineers are a])le to detect the marks that scr\e to uiiide the Indians, su(di as sliuht ahrasioiis of tln' looser i'o(d<s, tlie disj)laceiiieiit ol" stones hei-e and there, and lieiit Imslies and weeds. A genei-al knowledge of the toi)ogi'aphy is, then, the main guide, eiiaMing one to delei'inine where
76 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
the trail ought to go — must go. One of these In- dian trails crosses the range by a nameless pass between the head waters of the south and middle forks of the San Joaquin, the other between the north and 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. The Kear- sarge is the highest, crossing the summit near the head of the south fork of King's Elver, about eight miles to the north of Mount Tyndall, through the midst of the most stupendous rock-scenery. The summit of this pass is over 12,000 feet above sea- level ; nevertheless, it is one of the safest of the five, and is used every summer, from July to October or November, by hunters, prospectors, and stock- owners, and to some extent by enterprising pleasure- seekers also. For, besides the surpassing grandeur of the scenery about the summit, the trail, in as- cending the western flank of the range, conducts through a grove of the giant Sequoias, and through the magnificent Yosemite Valley of the south fork of King's River. This is, perhaps, the highest trav- eled pass on the North American continent.
The Mono Pass lies to the east of Yosemite Val- ley, at the head of one of the trilmtaries of the south fork of the Tuolumne. This is the best known and most extensively traveled of all that exist in the High Sierra. A trail was made through it about the time of the Mono gold excitement, in the year 1858, by adventurous miners and prospec- tors— men who would build a trail down the throat of darkest Erebus on the way to gold. Though more than a thousand feet lower than the Kear-
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78 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
sarge, it is scarcely less sublime in rock-sceuery, while iu snowy, falling water it far surpasses it. Being so favorably situated for the stream of Yo- semite travel, the more adventurous tourists cross over through this glorious gateway to the volcanic region around Mono Lake. It has therefore gained a name and fame above every other pass in the range. According to the few barometrical observa- tions made upon it, its highest point is 10,765 feet above the sea. The other pass of the five we have been considering is somewhat lower, and crosses the axis of the range a few miles to the north of the Mono Pass, at the head of the south- ernmost tributary of Walker's River. It is used chiefly by roaming bands of the Pah Ute Indians and " sheepmen."
But, leaving wheels and animals out of the ques- tion, the free mountaineer with a sack of bread on his shoulders and an ax to cut steps in ice and frozen snow can make his way across the range al- most everywhere, and at any time of year when the weather is calm. To him nearly every notch be- tween the peaks is a pass, though much patient step-cutting is at times required uj) and down steeply inclined glaciers, with cautious climbing over precipices that at first sight would seem hope- lessly inaccessible.
In pursuing my studies, I have crossed from side to side of the range at intervals of a few miles all along the highest portion of the chain, with far less real danger than one would naturally count on. And what fine wildness was thus revealed — storms and avalanches, lakes and waterfalls, gar-
THE PASSES 79
(lens and meadows, and interesting- animals — only those will ever know who give the freest and most buoyant portion of their lives to climbing and see- ing for themselves.
To the timid traveler, fresh from the sedimen- tary levels of the lowlands, these highways, how- ever picturesque and grand, seem terribly forbid- ding— cold, dead, gloomy gashes in the bones of the mountains, and of all Nature's ways the ones to be most cautiously avoided. Yet they are full of the finest and most telling examples of Nature's love; and though hard to travel, none are safer. For they lead through regions that lie far above the ordinary haunts of the devil, and of the pesti- leuce that walks in <larkness. True, there are innumeraljle places where th(3 carcl<'ss step will lie the last step; and a rock falling from the clitfs may crush without warning like lightning from tlio sky; but what then? Accidents in the moun- tains are less common than in the lowlands, and these mountain mansions are decent, delightful, even divine, places to die in, compared Avith the doldul chambers of civilization. Few [tlaces in this world are more dangerous than liome. Fear not, therefore, to try the mountain-i)asses. Tliey will kill care, save you from deadly ai)athy, set you free, and call fortli every faculty into vigorous, enthusiastic acti(.ii. FiVen the sick should tiy these so-called dangerous passes, because for eveiy uiifoi'tunate they kill, tliey cure a thousand.
All till' passes makr llieir stee]->pst ascents on the eastei-n Hank. On this side (he a\erage lise is not far from a thousand feet to the mile, while on
80 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
the west it is about two hundred feet. Another marked difference between the eastern and western portions of the passes is that the former begin at the very foot of the range, while the latter can hardly be said to begin lower than an elevation of from seven to ten thousand feet. Approaching the range from the gray levels of Mono and Owen's Valley on the east, the traveler sees before him the steep, short passes in full view, fenced in by rug- ged spurs that come plunging down from the shoul- ders of the peaks on either side, the courses of the more direct being disclosed from top to bottom without interruj^tion. But from the west one sees nothing of the way he may be seeking until near the summit, after days have been spent in thread- ing the forests growing on the main dividing ridges between the river canons.
It is interesting to observe how surely the alp- crossing animals of every kind fall into the same trails. The more rugged and inaccessible the gen- eral character of the topography of any particular region, the more surely will the trails of white men, Indians, bears, wild sheep, etc, be found converging into the best passes. The Indians of the western slope venture cautiously over the passes in settled weather to attend dances, and obtain loads of pine-nuts and the larva3 of a small fly that breeds in Mono and Owen's lakes, which, when dried, forms an important article of food; while the Pah Utes cross over from the east to hunt the deer and obtain supplies of acorns; and it is truly astonishing to see what immense loads the haggard old squaws make out to carry bare-
THE PASSES 81
footed tlirougli these rough passes, oftentimes for a distance of sixty or seventy miles. They are always accompanied by the men, who stride on, unburdened and erect, a little in advance, kindly stooping at difficult places to pile stepping-stones for their patient, pack-airimal wives, just as they would prepare the way for their ponies.
Bears evince great sagacity as mountaineers, but although they are tireless and enterprising travel- ers they seldom cross the range. I have several times tracked them through the Mono Pass, but only in late years, after cattle and sheep had passed that way, when they doubtless were follow- ing to feed on the stragglers and on those that had been killed by falling over the rocks. Even the wild sheep, the best mountaineers of all, choose regular passes in making journeys across the sum- mits. Deer seldom cross the range in either direc- tion. I have never yet observed a single specimen of the mule-deer of the Great Basin west of the summit, and rarely one of the black-tailed species on the eastern slope, notwithstanding many of the latter ascend the range nearly to the summit every summer, to feed in the wild gardens and bring forth their young.
The glaciers are the pass-makers, and it is by them that the courses of all mountaineers are pre- destined. Without exception every pass in the Sierra was created by them without the slightest aid or predetermining guidance from any of the cataclysmic agents. I have seen elaborate state- ments of the amount of drilling and blasting ac- complished in the construction of the railroad
82 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
across the Sierra, above Domier Lake; but for every pound of rock moved iu this way, the gla- ciers which descended east and west through this same pass, crushed and carried away more than a liuudred tons.
The so-called practicable road-passes are simply those portions of the range more degi'aded by glacial action than the adjacent portions, and de- graded in such a way as to leave the summits rounded, instead of sharp; while the peaks, from the superior strength and hardness of their rocks, or from more favorable position, having suffered less degradation, are left towering above the passes as if they had been heaved into the sky by some force acting from beneath.
The scenery of all the passes, especially at the head, is of the wildest and grandest description, — lofty peaks massed together and laden around their bases with ice and snow ; chains of glacier lakes ; cascading streams in endless variety, with glorious views, westward over a sea of rocks and woods, and eastward over strange ashy plains, volcanoes, and the dry, dead-looking ranges of the Great Ba- sin. Every pass, however, possesses treasures of beauty all its own.
Having thus in a general way indicated the height, leading features, and distribution of the principal passes, I will now endeavor to desci'ibe the Mono Pass in particular, which may, I think, be regarded as a fair example of the higher alpine passes in general.
The main portion of the Mono Pass is formed
THE PASSES 83
by Bloody Canon, which begins at the summit of the range, and runs in a general east-northeasterly direction to the edge of the Mono Plain.
The first white men who forced a way through its somber depths were, as we have seen, eager gold-seekers. But the canon was known and trav- eled as a pass by the Indians and mountain ani- mals long before its discovery by white men, as is shown by the numerous tributary trails which come into it from every direction. Its name ac- cords well with the character of the " early times " in California, and may perhaps have been sug- gested by the predominant color of the meta- morphic slates in which it is in great part eroded ; or more probably by blood-stains made by the un- fortunate animals which were compelled to slip and shuffle awkwardly over its rough, cutting rocks. I have never known an animal, either mule or horse, to make its way through the canon, either in going up or down, without losing more or less blood from wounds on the legs. Occasion- ally one is killed outright — falling headlong and rolling over precipices like a boulder. But such accidents are rarer than from the terrible appear- ance of the trail one would be led to expect ; the more experienced when driven loose find their way over the dangerous places with a caution and sa- gacity that is truly wonderful. During the gold excitement it was at times a matter of considerable pecuniary importance to force a way through the canon with pack-trains early in the spring while it was yet heavily blocked with snow ; and then
84 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
the mules with their loads had sometimes to be let down over the steepest drifts and avalanche beds by means of ropes.
A good bridle-path leads from Yosemite through many a grove and meadow up to the head of the canon, a distance of about thirty miles. Here the scenery undergoes a sudden and startling conden- sation. Mountains, red, gray, and black, rise close at hand on the right, whitened around their bases with banks of enduring snow; on the left swells the huge red mass of Mount Gibbs, while in front the eye wanders down the shadowy canon, and out on the warm plain of Mono, where the lake is seen gleaming like a burnished metallic disk, with clus- ters of lofty volcanic cones to the south of it.
When at length we enter the mountain gateway, the somber rocks seem aware of our presence, and seem to come thronging closer about us. Happily the ouzel and the old familiar robin are here to sing us welcome, and azure daisies beam with trustfulness and sympathy, enabling us to feel something of Nature's love even here, beneath the gaze of her coldest rocks.
The effect of this expressive outspokenness on the part of the canon-rocks is greatly enhanced by the quiet aspect of the alpine meadows 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 the soothing influences of the sunshine, and saun- ter dreamily on through flowers and bees, scarce touched by a definite thought ; then suddenly we
THE PASSES 85
find ourselves in the shadowy canon, closeted witli Nature hi one of her wildest strongholds.
After the first bewildering- impression begins to wear off, we perceive that it is not altogether ter- rible ; for besides the reassuring birds and flowers we discover a chain of shining lakelets hanging down from the very summit of the pass, and linked together by a silvery stream. The highest are set in bleak, rough bowls, scantily fringed with brown and yellow sedges. Winter storms IjIow snow through the canon in l»linding drifts, and ava- lanches shoot from the heights. Then are these sparkling tarns filled and buried, leaving not a hint of their existence. In June and July they begin to lilink and thaw out like sleepy eyes, the carices thrust U}) tlicir short brown spikes, the daisies bloom in turn, and the most profoundly l)nri('d of them all is at length warmed and sum- nicivd as if wintci- Avere only a dream.
Ked Lake is tliu lowest of the chain, an<l also the largest. It seems rather dull and forbidding at first sight, lying motionless in its deep, dark l)i'(l. The canon Avail rises sheei" from the water's edg<^ on the soulli, bul on the opposite side there is sufficient space and sunshine for a sedgy daisy garden, llie center of wliieli is bfilliiinlly lighted with lilies, castilleias, lai-kspurs, and colnnibines, slieltei-ed from the wind by leafy willows, an<l i'oi-niing a most joyt'nl outbui'st of plant-life keenly <Mn[»liasized by jhc diiH baldness of tlu^ onlooking cliffs.
At'ler imlnlging liei-e in a do/ing, shimmering 1;ikc-rfst, tli(^ ha]. py stream sets fort li a.L;-ain, warb-
86 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
liug and trilling like an ouzel, ever deliglitfuUy confiding, no matter how dark the way; leaping, gliding, hither, thither, clear or foaming : manifest- ing the beauty of its wildness in every sound and gesture.
One of its most beautiful developments is the Diamond Cascade, situated a short distance below Red Lake. Here the tense, crystalline water is first dashed into coarse, granular spray mixed with dusty foam, and then divided into a diamond j)at- tern by following the diagonal cleavage- joints that intersect the face of the precipice over which it pours. Viewed in front, it resembles a strip of embroidery of definite pattern, varying through the seasons with the temperature and the volume of water. Scarce a flower may be seen along its snowy border. A few bent pines look on from a distance, and small fringes of cassiope and rock- ferns are growing in fissures near the head, but these are so lowly and undemonstrative that only the attentive observer will be likely to notice them.
On the north wall of the canon, a little below the Diamond Cascade, a glittering side stream makes its appearance, seeming to leap directly out of the sky. It first reseml^les a crinkled ribbon of silver hanging loosely down the wall, but grows wider as it descends, and dashes the dull rock with foam. A long rough talus cm'ves up against this part of the cliff, overgrown with snow-pressed wil- lows, in which the fall disappears with many an eager surge and swirl and plashing leap, finally beating its way down to its confluence with the main canon stream.
THE PASSES 87
Below this point the cliinate is no longer arctic. Butterflies become larger and more abundant, grasses with imi)osing spread of panicle wave above your slioulders, and the summery drone of the bmnblebee thickens the air. The Dwarf Pine, the tree-mountaineer that climbs highest and braves the coldest blasts, is found scattered in stormbeaten clumps from the summit of the pass about half-way down the canon. Here it is suc- ceeded l)y the hardy Two-leav(Ml Pino, which is speedily joined by the taller Yellow and Mountain Pines. These, with the burly jiniiiicr, and shim- mering aspen, rapidly grow larger as the sunshine becomes richer, forming groves that Idock the view; oi- they stand more apart here and there in picturescpie groups, that make beautiful and obvious harmony with tli(^ rocks and Avith one another. Blooming underbrush becomes abun- dant,— azalea, spinea, and the brier-rose weaving fringes for the streams, and shaggy rugs to relieve the stern, unflinching rock-l)osses.
Through this delightful wilderness, Canon ( ^-eek roves without any constraining cli;iiiiicl, llirohbing ami wavering; now in sunshine, now in t liouglit fnl shade; falling, swii'ling, flashing from si<lo to side in weariless exuberance of energy. A glorious milky way of cascades is thus developed, of which Bower C'ascndc, tlimigli one of the snmllcst, is })erhaps the most beautiful of llicniall. it is sifuatecl in the lower region of the pass, Just where the suusliijie b<'gins to mellow between th(! cold and wai-ni cli- mates. Ili'i'e tlie glad <'rfi'k, utowh strong witli ti'ibut(! gatliei'rd fVoin ni,in\;i snowv fountain on
88 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
the heights, sings richer strains, and becomes more human and lovable at every step. Now you may by its side find the rose and homely yarrow, and small meadows full of bees and clover. At the head of a low-browed rock, luxuriant dogwood bushes and willows arch over from bank to bank, embowering the stream with their leafy branches ; and drooping plumes, kept in motion by the cm*- rent, fringe the brow of the cascade in front. From this leafy covert the stream leaps out into the light in a fluted curve thick sown with sparkling crystals, and falls into a pool filled with brown boulders, out of which it creeps gray with foam-bells and disap- pears in a tangle of verdure like that from which it came.
Hence, to the foot of the canon, the metamorphic slates give place to granite, whose nobler sculj^ture calls forth expressions of corresponding beauty from the stream in passing over it, — bright trills of rapids, booming notes of falls, solemn hushes of smooth-gliding sheets, all chanting and blending in glorious harmony. When, at length, its impetu- ous alpine life is done, it slips through a meadow with scarce an audible whisper, and falls asleep in Moraine Lake.
This water-bed is one of the finest I ever saw. Evergreens wave soothingly about it, and the breath of flowers floats over it like incense. Here our blessed stream rests from its rocky wanderings, all its mountaineering done, — no more foaming rock-leaping, no more wild, exulting song. It falls into a smooth, glassy sleep, stirred only by the night- wind, which, coming down the canon, makes
THE PASSES 89
it croou and mutter in ripples along its broidered shores.
Leaving the lake, it glides quietly through the rushes, destined never more to touch the living rock. Henceforth its path lies through ancient moraines and reaches of ashy sage-plain, which no- where afford rocks suitable for the development of cascades or sheer falls. Yet this beauty of maturity, though less striking, is of a still higher order, en- ticing us lovingly on through gentian meadows and groves of rustling aspen to Ijake Mono, where, spirit-like, our happy stream vanishes in va^Dor, and floats free again in the sky.
Bloody Canon, like every other in the Sierra, was recently occupied by a glacier, which deiived its fountain snows from the adjacent summits, and descended into Mono Lake, at a time when its waters stood at a much higher level than now. The prin('ipal characters in which the history of the ancient glaciers is preserved are displayed here in marvelous freshness and simplicity, furnishing the student with extraordinary advantages for the acquisition of knowledge of this sort. The most striking passages are polished and striated surfaces, whicli in many places r<'flcet the rays of the sun like smooth water. The dam of Ked Lake is an elegantly modeled rib of metamorphic slate, brought into relief because of its superior strength, and l)e- cause of i\n) greater intensity of the glacial erosion of the rock immediately above it, caused by a steeply inclined ti'il)utary glacier, which ent(^red the main truid< with a heavy down-tlu'ust at the head of tin; lake.
90 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
Moraine Lake furnishes an equally interesting example of a basin formed wholly, or in part, by a terminal moraine dam curved across the path of a stream between two lateral moraines.
At Moraine Lake the canon proper terminates, although apparently continued by the two lateral moraines of the vanished glacier. These moraines are about 300 feet high, and extend unbrokenly from the sides of the canon into the plain, a dis- tance of about five miles, curving and tapering in beautiful lines. Their sunward sides are gardens, their shady sides are groves; the former devoted chiefly to eriogonae, compositse, and gramince ; a square rod containing five or six profusely flowered eriogonums of several species, about the same number of bahia and linosyris, and a few grass tufts ; each species being planted trimly apart, with bare gravel between, as if cultivated artificially.
My first visit to Bloody Canon was made in the summer of 1869, under circumstances well calcu- lated to heighten the impressions that are the pe- culiar offspring of mountains. I came from the blooming tangles of Florida, and waded out into the plant-gold of the great valley of California, when its flora was as yet untrodden. Never before had I beheld congregations of social flowers half so ex- tensive or half so glorious. Golden compositsB covered all the ground from the Coast Range to the Sierra like a stratum of curdled sunshine, in which I reveled for weeks, watching the rising and setting of their innumerable suns; then I gave myself up to be borne forward on the crest of the summer wave that sweeps annually up the Sierra and spends itself on the snowy summits.
THE PASSES 91
At the Big Tuolumne Meadows I remained more than a month, sketching, ])otanizing, and climbing among the surrounding mountains. The moun- taineer with whom I then happened to be camping- was one of those remarkable men one so frequently meets in California, the hard angles and bosses of whose characters have been brought into relief by the grinding excitements of the gold period, until they resemble glacial landscapes. But at this late day, my friend's activities had subsided, and his craving for rest caused him to become a gentle shepherd and literally to he down with the lamb.
Recognizing the unsatisfiable longings of my Scotch Highland instincts, he threw out some hints concerning Bloody ( Vxfion, and advised me to ex- plore it. " I have never seen it myself," he said, "for I never was so unfortunate as to pass that way. But I have heard many a strange story about 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 a bundle of bread, tied my note-book to my belt, and strode away in the brac- ing ail-, full of eager, indefinite hope. The plusliy lawns tliat lay in my path served to soothe my morn- ing haste. The sod in many j^laces was starred witli daisies and blue gentians, over which I lingered. I traced the patlis of t\m ancient glacioi's over many a shining pavement, and markecl the giips in tlie upper forests that told the j)o\ver()f tlie winter ava- lanches. CUmbing highei', I saw for the first time the gradual dwarfing of the pines in ('(jm[)lian<Mi with climate, and on th*-! summit discovered creep- ing mats of the arctic willow nxrcurown with silky
92 THE MOUNTAINS OP CALIFORNIA
catkins, and patches of the dwarf vaccinium with its round flowers sprinkled in the grass Hke pur- ple hail; while in every direction the landscape stretched sublimely away in fresh wildness — a manuscript written by the hand of Nature alone.
At length, as I entered the pass, the huge rocks began to close around in all their wild, mysterious impressiveness, when suddenly, as I was gazing eagerly about me, a drove of gray hairy beings came in sight, lumbering tow^ard me with a kind of boneless, wallowing motion like bears.
I never turn back, though often so inclined, and in this particular instance, amid such surroundings, everything seemed singularly unfavorable for the calm acce]3tance of so grim a company. Suppress- ing my fears, I soon discovered that although as hairy as bears and as crooked as summit pines, the strange creatures were sufficiently erect to belong to our own species. They proved to be nothing more formidable than Mono Indians dressed in the skins of sage-rabbits. Both the men and the women begged persistently for whisky and tobacco, and seemed so accustomed to denials that I found it im- possible to convince them that I had none to give. Excepting the names of these two products of civ- ilization, they seemed to understand not a word of English ; but I afterward learned that they Avere on their way to Yosemite Valley to feast awhile on trout and procure a load of acorns to carry back through the pass to their huts on the shore of Mono Lake.
Occasionally a good countenance may be seen among the Mono Indians, but these, the first speci-
THE PASSES 93
moii^^ T liad seen, were mostlv ui;iv, and some of them altogetlier hideous. The dirt oil their faces was fairly stratified, and seemed so aneient and so undisturbed it might ahiiost possess a geological significance. The older faces were, moreover, strangely blurred and divided into sections by fur- rows that looked like the cleavage -joints of rocks, suggesting exj^osure on the mountains in a cast- away condition for ages. Somehow they seemed to have no right i)lace in the landscape, and I was glad to see them fading out of sight down the pass.
Then came evening, and the somber cliffs were inspired with the ineffable beauty of the alpenglow. A solemn calm fell upon everything. All the lower portion of the canon was in gloaming shadow, and I crept into a hollow near one of the upper lakelets to smooth the gi'ound in a sheltered nook for a bed. A\nien the short twilight faded, I kindled a sunny fire, made a cup of tea, and lay down to rest and look at the stars. Soon the niglit-wind began to flow and pour in ton-ents among the jagged peaks, mingling strange tones with those of the waterfalls sounding fai- below; and as J (h-ifted toward sleep I began to experience an uncomfortal)le feeling of nearness to the furred ]\[onos. Then the full moon looked down over llic ('(Igo of the canon Avail, her countenance seemingly filled with intense concei-n, and ai)pai-cntly so near as to produce a startling effe(;t as if slu; had entered my bedroom, forgetting all the world, to gaze on me ah)ne.
The night was full of strange sounds, and I gladly welcomed the inoining. I5i-cakfast was soon done, .(lid I setfoilli in the exhilarating fi'eshness
94 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
of the new day, rejoicing in the abundance of pure wildness so close about me. The stupendous rocks, hacked and scarred with centuries of storms, stood sharply out in the thin early light, while down in the bottom of the canon grooved and polished bosses heaved and glistened like swelling sea- waves, telling a grand old story of the ancient glacier that poured its crushing floods above them.
Here for the first time I met the arctic daisies in all their perfection of purity and spirituality, — gentle mountaineers face to face with the stormy sky, kept safe and warm by a thousand miracles. I leaped lightly from rock to rock, glorying in the eternal freshness and sufiiciency of Nature, and in the ineffable tenderness with which she nurtures her mountain darlings in the very fountains of storms. Fresh beauty appeared at every step, deli- cate rock-ferns, and groups of the fairest flowers. Now another lake came to view, now a waterfall. Never fell light in brighter spangles, never fell water in whiter foam. I seemed to float through the canon enchanted, feeling nothing of its rough- ness, and was out in the Mono levels before I was aware.
Looking back from the shore of Moraine Lake, my morning ramble seemed all a dream. There curved Bloody Canon, a mere glacial furrow 2000 feet deep, with smooth rocks projecting from the sides and braided together in the middle, like bulg- ing, swelling muscles. Here the lilies were higher than my head, and the sunshine was warm enough for palms. Yet the snow around the arctic willows was plainly visible only four miles away, and be-
THE PASSES 95
tweeii were narrow specimen zones of all the princi- pal climates of the glol^e.
On the bank of a small brook that comes gurg- liiig down the side of the left lateral moraine, I fonnd a camp-fire still Inirning, which no doubt belonged to the gray Indians I had met on the sum- mit, and I listened instinctively and moved cau- tiously forward, half expecting to see some of their grim faces peering out of the l)ushes.
Passing on toward the open plain, I noticed three well-defined terminal moraines curved gracefully across the canon stream, and joined by long splices to the two noble laterals. These mark the halting- places of the vanished glacier when it was retreat- ing into its summit shadows on the breaking-up of the glacial winter.
Five miles below the foot of Moraine Lake, just where the lateral moraines lose themselves in the plain, there was a field of wild rj'e, growing in mag- nificent waving bunches six to eiglit feet high, bear- ing heads from six to twelve i 1 1 ( ■ 1 1 < s long, liubl )ing out some of the grains, I found them about five eighths of an inch long, dark-colored, and sweet. Indian women were gathering it in baskets, bend- ing down largo handfuls, beating it out, and fan- ning it in tlie wind. They were quite i)ictures(iue, coming tlirongh the rye, as one caught glini])ses of them hei't! and IIkm''', in winding lanes and ojjcu- ings, with sjdcndid lufts ai'cliing above llieir heads, wliile Iheir incessant chat and laughter showed tlieii- lieedless joy.
Like the ryofield, T found llic so-callc(l desert of Mono blooming in a high state of natural culti-
96 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
vation with the wild rose, cherry, aster, and the delicate abronia; also innumerable gilias, phloxes, poppies, and bush-compositse. I observed their gestures and the various expressions of their corollas, inquiring how they could be so fresh and beautiful out in this volcanic desert. They told as happj^ a life as any plant-company I ever met, and seemed to enjoy even the hot sand and the wind.
But the vegetation of the pass has been in great part destroyed, and the same may be said of all the more accessible passes throughout the range. Im- mense numbers of starving sheep and cattle have been driven through them into Nevada, trampling the wild gardens and meadows almost out of exis- tence. The lofty walls are untouched by any foot, and the falls sing on unchanged ; but the sight of crushed flowers and stripped, bitten bushes goes far toward destroying the charm of wildness.
The canon should be seen in winter. A good, strong traveler, who knows the way and the weather, might easily make a safe excursion through it from Yosemite Valley on snow-shoes during some tran- quil time, when the storms are hushed. The lakes and falls would be buried then ; but so, also, would be the traces of destructive feet, while the views of the mountains in their winter garb, and the ride at lightning speed down the pass between the snowy walls, would be truly glorious.
CHAPTER VI
THE GLACIEE LAKES
yiMONGr the many unlooked-for treasures that J\. are bound up and hidden away in the depths of Sierra sohtudes, none more surely charm and sur- prise all kinds of travelers than the glacier lakes. The forests and the glaciers and the snowy foun- tains of the streams advertise their wealth in a more or less telling manner even in the distance, but nothing is seen of the lakes until we have climbed above them. All the upper branches of the rivers are fairly laden with lakes, like orchard trees with fruit. They lie embosomed in the deep woods, down in the grovy bottoms of canons, high on bald table- lands, and around the feet of the icy peaks, mirror- ing back their wild beauty over and over again. Some conception of their lavish abundance may be made from the fact that, from one standpoint on the summit of Red Mountain, a day's journey to the east of Yosemite Valley, no fewer than forty-two are displayed within a radius of ten miles. The whole number in the Sierra can hardly be less than fifteen hundred, not counting the smaller pools and tarns, which are innumerable. Perhaps two thirds or more lie on the western flank of the range, and all are restricted to the alpine and subalpine
THE GLACIER LAKES 99
regions. At tlio close of tlie last o-laeial period, the middle and foot-liill regions also abounded in lakes, all of wliieli have long since vanished as completely as the magnificent ancient glaciers that brought them into existence.
Though the eastern flank of the range is exces- sively steep, we find lakes pretty regularly distrib- uted throughout even the most precipitous por- tions. They are mostly found in the upper branches of the canons, and in the glacial amphitheaters around the peaks.
Occasionally long, narrow specimens occur upon the steep sides of dividing ridges, their basins swung lengthwise like hammocks, and very rarely one is found lying so exactly on the summit of the range at the head of some pass that its waters are discharged down both flanks when the snow is melting fast. But, however situated, they soon cease to form surprises to the studious mountaineer ; for, like all the love-work of Nature, they are har- moniously related to one another, and to all the other features of the mountains. It is easy, there- fore, to find the Ijright lake-eyes in the roughest and most ungovernable-looking topography of any landscape countenance. Even in the lower regions, where they have been closed I'oi- many a century, their rocky orbits are still discernil)le, flllrd in wiih tlio dcti-itusof flood and avalanche. A l)cantiful sys- tem of grouping in corr«'S]iondcnce with tlic glacial fountains is soon perceived; also tlieii* <'xtcnsion in the diriH'tion of the trends of the ancient glaciers; ;iii(l ingcn<'i-al their dependence as to form, size, ami position upon the character of llu; i-ucks in which
100 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
their basins have been eroded, and the quantity and direction of application of the glacial force ex- pended upon each basin.
In the upper canons we usually find them in pretty regular succession, strung together like beads on the bright ribbons of their feeding- streams, which pour, white and gray with foam and spray, from one to the other, their perfect mirror stillness making impressive contrasts with the grand blare and glare of the connecting cataracts. In Lake Hollow, on the north side of the Hoffman spur, immediately above the great Tuolumne canon, there are ten lovely lakelets lying near together in one general hollow, like eggs in a nest. Seen from above, in a general view, feathered with Hemlock Spruce, and fringed with sedge, they seem to me the most singularly beautiful and interestingly lo- cated lake-cluster I have ever yet discovered.
Lake Tahoe, 22 miles long by about 10 wide, and from 500 to over 1600 feet in depth, is the largest of all the Sierra lakes. It lies just beyond the nor- thern limit of the higher portion of the range be- tween the main axis and a spur that puts oat on the east side from near the head of the Carson River. Its forested shores go curving in and out around many an emerald bay and pine-crowned promon- tory, and its waters are everywhere as keenly pure as any to be found among the highest mountains.
Donner Lake, rendered memorable by the ter- rible fate of the Donner party, is about three miles long, and lies about ten miles to the north of Tahoe, at the head of one of the tributaries of the Truckee. A few miles farther north lies Lake Independence,
THE GLACIEK LAKES 101
about the same size as Donner. But far the greater iiuinher of the hikes lie much higher and are quite .small, few of them exceeding a mile in length, most of them less than half a mile.
Along the lower edge of the lake-belt, the small- est have disappeared by the lilling-in of their basins, leaving only those of considerable size. But all along the upper freshly glaciated margin of the lake-bearing zone, every hollow, however small, lying within reach of any portion of the close net- work of streams, contains a bright, brimming pool; so that the landscape viewed from the mountain- tops seems to be sown broadcast with them. Many of the larger lakes are encircled with smaller ones like central gems girdled with sparkling brilliants. In general, however, there is no marked dividing line as to size. In order, therefore, to prevent con- fusion, I would state here that in giving numbers, I include none less than 500 yards in circumference.
In the ])asin of the Merced Kiver, I counted 131, of which ni are upon the triljutaries tluit fall so grandly into Yosemite Valley. Pohono Creek, which forms i\u) fall of that name, takes its rise in a beau- tiful lake, lying beneath the shadow of a lofty granite spur that puts out from Buena Vista peak. TJiis is now the only lakci left in Ihe whole Pohono Basin. Tin? lllilouctte has sixteen, the Nevada no fewer than sixty-seven, the Tenaya eight, Hoffmann Creek live, and Yosemite Creisk fourteen. Tliere are but two otlu'i- lake-bearing affluonts of the Merced, viz., the South 1^'oi-k with lit'leeii, and (/as- cade ( Veek with five, b(»tli of which unite with tho main trunk behjw Yosemite.
102
THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
The Merced River, as a whole, is remarkably like an elm-tree, and it requires but little effort on the part of the imagination to picture it standing up- right, with all its lakes hanging upon its spreading branches, the topmost eighty miles in height. Now add all the other lake-bearing rivers of the Sierra, each in its place, and you will have a truly glorious spectacle, — an avenue the length and width of the
LAKE TENAYA, ONE OF THE YOSEMITE FOUNTAINS.
range; the long, slender, gray shafts of the main trunks, the milky way of arching branches, and the silvery lakes, all clearly defined and shining on the sky. How excitedly such an addition to the scenery would be gazed at ! Yet these lakef ul riv-
THE GLACIER LAKES 103
ers are still more excitingly beautiful and impres- sive in their natural positions to those who have the eyes to see them as they lie imbedded in their meadows and forests and glacier-sculptured rocks. A\^ien a mountain lake is born, — when, like a young eye, it first opens to the light, — it is an irregular, expressionless crescent, inclosed in ]:)anks of rock and ice, — bare, glaciated rock on the lower side, the rugged snout of a glacier on the upi:)er. In this condition it remains for many a year, until at length, toward the end of some auspicious cluster of seasons, the glacier recedes beyond the upper margin of the basin, leaving it open from shore to shore for the first time, thousands of years after its conception beneath the glacier that excavated its basin. The landscape, cold and bare, is reflected in its pure depths ; the winds rutfle its glassy surface, and the sun fills it with throbbing spangles, while its waves begin to lap and murmur around its leaf- less shores, — sun-spaiiglcs during the day and re- flected stars at night its only flowers, the winds and the snow its only visitors. Meanwhile, the glacier continues to recede, and numerous rills, still younger than the lake itself, bring down glacier- mud, sand-grains, and pebbles, giving rise to margin- i-iugs and plats of soil. To these fresh soil-beds come many a waiting plant. First, a hardy carex witli arching leav^es and a spike of brown flowers; tlien, as tlie seasons grow warmer, and the soil-beds deeper and wider, otlusr sedges take their appointed places, and tliese are joined l)y blue gentians, daisies, dodecatheons, violcits, lioneywoi'ts, and niaiiy a lowly moss. Shrubs also hasten in lime to the new
10-i THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
gardens, — kalmia with its glossy leaves and purple flowers, the arctic willow, making soft woven car- pets, together with the heathy bryanthus and cas- siope, the fairest and dearest of them all. Insects now enrich the air, frogs pipe cheerily in the shal- lows, soon followed by the ouzel, which is the first bird to visit a glacier lake, as the sedge is the first of plants.
So the young lake grows in beauty, becoming more and more humanly lovable from centmy to century. Groves of aspen spring up, and hardy pines, and the Hemlock Spruce, until it is richly overshadowed and embowered. But while its shores are being enriched, the soil-beds creep out with in- cessant growth, contracting its area, while the lighter mud-particles deposited on the bottom cause it to grow constantly shallower, until at length the last remnant of the lake vanishes, — closed for- ever in ripe and natural old age. And now its feeding-stream goes winding on without halting through the new gardens and groves that have taken its place.
The length of the life of any lake depends ordi- narily upon the capacity of its basin, as compared with the carrying power of the streams that flow into it, the character of the rocks over which these streams flow, and the relative ]30sitioii of the lake toward other lakes. In a series whose basins lie in the same canon, and are fed by one and the same main stream, the uppermost will, of course, vanish first unless some other lake-filling agent comes in to modify the result; because at first it receives nearly all of the sediments that the stream brings
THE GLACIER LAKES 105
down, only the finest of the mud-particles being carried through the highest of the series to the next below. Then the next higher, and the next would be successively filled, and the lowest would be the last to vanish. But this simplicity as to duration is broken in upon in various ways, chiefly through the action of side-streams that enter the lower lakes direct. For, notwithstanding many of these side tributaries are quite short, and, during late summer, feeble, they all become powerful tor- rents in springtime when the snow is melting, and carry not only sand and pine-needles, but large trunks and boulders tons in weight, sweeping them down their steeply inclined channels and into the lake basins with astounding energy. Many of these side affluents also have the advantage of access to the main lateral moraines of the vanished glacier that occupied tlie canon, 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 a small rapid stream with alnmdance of loose transportable material within its reach may fill up an extensive l^asin in a few centuries, while a lai'ge perennial trunk stream, flowing over clean, enduring pavements, though ordinarily a hundred times larger, may not fill a s?naller basin in thou- sands of years.
Tlie comparative influence of gr<'at and small streams as lake-tillei-s is sti'ikingly ilhisti'atecl in Vos<'niit(^ Valley, tliivuigh which the Merced Hows. Tin; bottom of the valley is now conij)ose<l of level meadow-lands and dry, sloping soil-beds ]>lanted
106 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
with oak and pine, but it was once a lake stretcli- ing from wall to wall and nearly from one end of the valley to the other, forming one of the most beautiful cliff-bound sheets of water that ever existed in the Sierra. And though never perhaps seen by human eye, it was but yesterday, geologi- cally speaking, since it disappeared, and the traces of its existence are still so fresh, it may easily be restored to the eye of imagination and viewed in all its grandeur, about as truly and vividly as if actually before us. Now we find that the detritus which fills this magnificent basin was not brought down from the distant mountains by the main streams that converge here to form the river, how- ever powerful and available for the purpose at first sight they appear ; but almost wholly l)y the small local tributaries, such as those of Indian Canon, the Sentinel, and the Three Brothers, and by a few small residual glaciers which lingered in the shadows of the walls long after the main trunk glacier had receded beyond 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, then of course all the lakes would have come into existence at the same time, and the highest, other circum- stances being equal, would, as we have seen, be the first to vanish. But because they melted gradu- ally from the foot of the range upward, the lower lakes were the first to see the light and the first to be obliterated. Therefore, instead of finding the lakes of the present day at the foot of the range, we find them at the top. Most of the lower lakes van-
THE GLACIER LAKES
107
islied thousands of years before those now bright- ening the alpine hmdscapes were born. And in general, owing to the deliberation of the upward
THE DEATU (JF A LAKE.
retreat of the glaciers, Die lowest of the existing lakes a?'e also the oldest, a gi"adn;d tr;iiisitioii being apparent thi'oughout the entire Ix'lt, fi-oin the older, forested, nieadow-rimnied and contracted Joiins all
108 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
the way up to those that are new born, lying bare and nieadowless among the highest peaks.
A few small lakes unfortunately situated are ex- tinguished suddenly by a single swoop of an ava- lanche, carrying down immense numbers of trees, together with the soil they were growing upon. Others are obliterated by land-slips, earthquake taluses, etc., but these lake-deaths compared with those resulting from the deliberate and incessant deposition of sediments, may be termed accidental. Their fate is like that of trees struck by lightning.
The lake-line is of course still rising, its present elevation being about 8000 feet above sea-level; somewhat higher than this toward the southern extremity of the range, lower toward the northern, on account of the difference in time of the with- drawal of the glaciers, due to difference in climate. Specimens occur here and there considerably below this limit, in basins siDCcially protected from in- washing detritus, or exceptional in size. These, however, are not sufficiently numerous to make any marked irregularity in the line. The highest I have yet found lies at an elevation of about 12,000 feet, in a glacier womb, at the foot of one of the highest of the summit peaks, a few miles to the north of Mount Eitter. The basins of perhaps twenty-five or thirty are still in process of forma- tion beneath the few lingering glaciers, but by the time they are born, an equal or greater number will probably have died. Since the beginning of the close of the ice-j)eriod the whole number in the range has perhaps never been greater than at present.
A rough approximation to the average duration
THE GLACIER LAKES 109
of these mountaiu lakes may be made from data already suggested, but I eaiiiiot stop here to present the subject in detail. I must also forego, in the mean time, the pleasure of a full discussion of the interesting question of lake-l)asin formation, for which fine, clear, demonstrative material abounds in these mountains. In addition to what has been already given on the subject, I will onl}^ make this cue statement. Every lake in the Sierra is a glacier lake. Their basins were not merely remodeled and scoured out by this mighty agent, but in the first place were eroded from the solid.
I must now make haste to give some nearer views of representative specimens lying at different eleva- tions on the main lake-belt, confining myself to des- criptions of the features most characteristic of each.
SHADOW LAKE
Tins 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 of the Merced, at an elevation of about !',]'){) feet above the sea ; and is everywhere so securely (•lil1"-l)ound that without artificial li'uils only wild animals can get down to its r(M'ky shores trmii any (lii'ectioii. Its original lt'iii;tli was aliout a mile and a half; now it is only half a mile in l<'iigth l)y about a foui'th of a mile in widtii, and ovci" the lowest ])oi'tion of thc! l)asin ninety-eight f(M'tdee[>. Itsci'vstal waters jireclasjied around on the noi'th and south by majestic granite walls sculptui'e(l in \v\ui Yosemitic style into domes,
110 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
gables, and battlementecl headlands, which on the south come plunging down sheer into deep water, from a height of from 1500 to 2000 feet. The South Lyell glacier eroded this magnificent basin out of solid porphyritic granite while forcing its way west- ward from the summit fountains toward Yosemite, and the exposed rocks around the shores, and the projecting bosses of the walls, ground and burnished beneath the vast ice-flood, still glow with silvery radiance, notwithstanding the innumerable corrod- ing storms that have fallen upon them. The gen- eral conformation of the basin, as well as the mo- raines laid along the top of the walls, and the grooves and scratches on the bottom and sides, indicate in the most unmistakable manner the di- rection pursued by this mighty ice-river, its great depth, and the tremendous energy it exerted in thrusting itself into and out of the basin ; bearing down with superior pressure upon this portion of its channel, because of the greater declivity, con- sequently eroding it deeper than the other portions about it, and producing the lake-bowl as the neces- sary result.
With these magnificent ice-characters so vividly before us it is not easy to realize that the old glacier that made them vanished tens of centuries ago ; for, exce]3ting the vegetation that has sprung up, and the changes effected by an earthquake that hurled rock-avalanches from the weaker headlands, the basin as a whole presents the same appearance that it did when first brought to light. The lake itself, however, has undergone marked changes; one sees at a glance that it is growing old. More
THE GLACIER LAKES 111
than two thirds of its original area is now dry land, covered with meadow-grasses and groves of pine and fir, and the level Ijed of alhivinni stretching across from wall to wall at the head is evidently growing ont all along its lake ward margin, and will at length close the lake forever.
Every lover of fine wildness would delight to saunter on a summer day through the flowery gi-oves now occupying the fiUed-up portion of the basin. The curving shore is clearly traced by a ribbon of white sand upon which the ripples play ; then conies a Ijelt of broad-leafed sedges, inter- rupted here and there by impenetrable tangles of willows ; beyond this there are groves of trembling aspen; then a dark, shadowy belt of Two-leaved Pine, with here and there a round carex meadow ensconced nest -like in its midst ; and lastly, a nar- row outer margin of majestic Silver Fir 200 feet high. The gi'ound beneath the trees is covered with a luxuriant crop of grasses, chiefly triticum, bromus, and calamagrostis, with j^urple spikes and panicles arching to one's shoulders; while the oi)en meadow patches glow throughont the summer with showy Howers, — heleniums, goldenrods, crigerons, hi})ines, castilleias, and lilies, and f<>iin favorite hid- ing- and feeding-gi-()unds for bears and deer.
The i-ngged soutli wall is feathered darkly along the to}* with an imposing array of spirey Silver Firs, while the rifted precijtices all the way down to the water's ('(Igc ar(? adorned with ]»ictnn^s(jue old jnni- l)ei's, their cinnamon-cohered hark showing finely ujion tlui neutral gray of t\w gi-anite. 'i'liese, with a few venturesonu) Dwarf Pines and Spi-uces, lean
112 THE MOUNT.AJXS OF C-U.IFOKXIA
out over fissured ribs and tablets, or stand erect back in shadowy niches, in an indescribably wild and fearless manner. Moreover, the white-flowered Douglas sijirsea and dwarf evergi^een oak form grace- ful fringes along the narrower seams, wherever the slightest hold can be effected. Eock-ferns, too, are here, such as allosorus, pellaea, and cheilanthes, mak- ing handsome rosettes on the drier fissures ; and the delicate maidenhair, cistoperis, and woodsia hide back in mossy grottoes, moistened by some trick- ling rill ; and then the orange wall-flower holds up its showy panicles here and there in the sunshine, and bahia makes bosses of gold. But, notwith- standing all this plant beauty, the general impres- sion in looking across the lake is of stern, unflinch- ing rockiness; the ferns and flowers are scarcely seen, and not one fiftieth of the whole suiface is screened with j^lant life.
The suimier north wall is more varied in sculp- ture, but the general tone is the same. A few head- lands, flat-topped and soil-covered, support clumps of cedar and pine ; and up-curving tangles of chin- quapin and live-oak, gi'owing on rough earthquake taluses, girdle their bases. Small streams come cas- cading down between them, their foaming margins brightened with gay primulas, gilias, and mimu- luses. And close along the shore on this side there is a strip of rocky meadow enameled with butter- cups, daisies, and white violets, and the purple- topped grasses out 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,
THE GLACIER LAKES 113
but scarce at all cut into as yet by the outfiowiug stream, though it has flowed ou unceasiugly siuce the lake came into existence.
As soou as the stream is fairly over the lake-lip it breaks into cascades, never for a moment halting, and scarce abating one jot of its glad energy, mitil it reaches the next lilled-up basin, a mile below. Then swirling and curving drowsily through meadow and gi-ove, it breaks forth anew into gray rapids and falls, leaping and gliding in glorious exuberance of wild bound and dance down into another and yet another filled-up lake basin. Then, after a long rest in the levels of Little Yosemite, it makes its grandest display in the famous Nevada Fall. Out of the clouds of spray at the foot of the fall the bat- tered, roaring river gropes its way, makes another mile of cascades and rapids, rests a moment in Emerald Pool, ilwii plunges over the gi*and cliff of the Vernal Fall, and goes thundering and chafing down a boulder-choked gorge of tremendous depth and wildness into the trimquil reaches of the old Yosemite lake basin.
The color-beauty about Shadow Lake during the Indian siunmer is much richer than one could hope to find in so young and so glacial a wilderness. Almost every leaf is tinted then, and the golden- rods are in bloom; ]>ut most of the color is given by the rii)e grasses, willows, and asju'iis. At th*; foot of the lake you stand in a trcmlding asp«'n gi'ove, every leaf painted like a l>utterfly, and away to right an<l left round i\m shores sweeps a cm-v- ing ribbon of meadow, rcfl ;ind l>i-<)Wii dotifd with pale yellow, shading off here and there into hazy
114 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
pui'ple. The walls, too, are dashed with bits of bright color that gleam out on the neutral granite gray. But neither the walls, nor the margin meadow, nor yet the gay, fluttering grove in which you stand, nor the lake itself, flashing with spangles, can long hold your attention; for at the head of the lake there is a gorgeous mass of orange-yellow, belonging to the main aspen belt of the basin, which seems the very fountain whence all the color below it had flowed, and here your eye is filled and fixed. This glorious mass is about thirty feet high, and ex- tends across the basin nearly 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's edge, the whole being relieved against the unyielding green of the coniferae, while thick sun-gold is poured over all.
During these blessed color-days no cloud darkens the sky, the winds are gentle, and the landscape rests, hushed everywhere, and indescribably impres- sive. A few ducks are usually seen sailing on the lake, apparently more for pleasure than anything else, and the ouzels at the head of the raj)ids sing always; while robins, grosbeaks, and the Douglas squirrels are busy in the groves, making delightful company, and intensifying the feeling of grateful sequestration without rufiiing the deep, hushed calm and peace.
This autumnal mellowness usually lasts until the end of November. Then come days of quite another kind. The winter clouds grow, and bloom, and shed their starry crystals on every leaf and rock, and all the colors vanish like a sunset. The deer gather
THE GLACIER LAKES 115
and liasten down tlioir well-known trails, fearful of being snow-bound. Storm succeeds storm, heap- ing snow on the cliffs and meadows, and bending the slender pines to the ground in wide arches, one over the other, clustering and interlacing like lodged wheat. Avalanches rush and boom from the shelv- ing heights, piling iimiiense heaps upon the frozen lake, and all the summer glory is buried ;md lost. Yet in the midst of this hearty w^inter the sun shines warm at times, calling the Douglas squirrel to frisk in the snowy pines and seek out his liidden stoi'es; and the weather is never so severe as to drive away the grouse and little nut-hatches and chickadees.
Toward May, the lake begins to open. The hot sun sends down innumerable streams over the cliffs, streaking them round and round with foam. The snow slowly vanishes, and the meadows show tint- ings of green. Tlicn spring comes on apace; tlow- ers and flies enrich the air and the sod, and the deer come back totlic u])]tcr groves like birds to an old nest,
I first disco\('i"('d this cliai'ining lake in the au- tumn of bS72, while on my way to the glaciers at the licad of the rixtT. It was rejoicing tlieii in its gayest colors, nntroihlcn, hidden in ihc ghn'ious wildncss like unniine(l gohk \r:iv after yeai' I walki'il its sliores without discovering any other trace ot' liumanity than the rcMuains of an Indian camp-fii-e, and the thigh-bones of a deer that liad been broken to get at t he mai'i'ow. It lies out of the regulai' ways of Inilians, who love to hunt in nioi'<' accessible lields adjacent to trails. TJieii- knowledge of de.T-haunts hatl probably enticed them here some
116 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
liunger-time when tliey wished to make sure of a feast ; for hunting in this lake-hollow is like hunt- ing in a fenced park. I had told the beauty of Shadow Lake only to a few friends, fearing it might come to be trampled and " improved " like Yosem- ite. On my last visit, as I was sauntering along the shore on the strip of sand between the water and sod, reading the tracks of the wild animals that live here, I was startled by a human track, which I at once saw belonged to some shepherd; for each step was turned out 35° or 40° from the general course pursued, and was also run over in an uncertain sprawling fashion at the heel, while a row of round dots on the right indicated the staff that shepherds carry. None but a shepherd could make such a track, and after tracing it a few minutes I began to fear that he might be seeking pasturage ; for what else could he be seeking ? Returning from 'the glaciers shortly afterward, my worst fears were realized. A trail had been made down the moun- tain-side from the north, and all the gardens and meadows were destroyed by a horde of hoofed lo- custs, as if swept by a fire. The money-changers were in the temple.
OEANGE LAKE
Besides these larger canon lakes, fed by the main canon streams, there are many smaller ones lying aloft on the top of rock benches, entirely indepen- dent of the general drainage channels, and of course drawing their supplies from a very limited
THE GLACIER LAKES 117
area. Notwithstaiidinti- thoy aro mostly small and shallow, owiiii;' to tlu'ir inimuiiity from avalanche detritus and the inwashin«;-s of powerful streams, they often endure longer than others many times larger but less favoraljly situated. When very shal- low they become dry toward the end of summer ; but because their basins are ground out of seamless stone they suffer no loss save from evaporation alone ; and the great depth of snow that falls, lasting into June, makes their dry season short in any case.
Orange Lake is a fair illustration of this bench form. It lies in the middle of a beautiful glacial pavement near the lower margin of the lake-line, about a mile and a half to the northwest of Shadow Lake. It is only about 100 yards in circumference. Next the water there is a girdle of carices w^itli wide overarching leaves, then in regular order a shaggy ruff of huckleberry bushes, a zone of willows with here and there a bush of the ]\[ountain Ash, then a zone of aspens with a few pines around the outside. These zones are of course concenti-ic, and together form a wall Vjeyond which the naked ice- Ijurnished granite stn^tches away in every direction, leaving it conspicuously relieved, like a bunch of palms in a desert.
In autumn, when the colors aro ripe, the whole circular grove, at a little distance, looks like a big liandful of flowers set in a cu]> to l)e kept fresh — a tuft of goldciii'ods. Its feofling-streains ar«' ex- ceedingly beautiful, notwithstanding their incon- stancy and extreme shallowness. They hav<i no channel whatever, and <'onse(piently ar*^ left free to spread in thin sheets upon the shining granite
118 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
and wander at will. In many places the cnrrent is less than a fourth of an inch deep, and flows ^vith so little friction it is scarcely \asible. Sometimes there is not a single foam-bell, or drifting pine- needle, or irregularity of any sort to manifest its motion. Yet when observed narrowly it is seen to form a web of gliding laeework exquisitely woven, giving beautiful reflections from its minute curv- ing ripples and eddies, and differing from the water- laces of large cascades in being everywhere trans- parent. In spring, when the snow is melting, the lake-bowl is brimming full, and sends forth quite a large stream that slips glassily for 200 yards or so, until it comes to an almost vertical precipice 800 feet high, down which it plunges in a fine cataract ; then it gathers its scattered waters and goes smoothly over folds of gently dipping granite to its confluence with the main canon stream. During the greater portion of the year, however, not a single water sound will you hear either at head or foot of the lake, not even the whispered lappings of ripple-waves along the shore; for the winds are fenced out. But the deep mountain silence is sweetened now and then by birds that stop here to rest and drink on their way across the canon.
LAKE STAER KING
A BEAUTIFUL Variety of the bench-top lakes occurs just where the great lateral moraines of the main glaciers have been shoved forward in outswelling concentric rings by small residual tributary glaciers.
120 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
Instead of being encompassed by a narrow ring of trees like Orange Lake, tliese lie embosomed in dense moraine woods, so dense that in seeking tliem you may pass tliem by again and again, although you may know nearly where they lie concealed.
Lake Starr King, lying to the north of the cone of that name, above the Little Yosemite Valley, is a fine specimen of this variety. The ouzels pass it by, and so do the ducks ; they could hardly get into it if they would, without plumping straight down inside the circling trees.
Yet these isolated gems, lying like fallen fruit detached from the branches, are not altogether with- out inhabitants and joyous, animating visitors. Of course fishes cannot get into them, and this is gen- erally true of nearly every glacier lake in the range, but they are all well stocked with happy frogs. How did the frogs get into them in the first place ? Perhaps their sticky spawn was carried in on the feet of ducks or other birds, else their progenitors must have made some exciting excursions through the woods and up the sides of the canons. Down in the still, pure depths of these hidden lakelets you may also find the larva) of innumerable insects and a great variety of beetles, while the air above them is thick with humming wings, through the midst of which fly-catchers are constantly darting. And in autumn, when the huckleberries are ripe, bands of robins and grosbeaks come to feast, forming alto- gether delightful little byworlds for the naturalist.
Pushing our way ujDward toward the axis of the range, we find lakes in greater and greater abun- dance, and more youthful in aspect. At an eleva-
THE GLACIER LAKES 121
tion of about 9000 feet above sea-level they seem to have arrived at middle age, — that is, their basius seem to be about half filled with alluvium. Broad sheets of meadow-laud are seen extending into them, imperfect and boggy in many places and more nearly level than those of the older lakes below them, and the vegetation of their shores is of course more alpine. Kalmia, ledum, and cassiope fringe the meadow rocks, while the luxuriant, waving groves, so characteristic of the lower lakes, are rep- resented only by clumps of the Dwarf Pine and Hemlock Spruce. These, however, are oftentimes very picturesquely grouped on rocky headlands around the outer rim of the meadows, or with still more striking effect crown some rocky islet.
Moreover, from causes that we cannot stop here to explain, the cliffs about 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 rocks that do come forward and plunge directly into deep water are seldom more than three or four hundred feet high.
I have never yet met ducks in any of the lakes of this kind, but the ouzel is never wanting where the feeding-streams are perennial. Wild sheep and deer may occasionally be seen on the meadows, and very rarely a bear. One inight camp on the rugged shores of tlies(! bi'ight fountains for weeks, witliout meeting any animal largci- llian Hk^ marmots tliat buiTow Ijeneath glacier boiddci-s along the edges of the meadows.
The highest and youngest of ;ill the lakes lie
122 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNLA.
nestled in glacier wombs. At first sight, they seem pictures of pure bloodless desolation, miniature arctic seas, bound in perpetual ice and snow, and overshadowed by harsh, gloomy, crumbling preci- pices. Their waters are keen ultramarine blue in the deepest parts, lively grass-green toward the shore shallows and around the edges of the small bergs usually floating about in them. A few hardy sedges, frost-pinched every night, are occasionally found making soft sods along the sun-touched por- tions of their shores, and when their northern banks slope openly to the south, and are soil-covered, no matter how coarsely, they are sure to be brightened with flowers. One lake in particular now comes to mind which illustrates the floweriness of the sun- touched banks of these icy gems. Close up under the shadow of the Sierra Matterhorn, on the eastern slope of the range, lies one of the iciest of these glacier lakes at an elevation of about 12,000 feet. A short, ragged-edged glacier crawls into it from the south, and on the opposite side it is em- banked and dammed by a series of concentric ter- minal moraines, made by the glacier when it en- tirely 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 the moraine dam, while a second stream pours into it direct from a glacier that lies to the southeast. Sheer precipices of crystalline snow rise out of deep water on the south, keeping perpetual winter on that side, but there is a fine summery spot on the other, notwithstanding the lake is only about 300 yards
THE GLACIER LAKES 123
wide. Here, on August 25, 1873, 1 found a charming comiiany of flowers, not pinched, crouching dwarfs, scarce able to look up, but warm and juicy, stand- ing erect in rich cheery color and bloom. On a narrow strip of shingle, close to the water's edge, there were a few tufts of car ex gone to seed ; and a little way back up the rocky bank at the foot of a crumbling wall so inclined as to absorb and radiate as well as reflect a coiisideral)le quantity of sun-heat, was the garden, containing a thrifty thicket of Cowania covered with large yellow flowers; several bushes of the alpine ribes with l)erries nearly ripe and wildly acid ; a few handsome grasses belonging to two distinct species, and one goldenrod; a few hairy lu[)ines and radiant spragueas, whose l)lue and rose-colored flowers were set off to fine advantage amid green carices ; and along a narrow seam in the very warmest angle of the wall a perfectly gorgeous fringe of Epilohinni oh cori latum with flowers an inch wide, crowded together in lavish profusion, and colored as royal a purple as ever was worn by any high-]>re(l i)lant of the tropics; and best of all, and greatest of all, a noble thistl«3 in full l)loom, stand- ing erect, head and shoulders above his companions, and 111 rusting out his lances in sturdy vigor as if gnnving on a Scottish l)rae. All this brave warm bloom among thi^ raw stones, rii!:lit in the face of the onlookiiig glaciers.
Asfaras 1 luivebeen able to lind out, liiese u|i[»cr lakes are snow-bui'ied in winter to a depIJi ol' ai)out thirty-five or forty feet, and thos*^ niosl exposed to avalanch(»s, to a deplli <»t' i'\cn a liiiiidnMl \\•^^ oi- more. Th<'S(! last are, of course, iicnly lost to the
124 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
landscape. - Some remain buried for years, when the snowfall is exceptionally great, and many open only on one side late in the season. The snow of the closed side is composed of coarse granules com- pacted and frozen into a firm, faintly stratified mass, like the neve of a glacier. The lapping waves of the open portion graduaUy undermine and cause it to break off in large masses like icebergs, which gives rise to a precipitous front like the discharging wall of a glacier entering the sea. The play of the lights among the crystal angles of these snow-cliffs, the pearly white of the outswelling bosses, the bergs drifting in front, aglow in the sun and edged with green water, and the deep blue disk of the lake itself extending to your feet, — this forms a picture that enriches all your afterlife, and is never forgotten. But however perfect the season and the day, the cold incompleteness of these young lakes is always keenly felt. "We approach them with a kind of mean caution, and steal unconfidingly around their crystal shores, dashed and ill at ease, as if expect- ing to hear some forbidding voice. But the love- songs of the ouzels and the love-looks of the daisies gradually reassure us, and manifest the warm foun- tain humanity that pervades the coldest and most solitary of them all.
CHAPTER YII
THE GLACIER MEADOWS
AFTER tlie lakes on the High Sierra come the ^LJL glacier meadows. They are smooth, level, silky lawns, lying embedded in the upper forests, on the floors of the valleys, and along the broad backs of the main dividing ridges, 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, and present a dry, even surface free from rock-heaps, mossy bogginess, and the frowsy roughness of rank, coarse-leaved, ^veedy, and shruljl )y vegetation. The sod is close and fine, and so complete that you cannot see the ground; and at the same? time so brightly enameled witli flowers and butterflies that it may well be called a garden- meadow, or meadow-garden ; for tlie plushy sod is in many jjlaces so crowded "with gentians, daisies, ivesias, and various species of orthocarpus that the grass is scarcely noticeable, while in othei's the flowers are only prickecl in here and there singly, or in small ornamental rosettes.
The most inlhiential of the grasses comi)()sing the sod is a delicate calamagrostis with fine filiform leaves, and loose, airy panicles tliat seem to float above tilt' flowery liiNvii like ;i ]»ui'ple mist. IJiit,
li)
126 THE MOUNTAINS OP CALIFOENIA
write as I may, I cannot give anything like an ad- equate idea of the exquisite beauty of these moun- tain carpets as they lie smoothly outspread in the savage wilderness. What words are fine enough to picture them I to what shall we liken them I The flowery levels of the prairies of the old West, the luxuriant savannahs of the South, and the finest of cultivated meadows are coarse in comparison. One may at first sight compare them with the care- fully tended lawns of ]3leasure-grounds ; for they are as free from weeds as they, and as smooth, but here the likeness ends ; for these wild lawns, with all their exquisite fineness, have no trace of that painful, licked, snipped, repressed appearance that pleasure-ground lawns are apt to have even when viewed at a distance. And, not to mention the flowers with which they are brightened, their grasses are very much finer both in color and texture, and instead of lying flat and motionless, matted to- gether like a dead green cloth, they respond to the touches of every breeze, rejoicing in pure wildness, blooming and fruiting in the vital light.
Glacier meadows abound throughout all the al- pine and subalpine regions of the Sierra in still greater numbers than the lakes. Probably from 2500 to 3000 exist between latitude 36° 30' and 39°, distributed, of course, like the lakes, in concordance with all the other glacial features of the landscape.
On the head waters of the rivers there are what are called " Big Meadows," usually about from five to ten miles long. These occupy the basins of the ancient ice-seas, where many tributary glaciers came together to form the grand trunks. Most, however,
THE GLACIER MEADOWS 127
are quite small, averaging perhaps but little more than three fourths of a mile in length.
One of the very finest of the thousands I have en- joyed lies hidden in an extensive forest of the Two- leaved Pine, on the edge of the basin of the ancient Tuolumne Mer de Glaee, about eight miles to the west of Mount Dana.
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 a forest that stretches away indefinitely before you, seemingly unbroken by openings of any kind. As soon as you are fairly into the ^voods, the gray mountain-peaks, with their snowy gorges and hol- lows, are lost to view. The ground is littered with fallen trunks that lie crossed and recrossed like storm-lodged wheat; and besides this close forest of pines, the rich moraine soil supports a luxuriant growth of riljbon-leaved grasses — bronnis, triticum, calamagrostis, agrostis, etc., which rear their hand- some spikes and panicles above your waist. ^Making your way through the fertile wilderness, — finding lively bits of interest now and then in the squirrels and Clark crows, and iKM-chance in a deer or bear, — after the lapse of an hour or two vertical bars of sunshine are seen ahead between the brown shafts of the pines, showing that you ai'e approaching an open space, and then you sud<lenly emerge from the forest shadows upon a delightful ])nr|>le lawn lying smooth and fi'ee in the light like a lake. This is a glacier meadow. It is aljout a mile and a half long by a quarter of a mile wide. The trees come pressing forward all around in close serried ranks.
128 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
planting their feet exactly on its margin, and hold- ing themselves erect, strict and orderly like soldiers on parade; thus bounding the meadow with ex- quisite precision, yet with free curving lines such as Nature alone can draw. With inexjoressible de- light you wade out into the grassy sun-lake, feeling yourself contained in one of Nature's most sacrea chambers, withdrawn from the sterner influences of the mountains, secure from all intrusion, secure from yourself, free in the universal beauty. And notwithstanding the scene is so impressively spiritual, and you seem dissolved in it, yet every- thing 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 robins feeding on the sod belong to the same species you have known since child- hood; and surely these daisies, larkspurs, and goldenrods are the very friend-flowers of the old home garden. Bees hum as in a harvest noon, but- terflies waver above the flowers, and like them you lave in the vital sunshine, too richly and homo- geneously joy-filled to be capable of partial thought. You are all eye, sifted through and through with light and beauty. Sauntering along the brook that meanders silently through the meadow from the east, special flowers call you back to discriminating consciousness. The sod comes curving down to the water's edge, forming bossy outswelling banks, and in some places overlapping countersunk boulders and forming bridges. Here you find mats of the curious dwarf willow scarce an inch high, yet send- ing up a multitude of gray silky catkins, illumined
THE GLACIER MEADOWS 129
here and there with the purple eiips uud belLs of bryaiithus and vaeeiuium.
Go where you may, you everywhere fmd the hiwu divinely beautiful, as if Nature had fingered and adjusted every plant this very day. The floating grass panicles are scarcely felt in 1)rushing through their midst, so fine are they, and none of the flowers have tall or rigid stalks. In the brightest j^hi-ces you find three species of gentians with different shades of 1 due, daisies jjure as the sky, silky leaved ivesias with warm yellow flowers, several spe<.'ies of ortliocarpus with Ijluiit, bossy spikes, red and purple and yellow; the alpine goldenrod, pentstemon, and clover, fragrant and honey ful, with their colors massed and blend* m1. Parting the grasses and look- ing more closely you may trace the branching of their shining stems, and note the marvelous beauty of their mist of flowers, the glumes and pales ex- quisitely penciled, the yellow dangling stamens, and feathery pistils. Beneath tlie lowest leaves j^ou discover a fairy realm of mosses, — hypnum, dicra- num, polytrichum, and many others, — their pre- cious spore-cups poised daintily on polished shafts, curiously hooded, or open, showing the richly ornate pci'istomas worn like royal crowns. Creeping liver- worts are huva also in abundance, and several raro species of fungi, excecdin<;-ly small, and frail, and delicate, as if made only for beauty. Caterpillars, black beetles, an<l ants roam flu; wilds of this lower woiM, making their way throuuli niinialure groves and thickets like Ixiars in a lliick wood.
And lio\v i-jcji, l<»o, is tli<' life of the sunny air! Every leaf ami llower seems to lia\e its \viiii;'e(l
130 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
representative overliead. Dragon-flies slioot in vig- orous zigzags tlirougli the dancing swarms, and a rich profusion of butterflies — the leguminosse of in- sects— make a fine addition to the general sliow. Many of tliese hist are comparatively small at this elevation, and as yet almost unknown to science ; but every now and then a familiar vanessa or papilio comes sailing past. Humming-birds, too, are quite common here, and the robin is always found along the margin of the stream, or out in the shallowest portions of the sod, and sometimes the grouse and mountain quail, with their broods of precious fluffy chickens. Swallows skim the grassy lake from end to end, fly-catchers come and go in fitful flights from the tops of dead spars, while woodpeckers swing across from side to side in graceful festoon curves, — birds, insects, and flowers all in their own way telling a deep summer joy.
The influences of pure nature seem to be so little known as yet, that it is generally supposed that complete pleasure of this kind, permeating one's very flesh and bones, unfits the student for scientific pursuits in which cool judgment and observation are required. But the effect is just the opposite. Instead of producing a dissipated condition, the mind is fertilized and stimulated and developed like sun-fed plants. All that we have seen here enables us to see with surer vision the fountains among the summit-peaks to the east whence flowed the glaciers that ground soil for the surrounding forest; and down at the foot of the meadow the moraine which formed the dam which gave rise to the lake that occupied this basin before the meadow was made;
THE GLACIER MEADOWS 131
and around tlie mar<:>'in the stones that were shoved back and piled up into a rude wall by the exi)an- sion of the lake ice during long bygone winters; and along the sides of the streams the slight hollows of the meadow which mark those portions 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 learn what we may of its wild inhabitants and visitors. How happy the birds are all summer and some of them all winter; how the pouched marmots drive tunnels under the snow, and how fine and brave a life the slandered coyote lives here, and the deer and bears ! But, knowing well the difference between reading and seeing, I will only ask attention to some brief sketches of its varying aspects as they are pre- sented throughout the more marked seasons of the year.
Tlie summer lilV, we have been depicting lasts with but little abatement until October, when the night frosts hagin to sting, bronzing the grasses, and ripening the leaves of the creeping heathworts along the banks of the stream to reddish jnirple and crimson; wliile the flowers disappear, all save the golileiirods and a few daisies, that continue to V)looni on unscathcfl until Ihe Ix^ginning of snowy winter. In still nights tlie grass panicles aii<l every l»';if and stalk ai-e laden with frost crystals, tlirougli wliieh the morning sunbeams sift in ravishing splendor, transforming each to a precious diamond i-adiating the coloi's of the I'ainbow. 'I'he bi-ook shallows ar(^ plaited across and across with slen<l(i' lain-esof ic(^,
132 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
bnt both these and the grass crystals are melted be- fore midday, and, notwithstanding the great eleva- tion of the meadow, the afternoons are still warm enough to revive the chilled butterflies and call them out to enjoy the late-flowering goldenrods. The divine alpenglow flushes the surrounding forest every evening, followed by a crystal night with hosts of lily stars, whose size and brilliancy cannot be con- ceived 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 Decenil;)er. Then comes a sudden change. Clouds of a peculiar aspect with a slow, crawling gait gather and grow in the azure, throwing out satiny fringes, and becoming gradually darker until every lake-like rift and opening is closed and the whole bent fir- mament is obscured in equal structureless gloom. Then comes the snow, for the clouds are ripe, the meadows of the sky are in bloom, and shed their radiant l^lossoms like an orchard in the spring. Lightly, lightly they lodge in the brown grasses and in the tasseled needles of the pines, falling hour after hour, day after day, silently, lovingly, — all the winds hushed, — glancing and circling hither, thither, glinting against one another, rays interlock- ing in flakes as large as daisies ; and then the dry grasses, and the trees, and the stones are all equally abloom again. Thunder-showers occur here during the summer months, and impressive it is to w^atch the coming of the big transparent drops, each a small world in itself, — one unbroken ocean without islands limiing free through the air like planets
THE GLACIER MEADOWS 133
through space. But still more impressive to me is the coming of the snow-flowers, — falling stars, win- ter daisies, — giving bloom to all the ground alike. Kaindrops blossom brilliantly in the rainbow, and change to flowers in the sod, but snow comes in full flower direct from the dark, frozen sky.
The later snow-storms are oftentimes accom- panied by winds that break up the crystals, when the temperature is low, into single petals and irreg- ular dusty fragments ; but there is comparatively little drifting on the meadow, so securely is it em- bosomed in the woods. From December to ]\Iay, storm succeeds storm, until the snow is about fif- teen or twenty feet 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 the birds have gone down below the snow-line, the plants sleep, and all the fly-wings are folded. Yet the sun beams gloriously many a cloudless day in midwinter, casting long lance sluul- ows athwart the dazzling expanse. In June small flecks of the dead, decaying sod begin to apiM'ar, gradually widening and uniting with one another, covered with ('ree]»ing rags of water during the day, and ice by night, looking as hopeless and unvital as crushed rocks just emerging t'lnm iho darkness of the glacial }i<'ri(Ml. Walk i1h' meadow now ! Scarce the memory of a flower will you (ind. The gi-ound se<'ms twice <l«\id. Xe\ci-t lielcss, tlie annual resui-- rection is drawing near. The life-giving sun ]»ours his floods, the last snow-wreath luells, myriads of growing pf)ints push eagei-ly tliinugli the steaniing mold, tlie birds come bark, ucw wings lill tlie aii".
134 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
and fervid summer life comes surging on, seemingly yet more glorious than before.
This is a perfect meadow, and under favorable circumstances exists without manifesting any marked changes for centuries. Nevertheless, soon or late it must inevitably grow old and vanish. During the calm Indian summer, scarce a sand-grain moves around its banks, but in flood-times and storm-times, soil is washed forward upon it and laid in successive sheets around its gently sloping rim, and is gradually extended to the center, making it dryer. Through a considerable period the meadow vegetation is not greatly affected thereby, for it gradually rises with the rising ground, keeping on the surface like water-plants rising on the swell of waves. But at length the elevation of the meadow- land goes on 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 for the new conditions. The most characteristic of the new- comers at this elevation above the sea are prin- cipally sun-loving gilias, eriogonte, and composit£e, and finally forest-trees. Henceforward the obscur- ing changes are so manifold that the original lake- meadow can be unveiled and seen only by the geologist.
Generally speaking, glacier lakes vanish more slowly than the meadows that succeed them, be- cause, unless very shallow, a greater quantity of ma- terial is required to fill up their l^asins and obliterate them than is required to render the surface of the meadow too high and dry for meadow vegetation.
THE GLACIER MEADOWS 135
Furtlierraore, owing to the weathering to which the adjacent rocks are subjected, material of the finer sort, susceptible of transi^ortation by rains and or- dinary floods, is more abundant during the meadow period than during the lake period. Yet doubtless many a fine meadow favorably situated exists in al- most prime beauty for thousands of years, the pro- cess of extinction l)eing exceedingly slow, as we reckon time. This is especially the case mth mea- dows circumstanced like the one we have described — embosomed in deep woods, with the ground ris- ing gently away from it all around, the network of tree-roots in which all the ground is clasped pre- venting any rapid torrential washing. But, in ex- ceptional cases, beautiful lawns formed with great deliberation are overwhelmed and obliterated at once by the action of land-slips, earth(|uake ava- lanches, or extraordinary floods, just as lakes are. In those glacier meadows that take the places of shallow lakes which have been fed l)y feeble streams, glacier mud and fine vegetable humus enter largely into tlie composition of the soil; and on account of the shallowness of this soil, and the seamless, water- tiglit, undrniinMl coiKlitioii of the rock-basins, they are usually wet, and tlierefore occupied by tall gi-asses and sedges, whose coarse ai)pearance ofters a striking contrast to that of the delicate lawn-mak- ing kind descrilxnl nbovo. These sliallow-soiled meadows are oftentimes still further rouglieiKMl and diversified by pai-fially burie(l moraines and swell- ing l»osses of the be(l-i-()ck, whieh, wifli the trees and shruljs growing upon tlieiii, produce a striking efl'ect
136 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
as they stand in relief like islands in the grassy- level, or sweep across in rugged curves from one forest wall to the other.
Throughout the upper meadow region, wherever water is sufficiently abundant and low in tempera- ture, in basins secure from flood-washing, handsome bogs are formed with a deep growth of brown and yellow sphagnum picturesquely ruffled with patches of kalmia and ledum which ripen masses of beau- tiful color in the autumn. Between these cool, spongy bogs and the dry, flowery meadows there are many interesting varieties which are graduated 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, differing greatly both in origin and ap- pearance from the lake-meadows, is found lying aslant upon moraine-covered hillsides trending in the direction of greatest declivity, waving up and down over rock heajDS and ledges, like rich green ribbons brilliantly illumined with tall flowers. They occur both in the alpine and subalpine re- gions in considerable numbers, and never fail to make telling features in the landscape. They are often a mile or more in length, but never very wide — usually from thirty to fifty yards. When the mountain or canon side on which they lie dips at the required angle, and other conditions are at the same time favorable, they extend from above the
THE GLACIER MEADO^VS 137
timher line to the bottom of a eaiioii or lake basin, descending in fine, fluent lines like cascades, break- ing here and there into a kind of spray on large boulders, or dividing and flowing around on either side of some projecting islet. Sometimes a noisy stream goes brawling down through them, and again, scarcely a drop of water is in sight. They owe their existence, however, to streams, whether visible or invisible, the wildest specimens being found where some perennial fountain, as a glacier or snowbank or moraine spring sends down its waters across a rough sheet of soil in a dissipated web of feeble, oozing rivulets. These conditions giA'^e 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 moraine soil and the necessary moisture rccpiisite for the better class of meadow plants are at times conibijunl about as perfectly as if smoothly outspread on a level surface. AVliero the soil hap- pens to be (composed of the finer qualities of glacial detritus and the water is not in excess, the nearest approach is made by the vegetation to that of the I.I l<i -meadow. But where, as is more commonly th«^ case, the soil is coarse and bouldery, the vegetation is (•<)rresj)ondingly rank. Tall, wide-leaved grasses take theii' places along tlie sides, and rushes ami nodding cariees in the welter portions, mingled with the most beautiful and imposing flowei-s, — orange lilies and lai-kspurs sev(Mi oi- eight feet higli, lupines, senccios, alinnis, i»ainted-eii|)s, many speci<'s of mimulus and penl^temon, tlie nniple l)oat-le,i\c(l vcratntjii alha, and t lie magnificent alpine cohunbine,
138 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
with spurs an inch and a half long. At an eleva- tion of from seven to nine thousand feet showy flowers frequently form the bulk of the vegetation ; then the hanging meadows become hanging gardens.
In rare instances we find an alpine basin the bot- tom of which is a perfect meadow, and the sides nearly all the way round, rising in gentle curves, are covered with moraine soil, which, being saturated with melting snow from encircling fountains, gives rise to an almost continuous girdle of down-curving meadow vegetation that blends gracefully into the level meadow at the bottom, thus forming a grand, smooth, soft, meadow-lined mountain nest. It is in meadows of this sort that the mountain beaver {Ilaplodon) loves to make his home, excavating snug chambers beneath the sod, digging canals, turning the underground waters from channel to channel to suit his convenience, and feeding the vegetation.
Another kind of meadow or bog occurs on dense- ly timbered hillsides where small perennial streams have been dammed at short intervals by fallen trees. Still another kind is found hanging down smooth, flat precipices, while corresponding leaning mea- dows rise to meet them.
There are also three kinds of small pot-hole mea- dows one of which is found along the banks of the main streams, another on the summits of rocky ridges, and the third on glacier pavements, aU of them interesting in origin and brimful of plant beauty.
CHAPTER VIII
THE FOKESTS
THE coniferous forests of tlie Sierra are the grandest and most beautiful in the world, and grow in a delightful eliniate on the most interest- ing and accessible of mountain-ranges, yet strange to say they are not well known. More than sixty years ago David Douglas, an enthusiastic botanist and tree lover, wandered alone through fine sections of the Sugar Pine and Silver Fir woods wild with delight. A few years later, other botanists made short journeys from the coast into the lower woods. Then came the wonderful nniltitude of miners into the foot-hill zone, mostly blind with gold-dust, soon followed by "sheepmen," wlio, witli wool over their eyes, chased their flocks through all the forest belts from one end of the range to the other. Then tlie Yosemite Valley was discovered, and thousands of admiring tourists passed thi-ough siw-lions of the lowci" and middle zones on Ihcii- way 1o that won- derful iiark, and gained line glimpses of the Sngar Pines and Silvei- Firs along the edges of dusty trails and roads. Bnt few indeed, strong and free witli eyes undimme<l willi cai-e, have goiu^ far enough and lived long enough with the ti'e<'s to gain any- thing like a loving conccptiou of theii-gi andriif .hkI
189
140 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
significance as manifested in the harmonies of their distribution and varying aspects throughout the seasons, as they stand arrayed in their winter garb rejoicing in storms, putting forth their fresh leaves in the spring while steaming with resiny fragrance, receiving the thunder-showers of summer, or repos- ing heavy-laden with ripe cones in the rich sungold of autumn. For knowledge of this kind one must dwell with the trees and grow with them, without any reference to time in the almanac sense.
The distribution of the general forest in belts is readily perceived. These, as we have seen, extend in regular order from one extremity of the range to the other ; and however dense and somber they may appear in general views, neither on the rocky heights nor down in the leafiest hollows Avill you find anything to remind you of the dank, malarial selvas of the Amazon and Orinoco, with their "boundless contiguity of shade," the monotonous uniformity of the Deodar forests of the Himalaya, the Black Forest of Europe, or the dense dark woods of Douglas Spruce where rolls the Oregon. The giant pines, and firs, and Sequoias hold their arms open to the sunlight, rising above one another on the mountain benches, marshaled in glorious array, giving forth the utmost expression of grandeur and beauty with inexhaustible variety and harmony.
The inviting openness of the Sierra woods is one of their most distinguishing characteristics. The trees of all the species stand more or less apart in groves, or in small, irregular groups, enabling one to find a way nearly everywhere, along sunny colon- nades and through openings that have a smooth.
VIEW IN Tin; SIEKKA I'OUEST.
142 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
park-like surface, strewn with brown needles and burs. Now you cross a wild garden, now a meadow, now a ferny, willowy stream; and ever and anon you emerge from all the groves and flowers u^Don some granite pavement or high, bare ridge com- manding superb views above the waving sea of evergreens far and near.
One would experience but little difficulty in riding on horseback through the successive belts all the way up to the storm-beaten fringes of the icy peaks. The deep canons, however, that extend from the axis of the range, cut the belts more or less com- pletely into sections, and prevent the mounted trav- eler from tracing them lengthwise.
This simple arrangement in zones and sections brings the forest, as a whole, within the comprehen- sion of every observer. The different species are ever found occupying the same relative positions to one another, as controlled by soil, climate, and the comparative vigor of each siDecies in taking and holding the ground; and so appreciable are these relations, one need never be at a loss in de- termining, within a few hundred feet, the elevation above sea-level by the trees alone; for, notwith- standing some of the species range upward for sev- eral thousand feet, and all pass one another more or less, yet even those possessing the greatest verti- cal range are available in this connection, in as much as they take on new forms corresponding with the variations in altitude.
Crossing the treeless plains of the Sacramento and San Joaquin from the west and reaching the Sierra foot-hills, you enter the lower fringe of the
THE FORESTS
143
forest, composed of small oaks and pines, growino; so far apart that not one twentieth of the surface of the 2:round is in shade at clear noondav. After ad- vancing fifteen or twenty miles, and making an as- cent of from two to three thousand feet, you reach
J0^ ' ''%, ' "^-Ji
EDGE OF THE TIMBER LINE ON MOUNT SHASTA.
tlic lower iiiai'giii of the main piiK; Ix'lt, composed ol' liie gigantic Sugar Pine, Yellow Pine, IiK-ense Cedar, and Secpioia. Next you come to the magnifi- cent Silvei- l-'ii- Ix'lt, ;iii(l l.islly to llic uiipcf pine belt, whicli sw^'ejis up the rocky acclivities of the summit ])eaks in a dw.irtVd, waMTJng fringe to a lieiglit of from Icii lo twchi^ lliousaiid feet.
144 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
This general order of distribution, with reference to climate dependent on elevation, is perceived at once, but there are other harmonies, as far-reaching in this connection, that become manifest only after patient observation and study. Perhaps the most interesting of these is the arrangement of the forests in long, curving bands, braided together into lace- like patterns, and outsj^read in charming variety. The key to this beautiful harmony is the ancient gla- ciers ; where they flowed the trees followed, tracing their wavering courses along canons, over ridges, and over high, rolling plateaus. The Cedars of Leb- anon, says Hooker, are growling upon one of the moraines of an ancient glacier. All the forests of the Sierra are growing upon moraines. But mo- raines vanish like the glaciers that make them. Every storm that falls upon them wastes them, cut- ting gaps, disintegrating boulders, and carrying away their decaying material into new formations, until at length they are no longer recognizable by any save students, who trace their transitional forms down from the fresh moraines still in process of for- mation, through those that are more and more an- cient, and more and more obscured by vegetation and all kinds of post-glacial weathering.
Had the ice-sheet that once covered all the range been melted simultaneously from the foot-hills to the summits, the flanks would, of course, have been left almost bare of soil, and these noble forests would be wanting. Many groves and thickets would undoubtedly have grown up on lake and avalanche beds, and many a fair flower and shrub would have found food and a dwelling-place in weathered nooks
THE FOKESTS
145
and crevices, but the Sierra as a whole would have been a bare, rocky desert.
It appears, therefore, that the Sierra forests in general indicate the extent and positions of the an-
r
tn
O
Mi
^■^^^
C'ient moraines as well us llicy do liiius of cliiiiato. For forests, properly spoakiu^^, cannot <'xist without soil; and, since the niorain(\s have hem deposited upon the sorKJ loek, ;iiid only njtou elected phices,
146 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
leaving a considerable portion of the old glacial surface bare, we find luxuriant forests of pine and fir abruptly terminated by scored and polished pavements on which not even a moss is growing, though soil alone is required to fit them for the growth of trees 200 feet in height.
THE NUT PINE (Pinus Sabiniana)
The Nut Pine, the first conifer met in ascending the range from the west, grows only on the torrid foot- hills, seeming to delight in the most ardent sun- heat, like a palm; springing up here and there singly, or in scattered groups of five or six, among scrubby White Oaks and thickets of ceanothus and manza- nita; its extreme upper limit being about 4000 feet 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 is so loose in habit and so widely branched, and its foliage is so thin and gray. Full-grown specimens are from forty to fifty feet in height, and from two to three feet in diameter. The trunk usually divides into three or four main branches, about fifteen and twenty feet from the ground, which, after bearing away from one another, shoot straight up and form separate summits ; while the crooked subordinate branches aspire, and radiate, and droo23 in ornamental sprays. The slender.
THE FORESTS
147
grayisli-groen needles are from eight io twelve iiielies long', loosely tasseled, and inclined to droop in handsome curves, contrasting with the stiff, dark-
NUT I'lNi; (I'INIS SAIJISIANA).
(•oldfcd tniiilc ;iiid l)raiicln'> in ;i \«'i'y striking iiiainicr. Xo <>! Imt tree ot" ni\' ac<|nain1;iiiee, so suli- Staiitial in liody, is in its t'oliago so thin and so per- vious to llif liiiht. TIm' >nnlicains sift tlii'oui;-h
148 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
even the leafiest trees with scarcely any interrup- tion, and the weary, heated traveler finds but little protection in their shade.
The generous crop of nutritious nuts which the Nut Pine yields makes it a favorite with Indians, bears, and squirrels. The cones are most beautiful, measuring from five to eight inches in length, and not much less in thickness, rich chocolate-brown in color, and protected by strong, down-curving hooks which terminate the scales. Nevertheless, the lit- tle Douglas squirrel can oj)en them. Indians gath- ering the ripe nuts make a striking picture. The men climb the trees like bears and beat off the cones with sticks, or recklessly cut off the more fruitful branches with hatchets, while the squaws gather the big, generous cones, and roast them until the scales open sufficiently to allow the hard-shelled seeds to be beaten out. Then, in the cool evenings, men, women, and children, with their capacity for dirt greatly increased by the soft resin with which they are all bedraggled, form circles around camp-fires, on the bank of the nearest stream, and lie in easy independence cracking nuts and laughing and chat- tering, as heedless of the future as the squirrels.
Finns tubercidata
This curious little pine is found at an elevation of from 1500 to 3000 feet, growing in close, willowy groves. It is exceedingly slender and graceful in habit, although trees that chance to stand alone out- side the groves sweep forth long, curved branches,
THE FOEESTS
149
TnK GROVE FORM. THE ISOLATED FORM (PINUS TUBERCULATA).
pi'oduciii.i!,' ii sfi'ikiiig contrast to thi^ ordinary grove form. Tlio foliage is of the same juMMiliai- gray- green eolor as Hint of llic Xut I*iii<', jiikI is woi'u al)oni .IS loosely, so that the l)0(ly of the tree is scareely obsenred hy it.
150 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
At the age of seven or eight years it begins to bear cones, not on branches, but on the main axis, and, as they never fall off, the trunk is soon pic- turesquely dotted with them. The branches also become fruitful after they attain sufficient size. The average size of the older trees is about thirty or forty feet in height, and twelve to fourteen inches in diameter. The cones are about four inches long, ex- ceedingly hard, and covered with a sort of silicious varnish and gum, rendering them impervious to moisture, evidently with a view to the careful pres- ervation of the seeds.
No other conifer in the range is so closely re- stricted to special localities. It is usually found apart, standing deep in chaparral on sunny hill- and canon-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 times without meeting it.
While exploring the lower portion of the Merced Canon I found a lonely miner seeking his fortune in a quartz vein on a wild mountain-side planted with this singular tree. He told me that he called it the Hickory Pine, because of the whiteness and toughness of the wood. It is so little known, how- ever, that it can hardly be said to have a common name. Most mountaineers refer to it as " that queer little pine-tree covered all over with burs." In my studies of this species I found a very interesting and significant group of facts, whose relations will be seen almost as soon as stated:
1st. All the trees in the groves I examined, how- ever unequal in size, are of the same age.
THE FORESTS
151
2d. Those groves are all planted on dry hillsides covered with chaparral, aud therefore are liable to be swept by fire.
3d. There are no seedlings or sai)lings in or about the living groves, but there is always a fine, hopeful crop springing up on the ground once occupied by
WCi-^*r*---'*^'".^S^
LOWLK MARGIN OF THK MAIN I'INK UKLT, SHOWING OPEN CHARACTER OP WOODS.
any gi'ove that has been destroyed by the burning of tli<' chaparral.
4tli. The ooiics never fall otV and iicvci' discharge tlicii- seeds until tlie tree or branch to which they Ix'long dies.
A full (liscHssion ot" llie Iteai'ing of those facts upon one jinntlier would i)ei']ia|>s lie oul of place here, but 1 may at least call attention to the ad- mirable a<laptation <>r tlie tier to the (ire-sw('i»t r(»-
152 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
gions where alone it is found. After a grove has been destroyed, the ground is at once sown lavishly with all the seeds ripened during its whole life, which seem to have been carefully held in store with reference to such a calamity. Then a young grove immediately springs up, giving beauty for ashes.
SUGAK PINE
{Pinus LaDibertiana)
This is the noblest pine yet discovered, surpass- ing all others not merely in size but also in kingly beauty and majesty.
It towers sublimely from every ridge and canon of the range, at an elevation of from three to seven thousand feet above the sea, attaining most jperf ect development at a height of about 5000 feet.
Full-grown specimens are commonly about 220 feet high, and from six to eight feet in diameter near the ground, though some grand old patriarch is occasionally met that has enjoyed five or six cen- turies of storms, and attained a thickness of ten or even twelve feet, living on undecayed, sweet and fresh in every fiber.
In southern Oregon, where it was first discovered by David Douglas, on the head waters of the Umpqua, it attains still grander dimensions, one specimen having been measured that was 245 feet high, and over eighteen feet in diameter three feet from the ground. The discoverer was the Douglas for whom the noble Douglas Spruce is named, and niany other plants which will keep his memory
THE FORESTS 153
sweet and fresh as long as trees and flowers are loved. His first visit to the Pacific Coast was made in the year 1825. The Oregon Indians watched him ^vith curiosity as he wandered in the woods collect- ing specimens, and, unlike the fur-gathering stran- gers they had hitherto known, caring nothing about trade. And when at length they came to know him better, and saw that from year to year the grow- ing things of the woods and prairies were his only objects of pursuit, they called him " The Man of Grass," a title of which he was proud. During his first summer on the waters of the Columbia he made Fort Vancouver his headquarters, making ex- cursions from this Hudson Bay post in every direc- tion. On one of his long trips he saw in an Indian's pouch some of the seeds of a new species of pine which he learned were obtained from a very large tree far to the southward of the Columbia. At the end of the next summer, returning to Fort Vancou- ver after the setting in of the winter rains, bearing in mind the big pine he had heard of, he set out on an excursion up the Willamette Valley in search of it ; and how he fared, and what dangers and hardships he endured, are best told in his own journal, from wliidi I quote as follows:
October 26, 1820. Woathor dull. Cold and cloudy. Wlion my friends in p]n gland arc made acquainted with my travels I fear they will lliiiik 1 liavc told tliem nothing hut my miseries. ... I (juittcd my <-m\\\) early in the mornini; to sni'vey th(^ iH-ij^hhoi-iuj,' counlry, leaving niy guide to take eharg*; of the horses until my i-eturn in the evening. About an liour's walk t'loin tlie camp I met an Indian, who on perceiving me instantly strung his how,
154 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
placed on liis left arm a sleeve of raccoon skin and stood on the defensive. Being- quite sm-e 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 at- tention 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, cheer- fully set out to accompany me. At midday I reached my long-wished-f or 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 l)lown 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 on the wrist of his right hand. Further testimony of their intentions was unne-
THE FOEESTS 155
cossary. To save mysolf by fli^-ht was impossible, so Avitli- out hesitation I stepped l)a('k about live paees, eoeked 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 tight for my life. As much as possible I endeavored to prt^serve my eoolness, and thus we stood looking at one another without making any movement or uttering a Avord for perhaps ten minutes, when one at last, who seemed to be the leader, gave a sign that they wished for some tobaeeo; this I signified that they should have if they fetehed a ([uantify of cones. They went olf im- mediately in search of tlicm, 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, hiu'rying ])ack to the camp, which I reached before dusk. ... I now write lying on the grass witli my gun cocked beside me, aiul penning these lines ]>\ the light of my Columbian candle, namely, an ignited piece of rosin- wood.
This grand pine discovered uiuh.T siicli exciliiig circimistanct's Douglas named in honor of his friend Dr. Lamhert of London.
Tlie trunk is a smooth, round, delicately tapered shaft, mostly without limhs, and colored rich ]»ur- plish-l)rown, usually enlivened with tufts of yellow lichen. At the top of tliis niagiiificent ])()le, long, curving hranches sweep gi-acefuily outward and downwai'd, sometimes forming a palm-like crown, but far more nobly impressive than any palm crown I ever beheld. Tlie needles are about three indies long, finely 1fiiiiHre(I .-iikI ai'i'aiigod in rathiM' (dose tassels at tlio oiids of sloiidoi- braiidilrls Ihat clolhc llie long, oiitswocpiiig rmil)S. How well 1liey sing in 1 le' wiii(|,;iii(l 1m)\v si rikiiigh' liannoiiious an otVect
156 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
is made by the immense cylindrical cones that de- pend loosely from the ends of the main branches ! No one knows what Nature can do in the way of pine-burs until he has seen those of the Sugar Pine. They are commonly from fifteen to eighteen inches long, and three in diameter; green, shaded with dark purple on their sunward sides. They are ripe in September and October. Then the flat scales open and the seeds take wing, but the empty cones become still more beautiful and effective, for their diameter is nearly doubled by the spreading of the scales, and their color changes to a warm yellowish-brown; while they remain swinging on the tree all the following winter and summer, and continue effectively beautiful even on the 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 if formed of condensed sunbeamSo Retinospora ohtiisa, Sieholdy the glory of Eastern forests, is called " Fu-si-no-ki " (tree of the sun) by the Japanese ; the Sugar Pine is the sun-tree of the Sierra. Unfortunately it is greatly prized by the lumbermen, and in accessible places is always the first tree in the woods to feel their steel. But the regular luml^ermen, with their saw-mills, have been less generally destructive thus far than the shingle- makers. The wood splits freely, and there is a con- stant demand for the shingles. And because an ax, and saw, and frow are all the capital required for the business, many of that drifting, unsteady class of men so large in California engage in it for a few months in the year. When prospectors, hunters, ranch hands, etc., touch their " bottom dollar " and
THE FOEESTS
157
find themselves out of employiiieut, tliey say, "Well, I can at least go to tlie Sugar Pines and make shingles." A few posts are set in the ground, and a single length cut from the first tree felled pro- duces boards enough for the walls and roof of a cabin ; all the rest the lumberman makes is for sale, and he is speedily independent. No gardener or hay- maker is more sweetly perfumed than these rough mountaineers while engagtnl in this business,ljut the havoc they make is most de- plorable.
The sugar, from whi<-li tilt- coiiiiiion name is derived, is to my taste the best of sweets — Ijetter than ?na}t]e sugar. It ex- udes from the heart- wood, where wounds liavebeen made, eith(^r l»y forest fires, or the
SUOAU IMNK ON BiXPOSKD KIDOE.
158 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
ax, ill the shape of iiTegnlar, crisp, caiicly-Kke ker- nels, which are crowded together in masses of con- siderable size, like clusters of resin-beads. When fresh, it is perfectly white and delicious, but, be- cause most of the wounds on which it is found have been made by fire, the exuding sap is stained on the charred surface, and the hardened sugar be- comes brown. Indians are fond of it, but on account of its laxative properties only small quantities may be eaten. Bears, so fond of sweet things in gen- eral, seem never to taste it ; at least I have failed to find any trace of their teeth in this connection.
No lover of trees will ever forget his first meeting with the Sugar Pine, nor will he afterward need a poet to call him to " listen what the pine-tree saith." In most pine-trees there is a sameness of expression, which, to most people, is apt to become monotonous ; for the typical spiry form, however beautiful, affords but little scope for appreciable individual character. The Sugar Pine is as free from conventionalities of form and motion as any oak. No two are alike, even to the most inattentive observer; and, notwith- standing they are ever tossing out their immense arms in what might seem most extravagant gestures, there is a majesty and repose about them that pre- cludes all possibility of the grotesque, or even pic- turesque, in their general expression. They are the priests of pines, and seem ever to be addressing the surrounding forest. The Yellow Pine is found growing with them on warm hillsides, and the White Silver Fir on cool northern slopes ; but, noble as these are, the Sugar Pine is easily king, and spreads his arms above them in blessing while they
THE FORESTS 159
rock and wave in sign of recognition. The main branches are sometimes found to be forty feet in lengtli, yet persistently simple, seldom dividing at all, excepting near the end ; but anything like a bare cable appearance is prevented by the small, tasseled branchlets that extend all around them ; and when these superb limbs sweep out sjTiimetrically on all sides, a crown sixty or seventy feet wide is formed, which, gracefully poised on the summit of the noble shaft, and tilled with sunshine, is one of the most glorious forest objects conceivable. Commonly, however, there is a great preponderance of limbs toward the east, away from the direction of the prevailing winds.
No other pine seems to me so unfamiliar and self- contained. In approaching it, we feel as if in the presence of a superior being, and begin to walk with a light step, holding our breath. Then, perchance, wliile we gaze awe-stricken, along comes a merry S(piirrel, chattering and laughing, to break the spell, running up the trunk Avitli no ceremony, and gnaw- ing off the cones as if they were made only for him; ^\ilile the carpenter-woodpecker hannners away at the bark, drilling holes in which to store his winter supply of acorns.
Although so wild and unconventional when full- grown, the Sugar Pine is a nmiarkably proper tree in youth. 'I'lic old is the most original an<l inde- pendent in appearance of all the Sierra evergreens; the young is the most regulai-, — a strict follower of eonirci-oiis fashions, — slim, erect, with leafy, siijiple braiirh<'-- kept exact l\- ill place, each tapering in out- line and terminating in a spiiy [toiiit. The sueces-
160
THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
sive transitional forms presented between the cau- tious neatness of youth and bold freedom of ma- turity offer a delightful study. At the age of fifty or sixty years, the shy, fashionable form begins to
YOUNG SUGAR PINE BEGINNING TO BEAR CONES.
be broken up. Specialized branches push out in the most unthought-of j^laces, and bend with the great cones, at once marking individual character, and this being constantly augmented from year to year by the varying action of the sunlight, winds.
THE FORESTS
161
snow-.stornis, etc., the iudividnality of the tree is uever agaiu lost in the general forest.
The most constant companion of this species is the Yellow Pine, and a worthy ccmipanion it is.
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The Douglas Spruce, Lihoccdrns, Seqnoia, and the \Vliit(i Silver Fir are also more oi- less associated '»'*i"i it; I'lil on iii.iiiy ilcep-soilcd nionntain-sidcs,
162 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
at an elevation of abont 5000 feet above the sea, it forms the bulk of the forest, filling every swell and hollow and down-plnnging ravine. The ma- jestic crowns, approaching each other in bold curves, make a glorious canopy through which the tempered sunbeams pour, 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 fra- gi'ant chamoebatia is spread like a carpet, bright- ened during early summer with the crimson Bar- codes, the wild rose, and innumerable violets and gilias. Not even in the shadiest nooks will you find any rank, untidy weeds or unwholesome dark- ness. On the north sides of ridges the boles are more slender, and the ground is mostly occupied by an underbrush of hazel, ceanothus, and fiower- ing dogwood, but never so densely as to prevent the traveler from sauntering where he will ; while the crowning branches are never impenetrable to the rays of the sun, and never so interblended as to lose their individuality.
View the forest from beneath or from some com- manding ridge-top; each tree presents a study in itself, and proclaims the surpassing grandeur of the species.
YELLOW, OE SILVEE PINE
{Finns ponder osa)
The Silver, or Yellow, Pine, as it is commonly called, ranks second among the pines of the Sierra as a lumber tree, and almost rivals the Sugar Pine in stature and nobleness of port. Because of its
THE FORESTS 1G3
superior powers of eiuluring variations of climate and soil, it has a more extensive range than any other conifer growing on the Sierra. On the west- ern slope it is first met at an elevation of about 2000 feet, and extends nearly to the upper limit of the timber line. Thence, crossing the range by the lowest passes, it descends to the eastern l)ase, and pushes out for a considerable distance into the hot volcanic plains, growing bravely upon well- watered moraines, gravelly lake basins, arctic ridges, and torrid lava-beds; planting itself upon the lips of craters, flourishing vigorously even there, and tossing ripe cones among the ashes and cinders of Nature's hearths.
The average size of full-grown trees on the west- ern slope, where it is associated with the Sugar Pine, is a little less than 200 feet in height and from five to six feet in diameter, though specimens may easilv be found that are consideral)lv larger. I measm'ed one, growing at an elevation of 4000 feet in the valh^y of the Merced, that is a few inches over eight feet in diameter, and 220 feet high.
Where there is plenty of free sunshine and other conditions are favoi-able, it presents a striking con- trast in form to the Sugar Pine, being a symmetrical spire, formed of a straight round trunk, clad willi innumerable ])ranches that are divided over and ove)' again. About one half of the ti'uidc is com- niouly Itraiicliless, Ijut where? it grows at all close, three foui-ths or more become nake(l; tlie ti-ee ])re- sonting then ;i more slender and elegant sliall than any other tree in ihcwdo.js. The bark i^ niosl 1\- .n- ranged in niassixc jihilcs, s-unc of thcni inc.-isnring
164
THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
PINUS PONDEROSA.
four or five feet in leiigtli by eighteen inches in width, with a thickness of three or four inches,
THE FORESTS 165
fonning a quite marked and distiiignisliiiig feature. The needles are of a fine, warm, yellow-gi-een color, six to eight inches long, firm and elastic, and crowded in liandsome, radiant tassels on the upturn- ing ends of the branches. The cones are about three or four inches long, and two and a half wide, grow- ing in close, sessile clusters among the leaves.
The species attains its noblest form in filled-up lake basins, especially in those of the older yosem- ites, and so prominent a i)art does it form of their groves that it may well be called the Yosemite Pine, Ripe specimens favorably situated are almost always 200 feet or more in height, and the branches clothe the trunk nearly to the gi'ound, as seen in the illustration.
The Jeffrey variety attains its finest development in the northern portion of the range, in the wide basins of the jNIcCloud and l^itt rivers, where it forms magnificent forests scarcely invaded l)y any other tree. It differs from the ordinary form in size, being only about half as tall, and in its redder and more closely furrowed bark, grayish-green fo- liage, less divided l)ranches, and larger cones; but intermediate forms come in which make a clear sepa- ration im]»()ssil)]e, altliougli som*^ l)<>tanists regard it as a distinct sjx'cics. It is tliis vai'iety tliat climbs storm-swept i-idgcs, and wandci's out among the vol- canoes of the (ireat l^asin. Whether ex))ose(I to extremes of heat oi' cnM, il is dwnrt'c;! like eN'ery otlitT t rrc, ;mi<1 Ih'coiih'S all knots and angles, wholly unlike the iiiajestie t'ornis \vi- ha\t' hccn sketching. <)|il specimens, beai'ing cones ahont as l»ig as pine- apph's, may sometimes be lounil <'liiii;ing to I'ii'ted
166
THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
SILVER PINE 210 FEET HIGH.
(THE FORM GROWING IN
YOSEMITE VALLEY.)
rocks at an elevation of seven or eight thousand feet, whose highest bran- ches scarce reach above one's shoulders.
I have oftentimes feasted on the beauty of these noble trees when they were towering in all their winter grandeur, laden with snow — one mass of bloom; in sum- mer, too, when the brown, staminate clusters hang thick among the shim- mering needles, and the big purple burs are ripen- ing in the mellow light ; but it is during cloudless wind-storms that these colossal pines are most impressively beautiful. Then they bow like wil- lows, their leaves stream- ing forward all in one direction, and, when the sun shines upon them at the required angle, entire groves glow as if every leafwereburnishedsilver. The fall of tropic light on the royal crown of a palm is a truly glorious spec- tacle, the fervid sun-flood
THE FOEESTS 1G7
breaking- upon the glossy leaves in long lance-rays, like mountain water among boulders. But to me there is something more impressive in the fall of light upon these Silver Pines. It seems beaten to the finest dust, and is shed oft" in m^^iads of minute sparkles that seem to come from the very heart of the trees, as if, like rain faUing upon fertile soil, it had been absorbed, to reappear in flowers of light.
This species also gives forth the finest music to the wind. After listening to it in all kinds of winds, night and day, season after season, I think I could approximate to my position on the mountains by this 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 ex('(^pting during lieavy gales; then you may detect the click of one -needle upon another, readily distinguishable from their free, wing-like hum. Some idea of their temper may be drawn from the fact that, notwith- standing they are so long, the vibrations that give rise to the peculiar shimmering of the light are made at the rate of aljout two hundred and fifty i)er minute.
\Vlien a Sugar Pine and one of this species ecpial in size are observecl togetlun", the latter is seen to be far more simple in manners, more lithely grace- ful, aii'l its Ijeauty is of a kind more easily appre- ciatiMl; liiit then, it is, on the other hand, imich less dignified and origiii.il in demeanor. The Silver Pine seems eager to shoot aloft. Even while it is drowsing in ;intuinn sun-gold, you may still delect a skywar<l aspli'.it iun. \)\\\ 11h' Sugar Pino seems too unconsciously noMc, .md too conii)lele in every way, to lr;i\-c room for t-scn ;i lie;i\-cn\v;ird c;ire.
168 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
DOUGLAS SPEUCE
{Pseudotsuga DouyJasii)
This tree is the king of the spruces, as the Sugar Pine is king of pines. It is by far the most majestic spruce I ever beheld in any forest, and one of the largest and longest lived of the giants that flourish throughout the main pine belt, often attaining a height of nearly 200 feet, and a diameter of six or seven. Where the growth is not too close, the strong, spreading branches come more than halfway down the trunk, and these are hung with innumer- able slender, swaying sprays, that are handsomely feathered Avith the short leaves which radiate at right angles all around them. This vigorous spruce is ever beautiful, welcoming the mountain winds and the snow as well as the mellow summer light, and maintaining its youthful freshness undiminished from century to century through a thousand storms.
It makes its finest appearance in the months of June and July. The rich brown buds with which its sprays are tipped swell and break about this time, reveahng the young leaves, which at first are bright yellow, making the tree appear as if covered with gay blossoms ; while the pendulous bracted cones with their shell-like scales are a constant adornment.
The young trees are mostly gathered into beauti- ful family groups, each sapling exquisitely sym- metrical. The primary branches are whorled regu- larly around the axis, generally in fives, while each is draped with long, feathery sprays, that descend in curves as free and as finely drawn as those of falling water.
THE FORESTS 169
111 Oregon and AVasliino-ton it grows in dense forests, growing tall and mast-like to a height of 300 feet, and is greatly prized as a liinil)er tree. But in the Sierra it is scattered among other trees, or forms small groves, seldom ascending higher than 5500 feet, and never making Avhat would be called a forest. It is not j^articnlar in its choice of soil — wet or dry, smooth or rocky, it makes out to live well on them all. Two of the largest specimens I have measured ai'e in Yosemite A^alley, one of whicli is more than eight feet in diameter, and is growing upon the terminal moraine of the residual glacier that occupied the South Fork Canon ; the other is nearly as large, growing npon angular blocks of granite tliat have been shaken from the precipitous front of the Liljerty Cap near the Nevada Fall. No other tree seems so capable of adapting itself to earthquake taluses, and many of these rough boul- der-slopes are occupied by it almost exclusively, es- pecially in yosemite gorges moistened by the spray of waterfalls.
INCENSE CEDAR (Libocedrus decurrcns)
Tin: Incense Cedar is another of the giants quite generally distrilmted throughout lliis portion of tlio forest, witliout exclusively ()ccui)ying any considci- able area, or even making extensive groves. It ;is- cends to al)f>ut 5(100 feet on tlie warniei- hillsides, and reaches th(^ climate most congenial to it at about from ;!000 to 4000 feet, g]-owing vigorously at this ele- vation on all kinds of soil, an<l in pai'ticular it is cap-
170 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
able of enduring 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 in diameter. The bark is brown, of a singularly rich tone very attractive to artists, and the foliage is tinted with a warmer yellow than that of any other evergreen in the woods. Casting your eye over the general forest from some ridge-top, the color alone of its spiry summits is sufficient to identify it in any company.
In youth, say up to the age of seventy or eighty years, no other tree forms so strictly tapered a cone from top to bottom. The branches swoop outward and downward in bold curves, excepting the younger ones near the top, which aspire, while the lowest droop to the ground, and all spread out in flat, ferny plumes, beautifully fronded, and imbricated upon one another. As it becomes older, it grows strikingly irregular and picturesque. Large special branches put out at right angles from the trunk, form big, stubborn elbows, and then shoot up parallel with the axis. Very old trees are usually dead at the top, the main axis protruding above ample masses of green plumes, gray and lichen-covered, and drilled full of acorn holes l3y the woodpeckers. The plumes are exceedingly beautiful ; no waving fern-frond in shady dell is more unreservedly beau- tiful in form and texture, or half so inspiring in color and spicy fragrance. In its prime, the whole tree is thatched with them, so that they shed off rain and snow like a roof, making fine mansions for storm-bound birds and mountaineers. But if you would see the Libocedrus in all its glory, you must
^^a^^^
4- Wi^^
_v.-"-'^>^-=-
INCKNSE rK.DAII I\ ITS PltlMK.
172
THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
go to the woods in winter. Tlien it is laden with myriads of four-sided staminate cones about the size of wheat grains, — winter wheat, — producing a golden tinge, and forming a noble illustration of Natm-e's immortal vigor and virility. The fertile cones are about three fourths of an inch long, borne on the outside of the plumy branchlets, where they serve to enrich still more the surj)assing beauty of this grand winter-blooming goldenrod.
WHITE SILVER FIK {Abies concolor)
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 ex- tends with no marked interruption for 450 miles, at an elevation of from 5000 to nearly 9000 feet above the sea. In its youth A. con- color is a charmingly symmetrical tree with branches regularly whorled in level col- lars around its whit- ish-gray axis, which terminates in a strong,
FOREST OP GKAND SILVER FIRS.
TWO SEQUOIAS IN THE FOREGROUND
ON THE LEFT.
THE FOKESTS 173
hopeful shoot. Tlie leaves are in two horizontal rows, along branchlets that eonimonly are less than eight years old, forming handsome plumes, pin- nated like the fronds of ferns. The cones are gray- ish-green when ripe, cylindrical, about from three to four inches long by one and a half to two inches wide, and stand upright on the upper branches.
Full-grown trees, favorably situated as to soil and ex[)osure, are al)out 200 feet high, and five or six feet in diameter near the ground, though larger specimens are by no means rare.
As old age creeps on, the bark 1)ecomes rougher and grayer, the l)ranches lose their exact regularity, many are snow-bent or broken off, and the main axis often becomes double or otherwise irregular from accidents to the terminal bud or shoot; but throughout all the vicissitudes of its life on the mountains, come what may, the noble grandeur of the species is i)atent to every eye.
MAGNIFICENT SILVEll FIK, OK RED FEE (Abies magHiJica)
This is the most chai-niingly symiiift lical <>f all the giants of llic Sici-ia woods, far surpassing its companion s[>ecies in this n'spccl, and easily <lis- tijiguish(Ml from it by 1li<' ]'iii'|i!isli-rf<l barl<, which is also moi'c closcl}' I'lii'i'oWfd 1 haii 1 lial of I he white, and by its larger cones, more; regulaily whoi'led and fronded branches, and l)y its leaves, wliieh are shorter, and gi'ow all aroinid the branchlets and point upward.
174 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
In size, these two Silver Firs are about equal, the magnifica perhaps a little the taller. Specimens from 200 to 250 feet high are not rare on well- ground moraine soil, at an elevation of from 7500 to 8500 feet above sea-level. The largest that I measured stands back three miles from the brink of the north wall of Yosemite Valley. Fifteen years ago it was 240 feet high, with a diameter of a little more than five feet.
Happy the man with the freedom and the love to climb one of these superb trees in full flower and fruit. How admirable the forest-work of Nature is then seen to be, as one makes his way up through the midst of the broad, fronded branches, all ar- ranged in exquisite order around the trunk, like the whorled leaves of lilies, and each branch and branchlet about as strictly pinnate as the most sym- metrical fern-frond. The staminate cones are seen growing straight downward from the under side of the young branches in lavish profusion, making fine purple clusters amid the grayisli-gi-een foliage. On the topmost branches the fertile cones are set firmly on end like small casks. They are about six inches long, three wide, covered with a fine gray down, and streaked with crystal balsam that seems to have been poured upon each cone frojn above.
Both the Silver Firs live 250 years or more when the conditions about them are at all favorable. Some venerable patriarch may often be seen, heavily storm-marked, towering in severe majesty above the rising generation, with a protecting grove of saplings pressing close around his feet, each dressed with such loving care that not a leaf seems want-
176 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
ing. Other companies are made up of trees near the prime of life, exquisitely harmonized to one another in form and gesture, as if Nature had culled them one by one with nice discrimination from all the rest of the woods.
It is from this tree, called Red Fir by the lumber- man, that mountaineers always cut boughs to sleep on when they are so fortunate as to be within its limits. Two rows of the plushy branches overlap- ping along the middle, and a crescent of smaller plumes mixed with ferns and flowers for a pillow, form the very best bed imaginable. The essences of the pressed leaves seem to fill every pore of one's body, the sounds of falling water make a soothing hush, while the spaces between the grand spires afford noble openings through which to gaze dreamily into the starry sky. Even in the matter of sensuous ease, any combination of cloth, steel springs, and feathers seems vulgar in comparison.
The fir woods are delightful sauntering-grounds at any time of year, but most 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 their ample purple wings, mottle the air like flocks of butterflies; while deer feeding in the flowery openings between the groves, and birds and squirrels in the branches, make a pleasant stir which enriches the deep, brooding calm of the wilderness, and gives a peculiar impressiveness to every tree. No wonder the enthusiastic Douglas went wild witli joy when he first discovered this species. Even in the Sierra, where so many noble evergreens chal- lenge admiration, we linger among these colossal firs
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178 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
with fresli love, and extol their beauty again and again, as if no other in the world could henceforth claim our regard.
It is in these woods the great granite domes rise that are so striking and characteristic a feature of the Sierra. And here too we find the best of the garden meadows. They lie level on the tops of the dividing ridges, or sloping on the sides of them, em- bedded in the magnificent forest. Some of these meadows are in great part occupied by Veratnim alba, which here grows rank and tall, with boat- shaped leaves thirteen inches long and twelve inches wide, ribbed like those of cypripedium. Columbine grows on the drier margins with tall larkspurs and lupines waist-deep in grasses and sedges; several species of castilleia also make a bright show in beds of blue and white violets and daisies. But the glory of these forest meadows is a lily — L. imrviun. The flowers are orange-colored and quite small, the smallest I ever saw of the true lilies ; but it is showy nevertheless, for it is seven to eight feet high and waves magnificent racemes of ten to twenty flowers or more over one's head, while it stands out in the open ground with just enough of grass and other plants al30ut it to make a fringe for its feet and show it off to best advantage.
A dry spot a little way back from the margin of a Silver Fir lily garden makes a glorious cam]3- ground, especially where the slope is toward the east and opens a view of the distant peaks along the summit of the range. The tall lilies are brought forward in all their glory by the light of your blaz- ing camp-fire, relieved against the outer darkness.
THE FORESTS ITf)
and the nearest of the trees with their whorled branches tower above you Uke kirger Ulies, and the sky seen through the garden opening seems one vast meadow of white Hly stars.
In the morning everything is joyous and l)right, the deUcious purple of the dawn changes softly to daffodil yellow and white; while the sunbeams pouring through the passes between the peaks give a margin of gold to each of them. Then the spires of the firs in the hollows of the middle regi<m catch the glow, and your camp grove is filled with light. The birds begin to stir, seeking sunny branches on the edge of the meadow for 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 with- draw from the open glades and ridge-tops to their leafy hiding-places in the chaparral, the flowers open and straighten their petals as the dew vanishes, every pulse beats high, every life-cell rejoices, the very ro(.'ks seem to tingle with life, and Clod is felt brooding over everything great and small.
BIG TREE
(Sequoia f/if/antca)
]>F;r\VKE\ tlie heavy jmie and Silver Fir belts we liml tli(! i>ig Ti'(!c, tli<' king of all the conifers in the world, " tlu^ noblcsl of a iioldr i-ace." It extends in a widely iiitei-i'U|tte(l belt from a small groxc on tlie middle fork of the Aincrican K'iN'fi' to llie head of Deer Creek, a distance of about iNiii miles, the
180 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
northern limit being near the thirty-ninth j^arallel, the southern a little below the thirty-sixth, and the elevation of the belt above the sea varies from about 5000 to 8000 feet. From the American Eiver grove to the forest on King's River the species occurs only in small isolated groups so sparsely distributed along the belt 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 mere groves, but extends across the broad rugged basins of the Kaweali and Tule rivers in noble forests, a distance of nearly seventy miles, the continuity of this part of the belt being broken only by deep canons. The Fresno, the largest of the northern groves, occupies an area of three or four square miles, a short distance to the southward of the fa- mous Mariposa Grrove. Along the beveled rim of the canon of the south fork of King's River there is a majestic forest of Sequoia about six miles long by two wide. This is the northernmost assemblage of Big Trees that may fairly be called a forest. Descending the precipitous divide between the King's River and Kaweali you enter the grand for- ests that form the main continuous portion of the belt. Advancing southward the giants become more and more irrej^ressibly exuberant, heaving their massive crowns into the sky from every ridge and slope, and waving onward in graceful com- j)liance with the complicated topography of the re- gion. The finest of the Kaweali section of the belt is on the broad ridge between Marble Creek and the middle fork, and extends from the granite head- lands overlooking the hot plains to within a few
THE FORESTS 181
miles of the cool glacial fountains of the summit peaks. The extreme upper limit of the belt is reached between the middle and south forks of the Kaweah at an elevation of 8400 feet. But the finest block of Big Tree forest in the entire belt is on the north fork of Tule River. In the northern groves there are comparatively few young trees or sai)lings. But here for every old, storm-stricken giant there are many in all the glory of prime vigor, and for each of these a crowd of eager, hopeful young trees and saplings growing heartily on moraines, rocky ledges, along watercourses, and in the moist al- luvium of meadows, seemingly in hot i)ursuit of eternal life.
But though the area occupied by the species in- creases so much from north to south there is no marked increase in the size of the trees. A height of 275 feet and a diameter near the ground of about 20 feet is poi-haps about the average size of full- grown trees favorably situated ; specimens 25 feet in diameter are not very rare, and a few are nearly 300 feet high. In the Calaveras Grove there are foui- trees over oOO feet in height, the tallest of which by careful iiifasurement is 325 feet. The largest I have yet met in tli(} course of iny explora- tions is a majestic old scarred monument in the King's ]\i ver forest. Jt is 35 feet 8 inches in diame- ter inside Ihc bark foui- feet from the ground. Ten- der the most favorabh; conditions lhes(^ giants l)r(>bably live 5000 y(?ars or moi-e, though f(^w of even the larger trees ar(< more than hall" as old. 1 never saw a Big ''I'l-ee tinil had died ;i natural dc;itli ; bai'i'ing accidents they seem to be innnoi-tal,
182 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
being exempt from all the diseases that afflict and kill other trees. Unless destroyed by man, they live on indefinitely until burned, smashed by light- ning, or cast down by storms, or by the giving way of the ground on which they stand. The age of one that was felled in the Calaveras Grove, for the sake of having its stump for a dancing-floor, was about 1300 years, and its diameter, measured across the stump, 24 feet inside the bark. Another that was cut down in the King's River forest was aboiit the same size, but nearly a thousand years older (2200 years), tliough not a very old-looking tree. It was felled to procure a section for exhibi- tion, and thus an opportunity was given to count its annual rings of growth. The colossal scarred monument in the King's River forest mentioned above is burned half through, and I spent a day in making an estimate of its age, clearing away the charred surface with an ax and carefully counting the annual rings with the aid of a pocket-lens. The wood-rings in the section I laid bare were so involved and contorted in some places that I was not able to determine its age exactly, but I counted over 4000 rings, which showed that this tree w^as in its prime, swaying in the Sierra w^nds, when Christ walked the earth. No other tree in the world, as far as I know, has looked down on so many cen- turies as the Sequoia, or opens such impressive and suggestive views into history.
So exquisitely harmonious and finely balanced are even the very mightiest of these monarchs of the woods in all their proportions and circumstances there never is anything overgrown or monstrous-
THE FORESTS 183
looking about tliem. On coming in sight of them for the first time, you are Ukely to say, "Oh, see what beautiful, noble-looking trees are towering there among the firs and pines!" — their grandeur being in the mean time in great part invisible, but to the living eye it will be manifested sooner or later, stealing slowly on the senses, like the gran- deur of Niagara, or the lofty Yosemite domes. Their great size is hidden from the inexperienced observer as long as they are seen at a distance in one harmo- nious view. When, however, you ai)proach them and walk i-oimd lliciii, you begin to wonder at their colossal size and seek a measuring-rod. These giants bulge considerably at the base, but not more than is required for beauty and safety; and the only reason that this l)ulging seems in some cases excessive is that only a comparatively small section of the shaft is seen at once in near views. One that I measured in the King's Rivei- forest was 25 feet in diameter at the ground, and 1(1 feet in diameter 2(J0 feet above the ground, showing that the taper of the liuiik as a, whole is charmingly fine. And when you stand back far enough to see the massive columns from the swelling instep to the lofty summit dissolving in a dome of vei-dure, you rejoice in the uni-ival<Ml display of combined grandeur and Ijeauty. About a hundi'cd fct'l or more of the trunk is usr.allvbi'anchless, but its mas-
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sive simplicity is relieved by the bark fui-rows,
^^■llicll instead of niakinu' an in-e>;iil;ii- net work run evenly parallel, Ills.' t lie Ihiling of an afcliiteej nral column, and to some extent by tnl'ts of slendei- sprays that wave lightly in the winds and cast
184 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
flecks of shade, seeming to have been pinned on here and there for the sake of beauty only. The young trees have slender simple branches down to the ground, put on with strict regularity, sharply aspiring at the top, horizontal about half-way down, and drooping in handsome curves at the base. By the time the sapling is five or six hundred years old this spiry, feathery, juvenile habit merges into the firm, rounded dome form of middle age, which in turn takes on the eccentric picturesqueness of old age. No other tree in the Sierra forest has foliage so densely massed or j^resents outlines so firmly drawn and so steadily subordinate to a special type. A knotty ungovernable-looking branch five to eight feet thick may be seen pushing out abruptly from the smooth trunk, as if sure to throw the regular curve into confusion, but as soon as the general outline is reached it stops short and dissolves in spreading bosses of law-abiding sprays, just as if every tree were growing beneath some huge, invisi- ble bell-glass, against whose sides every branch was being pressed and molded, yet somehow indulging in so many small departures from the regular form that there is still an appearance of freedom.
The foliage of the saplings is dark bluish-green in color, while the older trees ripen to a warm brownish-yellow tint like Libocedrus. The bark is rich cinnamon-brown, purplish in young trees and in shady portions of the old, while the ground is covered with brown leaves and burs forming color- masses of extraordinary richness, not to mention the flowers and underbrush that rejoice about them in their seasons. Walk the Sequoia woods at any time
THE FOKESTS 185
of year and you \\ill say tliey are the most beauti- ful and majestic ou earth. Beautiful and impressive contrasts meet you everywhere : the colors of tree and flower, rock and sky, light and shade, strength and frailty, endurance and evanescence, tangles of sui:)ple hazel-bushes, tree-pillars al)out as rigid as granite domes, roses and violets, the smallest of their kind, l)looniing around the feet of the giants, and rugs of the lowly chanicebatia where the sunbeams fall. Then in winter the trees themselves break forth in bloom, myriads of small four-sided stami- nate cones crowd the ends of the slender sprays, coloring the whole tree, and when ripe dusting the air and the ground with golden pollen. The fertile cones are bright grass-green, measuring about two inches in length by one and a half in thickin^ss, and are made up of about forty firm rliomljoidal scales densely packed, with from five to eight seeds at the base of each. A single cone, therefore, con- tains from two to three hundred seeds, which are about a fourth of an inch long by three sixteenths wide, including a thin, flat margin that makes them go glancing and wavering in tlieir fall like a boy's kite. The fruiti'iilncss of Sequoia may be illustrated by two specimen bi'aiiclies one and a half and two inches in diameter on which T counted 4S() cones. No other Siei-ra conifer )))-odiices in^arly so many seeds. .Millions are I'ipciied annually by a singl«^ tree, and in a IVuiiruI \cai' the |»ro(Jnct of one ol' IIh* noi-tiifi-n groves woiil<l l)e enougli to jtlant all tln^ mountain-ranges of the world. Nature takes care, hoW(;ver, 1 hat not oiu; seecj iii;i niilJioii ^li;dl gmni- n{it<^ at all, aii<l of those that ijo [n-rhaps not <>ne
186 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
in ten thousand is suffered to live through the many vicissitudes of storm, drought, fire, and snow-crush- ing that beset their youth.
The Douglas squirrel is the happy harvester of most of the Sequoia cones. Out of every hundred perhaps ninety fall to his share, and unless cut off by his ivory sickle they shake out their seeds and remain on the tree for many years. Watching the squirrels at their harvest work in the Indian sum- mer is one of the most delightful diversions imagin- able. The woods are calm and the ripe colors are blazing in all their glory ; the cone-laden trees stand motionless in the warm, hazy air, and you may see the crimson-crested woodcock, the i^rince of Sierra woodpeckers, drilling some dead limb or fallen trunk with his bill, and ever and anon filling the glens with his happy cackle. The hmnming-bird, too, dwells in these noble woods, and may oftentimes be seen glancing among the flowers or resting wing- weary on some leafless twig ; here also are the fa- miliar robin of the orchards, and the brown and grizzly bears so obviously fitted for these majestic solitudes ; and the Douglas squirrel, making more hilarious, exuberant, vital stir than all the bears, birds, and humming wings together.
As soon as any accident happens to the crown of these Sequoias, such as being stricken off by light- ning or broken by storms, then the branches be- neath the wound, no matter how situated, seem to be excited like a colony of bees that have lost their queen, and become anxious to repair the damage. Limbs that have grown outward for centuries at right angles to the trunk begin to turn upward to
THE FOKESTS 187
assist ill making a new crown, each speedily assum- ing the special form of true summits. Even in the case of mere stumps, burned half through, some mere ornamental tuft will try to go 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 standing close together, the seeds from which they sprang having prol)ably grown on ground clearecl for their reception by the fall of a large tree of a former generation. These patches of fresh, mellow soil beside the upturned roots of the fallen giant may be from forty to sixty feet wide, jiiid they are speedily occupied by seedlings. Out of these seedling-thickets perhaps two or three may become trees, forming those close groups called " three graces," " loving couples," etc. For even sup- posing that the trees should stand twenty or thirty feet apai't whilt; young, ])y tlic time they are full- gi-own tlicir trunks Avill touch and crowd against each other and even appear as one in some cases.
It is generally believed that this grand Sequoia was once far more widely distributed over the Sierra ; but after long and careful study I have come to the conclusion that it never was, at least since the close of the glacial period, Ixn-auso a diligent search along tli(i niai'gins of tlie groves, and in tlio gaps ljet\v(M>n, fails to rev^eal a single trace of its ]>rcvious existence beyond its present bounds. Not- \villista?iding, 1 feel confident llial if e\-ery Se(|uoia in llie range were to die lo-ilay, iiniuei-oits monn- menls of tlieii- existence woul<l i-einain, of so impei-- isliable a nature as to ]»e a\'ailal)l<' I'm the student more than ten thousaixl \"e;irs hcncr.
188 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
In the first place we might notice that no species of coniferous tree in the range keeps its individuals so well together as Sequoia ; a mile is perhaps the greatest distance of any straggler from the main body, and all of those stragglers that have come under my observation are young, instead of old mon- umental trees, relics of a more extended growth.
Again, Sequoia trunks frequently endure for cen- turies after they fall. I have a specimen block, cut from a fallen trunk, which is hardly distinguishable from specimens cut from living trees, although the old trunk-fragment from which it was derived has lain in the damp forest more than 380 years, prob- ably thrice as long. The time measure in the case is simply this : when the ponderous trunk to which the old vestige belonged fell, it sunk itself into the ground, thus making a long, straight ditch, and in the middle of this ditch a Silver Fir is growing that is now four feet in diameter and 380 years old, as determined by cutting it half through and count- ing the rings, thus demonstrating that the 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 whole time, we must add to the 380 years the time that the vanished jjortion of the trunk lay in the ditch before being burned out of ' the way, plus the time that passed before the seed from which the monumental fir sprang fell into the prepared soil and took root. Now, because Sequoia trunks are never wholly consumed in one forest fire, and those fires recur only at considerable intervals, and because Sequoia ditches after being cleared are often left unplanted for centuries, it becomes
THE FOEESTS 189
evident that the trunk remnant in (question may jirobably have kiin a thousand years or more. And this instance is by no means a rare one.
But admitting that upon those areas supposed to liave been once covered with Se<iUoia every tree may have fallen, and every trunk may have been burned or buried, leaving not a renniant, many of the ditches made by the fall of the ponderous trunks, and the bowls made by their upturning roots, would remain patent for thousands of years after the last vestige of the trunks that made them had vanislied. Much of this ditch-writing would no doubt he quickly effaced by the tiood-action of overflowing streams and rain-washing; but no inconsiderable portion would remain enduringly engi-aved on ridge-tops beyond such destructive action; for, wliere all the conditions are favorable, it is almost imperishable. Now these Jilstoric ditches and root hoivls occur in all the present Sequoia groves and forests^ hut as far as I hare observed, not the faintest vestifje of one j^'csent-s itself outside of them.
We therefoi-e conclude that the area covered l)y Sequoia has not been diininished during the last eight or ten thousand years, ;iii<l jd-obably iiol at all ill ]K)st-glacial times.
Js the sprcics rcrf//i/(/ fo I'.i f/nrfioit f W hut arc its relafioiKs fo iTnuutc, soil, and assoei(dcd trees !
All llic plicnoiiKMia bearing on thes(> (piestioiis also llnow Iii;li1, as we shall eiideax'or to show, upon llic iieciiliar disl rilni! ion of the s|»e('i('s, and sustain the conclusion already arrixcil ;it on the question ot" extension.
In the northern i;roiips, as we have soon, Ihere
190 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
are few young trees or saplings growing up around the failing old ones to perpetuate the race, and in as much as those aged Sequoias, so nearly child- less, are the only ones commonly known, the species, to most obsei'vers, seems doomed to speedy extinc- tion, as being nothing more than an expiring rem- nant, vanquished in the so-called struggle for life by pines and firs that have driven it into its last strongholds in moist glens where climate is ex- ceptionally favorable. But the language of the ma- jestic continuous foi-ests of the south creates a very different impression. No tree of all the forest is more enduringly established in concordance with climate and soil. It grows heartily everywhere — on moraines, rocky ledges, along watercourses, and in the deep, moist alluvium of meadows, with a mul- titude of seedlings and saplings crowding up around the aged, seemingly abundantly able to maintain the forest in prime vigor. For every old storm- stricken tree, there is one or more in all the glory of prime ; and for each of these many young trees and crowds of exuberant saplings. So that if all the trees of any section of the main Sequoia forest were ranged together according to age, a very promising curve would 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 times longer than the old portion. Even as far north as the Fresno, I counted 536 saplings and seedlings grow- ing promisingly upon a piece of rough avalanche soil not exceeding two acres in area. This soil bed is about seven years old, and has been seeded al- most simultaneously by pines, firs, Libocedrus, and
THE FOEESTS 191
Sequoia, presenting a simple and instructive illus- tration of the struggle for life among the rival species; and it was interesting to note that the conditions thus far affecting them have enabled the young Sequoias to gain a marked advantage.
In every instance like the above T have observed that the seedling Sequoia is ca}>able of growing on both drier and wetter soil than its rivals, but re- quires more sunshine than they; the latter fact be- ing clearly shown wherever a Sugar Pine or fii* is growing in close contact with a Sequoia of about equal age and size, and equally exposed to the sun; 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 ; an<l where they mix with Secjuoias, they mostly grow up l)eneath them, like slender grasses among stalks of Indian corn. Upon a I It'll of sandy flood-soil I counted ninety-four Sequoias, fi-om one to twelve feet high, on a patch of ground once occui)ied by four large Sugar Pines which lay cruml )ling beneath tlieni, — an instance of conditions whidi liave enabled Sequoias to crowd out the pin<'s.
I also notccl t'ighty-six vigorous saplings upon a piece of fi'csh gi-ouiid preparccl for their reception by fire. Tlius lii'e, tlie great desti-oyer of Secpioia, also furnishes l)are virgin gi'ound, one of the con- ditions essenti;d for its growth IVoiii llu^ seed. Fresh ground i<, lio\vi'\ rr, I'urnislird in snllicient (|uan1ilies for the (constant rfni'\v;il of tlic forests without firci, viz., ])y the fall *A oM trees. The soil is thus up- turnr(l ;iiiil nicjlowcil, .-md mniiy \vov< jii-c pl.-inlcd
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192 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
for every one that falls. Land-slips and floods also give rise to bare virgin ground ; and a tree now and then owes its existence to a burrowing wolf or squir- rel, but the most regular supply of fresh soil is furnished by the fall of aged trees.
The climatic changes in progress in the Sierra, bearing on the tenure of tree life, are entirely mis- apprehended, especially as to the time and the means employed by Nature in effecting them. It is constantly asserted in a vague way that the Sierra was vastly wetter than now, and that the in- creasing drought will of itself extinguish Sequoia, leaving its ground to other trees supposed capable of flourishing in a drier climate. But that Sequoia can and does grow on as dry ground as any of its present rivals, is manifest in a thousand places. "Why, then," it will be asked, "are Sequoias always found in greatest abundance in well-watered places where streams are exceptionally abundant f " Sim- ply because a growth of Sequoias creates those streams. The thirsty mountaineer knows well that in every Sequoia grove he will find running water, but it is a mistake to suppose that the water is the cause of the grove being there ; on the contrary, the grove is the cause of the water being there. Drain off the water and the trees will remain, but cut off the trees, and the streams will vanish. Never was cause more completely mistaken for effect than in the case of these related phenomena of Sequoia woods and perennial streams, and I confess that at first I shared in the blunder.
When attention is called to the method of Sequoia stream-making, it will be apprehended at once.
THE FORESTS 193
The roots of this immense tree fill the o-roniid, form- iug a thick sponge tliat absorljs and holds l)ack the rains and melting snows, only allowing them to ooze and How gently. Indeed, every fallen leaf and rootlet, as well as long clasping root, and prostrate trunk, may be regarded as a dam hoarding the bounty of storm-clouds, and dispensing it as bless- ings all through the summer, instead of allowing it to go headlong in short-lived floods. Evaporation is also cheeked ])y the dense foliage to a greater ex- tent than by any other Sierra tree, and the air is entangled in masses and broad sheets that are quickly saturated; while thirsty winds are not al- lowed to go sponging and licking along the ground.
So great is the retention of water in many places in the main belt, that bogs and meadows are created by tilt' killing of the trees. A single trunk falling across a stream in the woods forms a dam 200 feet long, and from ten to thirty feet high, giving rise to a pond which kills the trees within its reach. These dead trees fall in turn, thus making a clear- ing, while sediments gradually accumulate chang- ing the pond into a bog, or meadow, for a growth of carices and sphagnum. In some instances a series of small bogs or meadows rise above one another on a hillside, which are gradually merged into one allot licf, t'onning sloping bogs, oi* meadows, which make striking features of Secpioia woods, an<l since all tlir ti'ccs thai have f;illen in1n them have been pjTscrxrd, t Ih-y coiMniii i-ccords nl' I he genei'ations that ha\t' p.isscd since they b('i;;ili lo J'oi'in.
Sinc<', t Ikmi, it is a fad 1 hat 1 hoiisjinds of ScMpioias are gi'uwiiiL;' thril'tily on what is t('!'nic(l dry groiiiid,
i:t
194 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
and even clinging like mountain pines to rifts in granite precipices ; and since it has also been shown that the extra moisture found in connection with the denser growths is an effect of their presence, instead of a cause of their presence, then the notions as to the former extension of the species and its near approach to extinction, based upon its sup- posed dependence on greater moisture, are seen to be erroneous.
The decrease in the rain- and snowfall since the close of the glacial period in the Sierra is much less than is commonly guessed. The highest post-gla- cial watermarks are well preserved in all the upper river channels, and they are not greatly higher than the spring floodmarks of the present ; showing con- clusively that no extraordinary decrease has taken place in the volume of the uj^per tributaries of post- glacial Sierra streams since they came into exis- tence. But in the mean time, eliminating all this complicated question of climatic change, the plain fact remains that the 2Jyesent rain- and snowfall is ahundantly sufficient for the luxuriant groivth of Se- quoia forests. Indeed, all my observations tend to show that in a prolonged drought the Sugar Pines and firs would perish before the Sequoia, not alone because of the greater longevity of individual trees, but because the species can endure more drought, and make the most of whatever moisture falls.
Again, if the restriction and irregular distribution of the species be interpreted as a result of the des- iccation of the range, then instead of increasing as it does in individuals toward the south where the rainfall is less, it should diminish.
THE FORESTS 195
If, then, the peculiar distribution of Sequoia has not been governed by superior conditions of soil as to fertility or moisture, by what has it been governed ?
In the course of my studies I observed that the northern gi'oves, the only ones I was at first ac- (juainted with, were located on just those portions of the general forest soil-belt that were first laid bare toward the close of the glacial period when the ice-sheet began to break up into individual glaciers. And while searching the wide basin of the San Joa(piin, and trying to account for the absence of Sequoia where every condition seemed favorable for its growth, it occurred to nui that this remarkable gap in the Sequoia belt is located ex- actly in the basin of the vast ancient mer de glace of the San Joaquin and King's River basins, which poured its frozen floods to the plain, fed by the snows til at fell on more than fifty miles of the summit. I then perceived that the next great gap in tht.' belt to the northward, forty miles wide, ex- tending between the (Jalaveras and Tuolumne groves, occurs in the basin of the great ancient mer de (flace of the Tuolumne and Stanishius basins, and tliat the smaller gaj) between the Merced and Mariposa groves occurs in the basin of tlic smaller glacier of the Merced. The wider the ancient (/lacier j the irider the corra^pondinfj nap in the Sequoia belt.
Finally, }»m"suiiig my investigations across the husins of the Kaweah and Tnlc, 1 <liscovered that the Se([Uoia Ix'lt attained its greatest devel()pm<Mit just wliei-c, owing to Ihe to))ograplii('al peculiai'i- ties <»f the region, the ground had been most per-
196 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
fectly protected from the main ice-rivers that con- tinued to pour past from the summit fountains long after the smaller local glaciers had been melted.
Taking now a general view of the belt, beginning at the south, we see that the majestic ancient gla- ciers were shed off right and left down the valleys of Kern and King's rivers by the lofty protective spurs outspread embracingly above the warm Se- quoia-filled basins of the Kaweali and Tule. Then, next northward, occurs the wide Sequoia-less chan- nel, or basin, of the ancient San Joaquin and King's River mer de glace ; then the warm, protected spots of Fresno and Mariposa groves ; then the Sequoia- less channel of the ancient Merced glacier ; next the warm, sheltered ground of the Merced and Tuol- umne groves ; then the Sequoia-less channel of the grand ancient mer de glace of the Tuolumne and Stanislaus ; then the warm old ground of the Cala- veras and Stanislaus groves. It appears, therefore, that just where, at a certain period in the history of the Sierra, the glaciers were not, there the Se- quoia is, and just where the glaciers were, there the Sequoia is not.
What the other conditions may have been that enabled Sequoia to establish itself upon these oldest and warmest portions of the main glacial soil-belt, I cannot say. I might venture to state, however, in this connection, that since the Sequoia forests pre- sent a more and more ancient aspect as they extend southward, I am inclined to think that the species w^as distributed from the south, while the Sugar Pine, its great rival in the northern groves, seems to have come around the head of the Sacramento
THE FORESTS 197
valley and down the Sierra from the north ; conse- quently, when the Sierra soil-beds were first thrown open to preem})tion on the nieltinc; of the iee-sheet, the Se({uoia may have estal>lished itself along- the available portions of the south half of the range prior to the arrival of the Sugar Pine, while the Sugar Pine took possession of the north half 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 we have pointed out between the present distribution of Sequoia and the ancient glaciers of the Sierra. And when we bear in mind that all the present for- ests of the Sierra are young, growing on moraine soil recently deposited, and that the flank of the range itself, with all its landscapes, is new-born, re- cently sculptured, and brought to the light of day from beneath the ice mantle of the glacial winter, then a thousand lawless mysteries disappear, and broad harmoni<'s take their places.
]>ut althougli all the observed phenomena l)earing on the post-glacial history of this colosstd tree point to the conclusion that it never was more widely distril)ut»'d on the Sierra since the close of the
glaciiil ('] li; that its pr<'S('iit forests are scarcely
past prime, if, indee<l, tli^y li.-ixc reac.'lifd prime; that the post-glacial day nf tho species is pioljably not half done; yet, wIh-h tV^m a widrr onllook the vast anti(iuity of the g«'nus is considci-cd, jind its nii- ('i«Mit ricliiH'ss in species and individuals; <'(»mp;ir- iiig our Sieri'a (Jiaiil and Scf/iio/d smipcrrlrois of tlu; (Joast Kang«', the only other living s[»e('ies of Se-
198 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
quoia, with the twelve fossil species already discov- ered and described by Heer and Lesqnereux, some of which seem to have flourished over vast areas iu the Arctic regions and in Europe and our own ter- ritories, during tertiary and cretaceous times, — then indeed it becomes plain that our two surviving species, restricted to narrow belts within the limits of California, are mere remnants of the genus, both as to species and individuals, and that they prob- ably are verging to extinction. But the verge of a period beginning in cretaceous times may have a breadth of tens of thousands of years, not to men- tion the possible existence of conditions calculated to multiply and reextend both species and individ- uals. This, however, is a branch of the question into which I do not now ]3urpose to enter.
In studying the fate of our forest king, we have thus far considered the action of purely natural causes only; but, unfortunately, man is in the woods, and waste and pure destruction are making rapid headway. If the importance of forests were at all understood, even from an economic stand- point, their preservation would call forth the most watchful attention of government. Only of late years by means of forest reservations has the simp- lest groundwork for available legislation been laid, while in many of the finest groves every species of destruction is still moving on with accelerated speed.
In the course of my explorations I found no fewer than five mills located on or near the lower edge of the Sequoia belt, all of which were cut- ting considerable quantities of Big Tree, lumber.
THE FOEESTS 199
Most of the Fresno group are doomed to feed the mills recently erected near Qiem, and a company of lumbermen are now cutting the magnificent for- est on King's River. In these milling operations waste far exceeds use, for after the choice young manageable trees on any given spot have been felled, the woods are fired to clear the ground of limbs and refuse with reference to further operations, and, of course, most of the seedlings and saplings are de- stroyed.
These mill ravages, however, are small as com- pared with the comprehensive destruction caused l)y " sheepmen." Incredible numbers of sheep are driven to the mountain pastures every summer, and their course is ever marked by desolation. Ev- ery wild garden is trodden down, the shrubs are stripped of leaves as if devoured l)y locusts, and the woods are burned. Running fires are set every- where, with a view to clearing the ground of pros- trate trunks, to facilitate the movements of the flocks and improve the pastures. The entire forest belt is tlnis swept and devastated from one ex- tremity of the range to the othov, and, witli the exception of the resinous Pinus contort a, Sequoia suffei-s most of all. Indians burn oft' tlie underbrush in certain localities to facilitate (l(M'r-hunting, moun- taineers aixl himbermen carelessly allow their camp- fires to run; l)ut the fii-es of the sheepmen, or muftonerrs, form more than ninety per cent, of all destructive lii-cs that range Wm Sicn-;i forests.
It ajtpears, therefore, tliat notwitlistanding (»ui- foi'cst king might liv(^ on gloi'iously in Naluri^'s keeping, it is i-ai)i(lly vanislijng br-lnj-r Ihc (ii-c and
200 THE MOUNTAINS OP CALIFORNIA
steel of man; and unless protective measures be speedily invented and applied, in a few decads, at the farthest, all that will be left of Sequoia glgantea will be a few hacked and scarred monuments.
TWO-LEAVED, OR TAMARACK, PINE
(Pinus contorta, var. Marrayana)
This species forms the bulk of the alpine forests, extending along the range, aljove the fir zone, up to a height of from 8000 to 9500 feet above the sea, growing in beautiful order upon moraines that are scarcely changed as yet by post-glacial weathering. Compared with the giants of the lower zones, this is a small tree, seldom attaining a height of a hun- dred feet. The largest specimen I ever measured was ninety feet in lieight, and a little over six in diameter four feet from the ground. The average height of mature trees throughout the entire belt is probably not far from fifty or sixty feet, with a di- ameter of two feet. It is a well-proportioned, rather handsome little pine, with grayish-l)rown bark, and crooked, much-divided branches, which cover the greater portion of the trunk, not so densely, how- ever, as to prevent its being seen. The lower limbs curve downward, gradually take a horizontal posi- tion about half-way up the trunk, then aspire more and more toward the summit, thus forming a sharp, conical top. The foliage is short and rigid, two leaves in a fascicle, arranged in comparatively long, cylindrical tassels at the ends of the tough, up- curving branchlets. The cones are about two inches
THE FORESTS 201
lon.s:, ^rowiii2: iu stiff clusters among the needles, Avitliout making any striking effect, except while very young, when they are of a vivid crimson color, and the whole tree appears to be dotted with Ijril- liant flowers. The sterile cones are still more showy, on account of their great abundance, often giving a reddish-yellow tinge to the whole mass of the foliage, and filling the air ^vith pollen.
No other pine on the range is so regularly planted as this one. Moraine forests sweep along the sides of the high, rocky valleys for miles without inter- ruption ; still, strictly speaking, they are not dense, for flecks of sunshine and flowers find their way into the darkest places, where the trees grow tallest and thickest. Tall, nutritious grasses are specially abundant beneath them, growing over all the ground, in sunshine and shade, over extensive areas like a farmer's crop, and ser\dng as pasture for the multitude of sheep that are driven from the arid j)laiiis every summer as soon as the snow is molted.
The Two-leaved Pine, more than any othci-, is sul>ject to destructicni by fire. The thin Ijark is streaked and sprinkled with resin, as though it had been showered down upon il like rain, so that even the green trees ca1<Ii lire readily, and during sti-oiig winds wlinln forests an^ destroyed, the flames leaji- ing fi'oin tiTc to tree, foi-niing one continuous bell of I'oariiig liic tliatgoes surging and racing onward aboN'c lln' 1i<'ii(liiio- woods, like tlic grass-fiiv^s of n prairie. |)nriiig llic c.-ilm, di-y season of Indian sunmici', the (ire erecjts (|nietly ;ilong Die gi-ound, feeding on 1 Im- diy noodles ;ind lnii-s; t lien, an'iving at the foot of a tree, the resiny hai'k is ignited, and
202 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
the heated air ascends in a powerful current, in- creasing in velocity, and dragging the flames swiftly upward ; then the leaves catch fire, and an immense column of flame, beautifully spired on the edges, and tinted a rose-purple hue, rushes aloft thirty or forty feet above the top of the tree, forming a grand spectacle, especially on a dark night. It lasts, how- ever, only a few seconds, vanishing with magical rapidity, to be succeeded by others along the fire- line at irregular intervals for weeks at a time — tree after tree flashing and darkening, leaving the trunks and branches hardly scarred. The heat, however, is sufficient to kill the trees, and in a few years the bark shrivels and falls off. Belts miles in extent are thus killed and left standing with the branches on, peeled and rigid, appearing gray in the distance, like misty clouds. Later the branches drop off, leaving a forest of bleached spars. At length the roots decay, and the forlorn trunks are blown down during some storm, and piled one upon another en- cumbering the ground until they are consumed by the next fire, and leave it ready for a fresh crop.
The endm-ance of the species is shown by its wandering occasionally out over the lava plains with the Yellow Pine, and climbing moraineless mountain-sides with the Dwarf Pine, clinging to any chance support in rifts and crevices of storm- beaten rocks — always, however, showing the effects of such hardships in every feature.
Down in sheltered lake hollows, on beds of rich alluvium, it varies so far from the common form as frequently to l^e taken for a distinct species. Here it grows in dense sods, like grasses, from forty to
THE FORESTS 203
eighty feet high, hondiiig- all together to the breeze and whirling in eddying gusts more lithely than any other tree in the woods. I have frequently found specimens fifty feet high less than five inches in di- ameter. Being thus slender, and at the same time well clad Avith leafy boughs, it is oftentimes bent to the ground when laden with soft snow, forming ])eautiful arches in endless variety, some of which last until the melting of the snow in spring.
MOUNTAIN PINE (Pinus monticola)
The Momitain Pine is king of the alpine woods, brave, hardy, and long-lived, towering grandly above its companions, and becoming stronger and more imposing just whore other species begin to crouch and disai)])('ar. At its best it is usually about ninety feet higli and five or six in diameter, though a speci- men is often met considerably larger than this. The trunk is as massive and as suggestive of en- during strength as that of an oak. About two thirds of the ti'uiik is commonly free of liml)s, but close, friiigy tuffs of sprays occur all \]\o way down, like tliosc which adoi'ii the colossal sliafts of Scipioja. The bark is dec)) i-eddish-bi-own upon trees that oc- cupy exposed situations n<'ai- its ui))»er lijiiit, and furrowed r.-ithci- <Iee))]y, the main I'niTnws i-iinniiig neai'ly i>;ir;ille| with e;ich other, and <-itnn<'clcd l)y fionspicnons cross t'uiT<»\vs, which, with one exccp- lion, iii'e, as I'jir ;is 1 Ii;i\t' iioIkmmI. iiccuhai' tn this Species.
204: THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
The cones are from four to eight inches long, slender, cylindrical, and somewhat curved, resem- bling those of the common White Pine of the Atlan- tic coast. They grow in clusters of about from three to six or seven, becoming pendulous as they increase in weight, chiefly by the bending of the branches.
This species is nearly related to the Sugar Pine, andf though not half so tall, it constantly suggests its noble relative in the way that it extends its long arms and in general habit. The Mountain Pine is first met on the upper margin of the fir zone, grow- ing singly in a subdued, inconspicuous form, in what appear as chance situations, without making much impression on the general forest. Continuing up through the Two-leaved Pines in the same scat- tered growth, it begins to show its character, and at an elevation of about 10,000 feet attains its no- blest development near the middle of the range, tossing its tough arms in the frosty air, welcoming storms and feeding on them, and reaching the grand old age of 1000 years.
JUNIPEK, OE BED CEDAE (Jimiperus occidentalis)
The Juniper is preeminently a rock tree, occupy- ing the baldest domes and pavements, where there is scarcely a handful of soil, at a height of from 7000 to 9500 feet. In such situations the trunk is frequently over eight feet in diameter, and not much more in height. The top is almost always dead in old trees, and great stubborn limbs push
THE FOEESTS
205
out horizoiitallv lliut are mostly broken and bare at the ends, but densely covered and embedded here and there with bossy mounds of gray foliage. Some are mere weathered stumps, as broad as long, decorated with a few leafy sprays, reminding one of the crumbling towers of some ancient castle
VV.S.
JUNIPER, OR KED CEDAR.
scantily di'ai>e(l wifli ivy. Only ujion the liead watci's of tlie Carson liave I found this sjxM'ies «'S- tablisli('(l on good nioi'aiiie soil. Here it floui'islies willi llii' Silvei' and 'l'\vo-li'a\T(l I'ines, in gi'cal beauty and Inxui'iance, atlaiiiing a liciglit of IVoin forty to sixty feet, and nianift'sling bnt little of that rocky angularity so characteristic a feature
206 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
througliont the greater portion of its range. Two of the largest, growing at the head of Hoj^e Val- ley, measured twenty-nine feet three inches and twenty-five feet six inches in circumference, re- spectively, four feet from the ground. The bark is of a bright cinnamon color, and, in thrifty trees, 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, but to me the Juniper seems a singularly dull and taciturn tree, never speaking to one's heart. I have spent many a day and night in its company, in all kinds of weather, and have ever fomid it silent, cold, and rigid, like a column of ice. Its broad stumpiness, of course, precludes all possi- bility of waving, or even shaking; but it is not this rocky steadfastness that constitutes its silence. In calm, sun-days the Sugar Pine preaches the grandeur of the mountains like an apostle without moving a leaf.
On level rocks it dies standing, and wastes in- sensibly out of existence like granite, the wind exerting about as little control over it alive or dead as it does over a glacier boulder. Some are un- doubtedly over 2000 years old. All the trees of the alpine woods suffer, more or less, from avalanches, the Two-leaved Pine most of all. Gaps two or three hundred yards wide, extending from the upper limit of the tree-line to the bottoms of valleys and lake basins, are of common occur- rence in all the upper forests, resembling the clear- ings of settlers in the old backwoods. Scarcely a
THE FORESTS '207
tree is spared, even the soil is scraped away, while the thousands of uprooted piues and spruces are piled upon one another heads downward, and tucked snui;ly in along the sides of the clearing- in two windrows, like lateral moraines. The pines lie with Ijranches wilted and drooping like weeds. Not so the burly junipers. After braving in silence the storms of perhaps a dozen or twenty centuries, they seem in this, their last calamity, to become some- what comnnmicative, making sign of a very un- willing 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 rise again.
HEMLOCK SPRUCE ( 7's' itga ratto)ii(nia)
The Hemlock Spruce is the most singularly beautiful of all ihe California conifcra^ So slender is its axis at the top, that it bends ovei- and droops like tlie stalk of a nodding lily. Tlie branches droop also, and divide into iiiimmei'able slender, waving s[)rays, which are ai-raiiged in a varied, eloquent harmony that is wholly indesciibable. Its cones are pur[)le, and hang fi'ee, in the form of little tassels two in(;li<is long from all the sprays from top to bottom. Though excjuisitely delicate and feminiiK^ in expi'ession, it grows ])est wlicrc the snow lies <l(^epest, far uji in tlie I'cgion of storms, at an di'vation of from \H){H) to l>r)()() feet, on frosty iKU't lici'ii slojtrs; l»nl it is capable of
208
THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
growing
considerably higher, say 10,500 feet. The tallest specimens, growing in sheltered hol- lows somewhat beneath the heaviest wind-cm- reiits, are from eighty to a hundred feet high, and from two to four feet in diameter. The very lar- gest specimen I ever found was nineteen feet seven inches in circum- ference four feet from the ground, growing on the edge of Lake Hollow, at an elevation of 9250 feet above the level of the sea. At the age of twenty or thirty years it becomes fruitful, and hangs out its beautiful purple cones at the ends of the slender sprays, where they swing free in the breeze, and contrast delightfully with the cool green foliage. They are translucent when young, and their beauty is delicious. After they are fully ripe,
STORM BEATEN HEMLOCK SPRUCE, FORTY FEET HIGH.
THE FOKESTS 209
they spread their shell-like scales and allow the brown-winged seeds to fly in the mellow air, while the empty cones remain to beantify the tree until the coming of a fresh crop.
The staminate cones of all the conif erse are beauti- ful, growing in bright clusters, yellow, and rose, and crimson. Those of the Hendock Hpruce are the most beautiful of all, forming little conelets of blue flowers, each on a slender stem.
Under all conditions, sheltered or stormbeaten, well-fed or ill-fed, this tree is singularly graceful in habit. Even at its highest limit upon exposed ridge- tops, though compelled to crouch in dense thickets, huddled close together, as if for mutual protection, it still manages to throw out its sprays in irre- pressible loveliness ; while on well-ground moraine soil it develops a perfectly tro2)ical luxuriance of foliage and fruit, and is the very loveliest tree in the forest ; poised in thin white sunshine, clad with branches from head to foot, yet not in the faintest degree heavy *»i' Imiichy, it towers in unassuming majesty, il moping as if unaffected with the aspir- ing tenden<,'ies of its race, lo\ing the ground whiles transparently conscious of heav(;n and joyously re- ceptive ot" its blessings,r(^a('liingont its ]ti-ancheslik<' sensitive tentacles, feeling tlie light and reveling in it. No other of our ali)in(! conifers so linely veils its strength. Its <lelicate branches yield to the moun- tains' gentlest Iticilh; yet is it strong to meet the wildest onsets of 1 lie gale, — sli'ongnot in resistance, but coni|ili;in('e, Im.w ing, snow-l;i<len, to 1 lie gi'<»un<l, gracefullx' ac(;eptinu- liui-i;i] monlli .-iflei- niontli in tile darkness beiiealli ilic jiea\'v mantle (»f winter.
210 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
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 yet lower and lower, until the slender top touches the ground, thus forming a fine ornamental arch. The snow still falls lavishly, and the whole tree is at length buried, to sleep and rest in its beautiful grave as though dead. Entire groves of young trees, from ten to forty feet high, are thus buried every winter like slender grasses. But, like the violets and daisies which the heaviest snows crush not, they are safe. It is as though this were only Nature's method of putting her darlings to sleep instead of leaving them exj)osed to the biting storms of winter.
Thus warmly wrapped they await the summer resurrection. The snow becomes soft in the sun- shine, and freezes at night, making the mass hard and comj^act, like ice, so that during the months of April and May you can ride a horse over the pros- trate groves without catching sight of a single leaf. At length the down-pouring sunshine sets them free. First the elastic tops of the arches begin to ai^pear, then one branch after another, each spring- ing loose with a gentle rustling sound, and at length the whole tree, with the assistance of the winds, gradually unbends and rises and settles back into its place in the warm air, as dry 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 of Lassen's Butte. There are also many charming companies on the head waters of the Tuolumne, Merced, and San Joaquin, and, in general, the species is so far from being rare
THE FOllESTS 211
that you can scarcely fail to find groves of consider- able extent in crossing the range, choose what pass you may. The Mountain Pine grows beside it, and more frequently the two-leaved species ; but there are many beautiful groups, nunil)ering 1000 indi- viduals, or more, without a single intruder.
I wish I had space to write more of the sur- passing beauty of this favorite spruce. Every tree- lover is sure to regard it with special admiration ; apathetic mountaineers, even, seeking only game or gold, stop to gaze on first meeting it, and mutter to themselves : " That 's a mighty i)retty tree," some
of them adding, " d d pretty ! " In autumn,
when its cones are ripe, the little striped tamias, and the Douglas squirrel, and the Clark crow make a happy stir in its groves. The deer love to lie down beneath its spreading branches; Inight streams from the snow that is always near ripple through its groves, and bryanthus spreads precious carpets in its shade. But the best words only hint its charms. Come to the mountains and see.
DWAllF PINE (PiuHti albicauUs)
This species forms the extreme edge of the timlici- line througiiniit iK^arly IIm' whole extent of the range on both flanks. II is first met growing in company witli J^'uius contort((, vai-. MHrrai/(n/<(, on llif ujijx'r mai-gin of Hie bdt, ;is .111 erect tree from fifteen to thirty feet high and from one to two feet in thick- ness; tlience it goes straggling' up llic (l;inks of the
212
THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
summit peaks, upon moraines or crumbling ledges, wherever it can obtain a foothold, to an elevation of from 10,000 to 12,000 feet, where it dwarfs to a mass of crumpled, prostrate branches, covered with slender, upright shoots, each tipped with a short, close-i^acked tassel of leaves. The bark is smooth
"• yS^-4SM. ^'^m^.
T.
. RS-?^ ■
GROUP OF ERECT DWARF PINES.
and pm"j)lish, in some places almost white. The fertile cones grow in rigid clusters upon the upper branches, dark chocolate in color while young, and bear beautiful pearly seeds about the size of peas, most of which are eaten by two si)ecies of tamias and the notable Clark crow. The staminate cones
THE FOKESTS 213
occur ill clusters, aljout aii inch wide, dowu among the leaves, and, as they are colored bright rose- purple, they give rise to a lively, flowery appearance little looked for in such a tree.
Pines are commonly regarded as sky-lo^'ing trees that must necessarily aspire or die. This species forms a marked exception, creeping lowly, in coni- l)liance with the most rigorous demands of climate, yi^t enduring bravely to a more advanced age than many of its lofty relatives in the sun-lands below. Seen from a distance, it would never be taken for a tree of any kind. Yonder, for example, is Cathe- dral Peak, some three miles away, with a scattered growth of this jnne creeping like mosses over the roof and around the beveled edges of the north gable, nowhere giving any hint of an ascending axis. When approached cpiite near it still appears matted and heathy, and is so low that one expe- riences no great dilhi-ulty in walking over the top of it. Yet it is seldom absolutely prostrate, at its lowest usually attaining a height of three or four feet, with a main li'iink, jiiid l»i-;iiiclics outsj^read and intertanglc(l al)ove it, as if in ascending they had been chcM-ked by a ceiling, against which they had gi-own and been compcllc<l to spread horizon- tally. Tlu' winter snow is iudec(l such a ceiling, last- ing' li.'iir lli(! yeai'; while ilu) pressed, slioni snrface is made yet smootlu'r l)y violent winds, ai'med with cutting sand-grains, that beat down any slioot that offers to rise much a i)Ove the general lexch .hkI carve the dead trunks and hianches in bcaulil'ul iialteiiis.
During sloi'tuy nights I ha\'(i ol'teii raiuped snugly IxMM'ath tin' inlcrhn-iiig arches ot" this litth;
214
THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
pine. The needles, wliicli have accumulated for centuries, make fine beds, a fact well known to other
i
mountaineers, such as deer and wild sheep, who paw out oval hollows and lie beneath the larger trees in safe and comfortable concealment.
THE FOKESTS 215
The longevity of this lowly dwarf is far greater than would be guessed. Here, for example, is a specimen, growing at an elevation of 10,700 feet, which seems as though it might be plucked up by the roots, for it is only three and a half inches in diameter, and its topmost tassel is hardly three feet above the ground. Cutting it half through and counting the annual rings with the aid of a lens, we find its age to be no less than 255 years. Here is another telling specimen about the same height, 426 years old, whose trunk is only six inches in diameter ; and one of its supi)le branchlets, hardly an eighth of an inch in diameter inside the bark, is seventy-five years old, and so filled with oily balsam, and so well seasoned by storms, that we may tie it in knots like a whip-cord.
WHITE PINE (Pinus Jlexilis)
This species is widely distributed throughout the Rocky Mountains, an<l over all the higher of the many ranges of the Great Basin, l)etween the Wah- satch ]\[()untains and the Sierra, where it is known as Wliitc Pine. In tlie Sieri'a it is S})arsely scatttn-od along the eastern ilank, fi-om Tiloody Canon soutli- ward nearly to the extremity of the range, ojtposite the village of Lone Pine, nowhere forming any ap- preciable portion of the genera! loiest. Fy<>u\ its pi'iMili;ii' jxisition, in loose, strangling partifs, it seems to have \h\oai <leri\e(l fi-om the llasin lamres to the eastward, wlieic it is abundant.
216 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
It is a lai'ger tree than the Dwarf Pine. At an elevation of about 9000 feet above the sea, it often attains a height of forty or fifty feet, and a diame- ter of from three to five feet. The cones open freely when ripe, and are twice as large as those of the alhlcaulis, and the foliage and branches are more open, having a tendency to sweep out in free, wild curves, like those of the Mountain Pine, to which it is closely allied. It is seldom found lower than 9000 feet above sea-level, but from this elevation it pushes upward over the roughest ledges to the extreme limit of tree-growth, where, in its dwarfed, storm-crushed condition, 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 White Pine Mining District, White Pine City, and the White Pine Mountains have derived their names from it.
NEEDLE FINE (Pinus aristata)
This species is restricted in the Sierra to the southern portion of the range, about the head wa- ters of Kings and Kern rivers, where it forms ex- tensive forests, and in some places accompanies the Dwarf Pine to the extreme limit of tree-growth.
It is first met at an elevation of between 9000 and 10,000 feet, and runs up to 11,000 without seem- ing to suffer greatly from the climate or the lean- ness of the soil. It is a much finer tree than the
THE FOllESTS
•J17
Dwarf Pine. IiiRtoad of growing iu clumps and low, heathy mats, it manages in some way to nuiin- tain an erect position, and usually stands single. Wherever the young trees are at all sheltered, they gTow up straight and arrowy, with delicately tapered bole, and ascending Ijranches terminated
OAK. UHUVVINU AiMONG YfciLLOW I'll^KS.
witli glossy, bottlc-hrusii tassels. At middle age, certain lindjs are specialized and ]mslie(l f.-ir out for the bearing of cones, after tli(^ m.niiierol" the Sngar Pine; and in old ago these ])ran('lies droop and cast nboiil ill every dii-eetioii, giving rise to very |»ii'-
tures([ue <!ff<>cts. The ll-llllk becomes tleep brow ll ■•iihI i-ongli, like lli.it (.f llie Moiiiilaiii Pine, while
218 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
the young cones are of a strange, dull, blackish-blue color, clustered on the upper branches. When ripe they are from three to four inches long, yellowish brown, resembling in every way those of the Moun- tain Pine. Excepting the Sugar Pine, no tree on the mountains is so capable of individual expres- sion, while in grace of form and movement it con- stantly reminds one of the Hemlock Spruce.
The largest specimen I measured was a little over five feet in diameter and ninety feet in height, but this is more than twice the ordinary size.
This species is common throughout the Rocky Mountains and most of the short 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, and Golden Gate ranges it is quite abundant. About a foot or eighteen inches of the ends of the branches is densely packed with stiff outstanding needles which radiate like an electric fox or squirrel's tail. The needles have a glossy polish, and the sunshine sifting through them makes them burn with silvery luster, while their number and elastic temper tell delightfully in the winds. This tree is here still more original and picturesque than in the Sierra, far surpassing not only its com- panion conifers in this respect, but also the most noted of the lowland oaks. Some stand firmly erect, feathered with radiant tassels down to the ground, forming slender tapering towers of shining ver- dure ; others, Avith two or three specialized branches pushed out at right angles to the trunk and densely clad with tasseled sprays, take the form of beautiful ornamental crosses. Again in the same woods you
THE F0EE8TS 219
find trees tliat are made up of several boles united near the ground, spreading- at the sides in a plane parallel to the axis of the mountain, with the ele- gant tassels hung in charming order between them, making a harp held against the main wind lines where they are most etfeetivo in playing the grand storm harmonies. And besides these there are many variable arching forms, alone or in gi-oups, with innumerable tassels drooping beneath the arches or radiant above them, and many lowly giants of no particular form that have l^raved the storms of a thousand years. But wdiether old or young, sheltered or exposed to the wildest gales, this tree is ever found irrepressibly and extrava- gantly picturesque, and offers a richer and more varied series of forms to the artist than any other conifer I know of.
NUT PINE {Finns vionophyUa)
The Nut Pine covers or rather dots the eastern n.Miik of the Sierra, to wliidi it is mostly restricted, in grayish, bush-like patches, from tlie margin of the sage-plains to au elevation of from 70()() to SOOO feet.
A more contentedly fi'uitt'ul and unaspii'ing coni- I'cr could not be conceived. All tlu^ species we have been sketcliiug make dcpaftures more oi- less distant tVotn the ty])ical s]>ire foi-m, but none goes so fai' as tliis. AVitlioiil any a]»)>ai-eiit <'\ig(Mi('y of climate or soil, it remains iic.n- 1 licgiouiKl, i li rowing out cronj^iM], (|i\-cr:^^(Mif liraiidics like an ordiai'd
220 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
apple-tree, and seldom pushes a single slioot higher than fifteen or twenty feet above the ground.
The average thickness of the trunk is, perhaps, about ten or twelve inches. The leaves are mostly undivided, like round awls, instead of being sepa- rated, like those of other pines, into twos and threes and fives. The cones are green while growing, and are usually found over all the tree, forming quite a marked feature as seen against the bluish-gray foli- age. They are quite small, only about two inches in length, and give no promise of edil3le nuts; but when we come to open them, we find that about half the entire bulk of the cone is made up of sweet, nutritious seeds, the kernels of which are nearly as large as those of hazel-nuts.
This is undoubtedly the most important food- tree on the Sierra, and furnishes the Mono, Carson, and Walker River Indians with more and better nuts than all the other species taken together. It is the Indians' own tree, and many a white man have they killed for cutting it down.
In its development Nature seems to have aimed at the formation of as great a fruit-bearing surface as possible. Being so low and accessible, the cones are readily beaten ofi: with poles, and the nuts pro- cured by roasting them until the scales open. In bountiful seasons a single Indian will gather thirty or forty bushels of them — a fine squirrelish em- ployment.
Of all the conifers along the eastern base of the Sierra, and on all the many mountain groups and short ranges of the Great Basin, this foodful little pine is the commonest tree, and the most impor-
THE FOKESTS 221
taut. Nearly every mountain is planted with it to a height of from 8000 to 1)000 feet above the sea. Some are covered from base to summit by this one species, Avith only a sparse growth of juniper on the lower slopes to break the continuity of its curi- ous woods, which, though dark-looking at a dis- tance, are almost shadeless, and have none of the damp, leafy glens and hollows so characteristic of other pine woods. Tens of thousands of acres occur in continuous belts. Indeed, viewed compre- hensively the entire Basin seems to be pretty evenly divided into level plains dotted with sage-bushes and mountain-chains covered with Nut Pines. No slope is too I'ough, none too dry, for these bountiful orchards of the red man.
The value of this species to Nevada is not easily overestimated. It furnishes charcoal and timber for the mines, and, witli the juniper, supplies the ranches with fuel and rough fencing. In fruitful seasons the nut crop is j^erhaps greater tliun the California wheat crop, which exerts so nnicli in- fluence throughout the food markets of the world. When the cro}) is ripe, the Indians make ready the long Ijeating-poles ; bags, baskets, mats, and sacks are collected; the women out at service among the settlers, washing or drudging, assem])le at tlie fam- il> Imls; the men leave their ranch work; old and young, all ar<' iii<>iiii1(m1 oh ixmics and start in great glee to the nut-lands, forniing curiously picturesipio cavalcades; flaming scarfs and calico skirts stream l(josely over tlic kiio1t\- ponies, two s(|iui\vs usually asti'ide of each, wilh l)al)y midgets bandaged in ))askets slnmi- on tlicii- backs oi- balanced on the
222 THE MOUNTAINS OF C.UilFOENIA
saddle-bow ; while nut-baskets and water-jars 23ro- ject from each side, and the long beating-poles make angles in every direction. Arriving at some well-known central point where grass and water are found, the squaws with baskets, the men with poles ascend the ridges to the laden trees, followed by the children. Then the beating begins right merrily, the burs fly in every direction, rolling down the slopes, lodging here and there against rocks and sage-bushes, chased and gathered by the women and children with fine natural gladness. Smoke- columns speedily mark the joyful scene of their labors as the roasting-fires are kindled, and, at night, assembled in gay circles garrulous as jays, they begin the first nut feast of the season.
The nuts are about half an inch long and a quarter of an inch in diameter, pointed at the top, round at the base, light brown in general color, and, like many other pine seeds, handsomely dotted with purple, like birds' eggs. The shells are thin and may be crushed between the thumb and finger. The kernels are white, becoming brown by roasting, and are sweet to every palate, being eaten by birds, squirrels, dogs, horses, and men. Perhaps less than one bushel in a thousand of the whole crop is ever gathered. Still, l)esides supplying their own wants, in times of plenty the Indians bring large quan- tities to market ; then they are eaten around nearly every fireside in the State, and are even fed to horses occasionally instead of barley.
Of other trees growing on the Sierra, but form- ing a very small part of the general forest, we may briefly notice the following :
THE FOllESTS 223
Chanuecijparis Lawson'uuia is a inaguificeut tree iu the coast ranges, Init small iu the Sierra. It is found only well to the northward along the banks of cool streams on the upper Sacramento toward Mount Shasta. Only a few trees of this species, as far as I have seen, have as yet gained a place in the Sierra woods. It has evidently been derived from the coast range by way of the tangle of connecting mountains at the head of the Sacramento Valley.
In shady dells and on cool stream banks of the northern Sierra we also find the Yew {Taxiis hre- rifoUd).
The interesting Nutmeg Tree {Torreya Ccdifor- nica) is sparsely distributed along the western flank of the range at an elevation of about 4000 feet, mostly in gulches and canons. It is a small, prickly leaved, glossy evergreen, like a conifer, from twenty to fifty feet high, and ntie to two feet in diameter. The fruit reseml)les a green-gage }»lum, and contains one seed, about the size of an acorn, and like a nutmeg, hence the common name. The wood is finc.'-grained and of a beautiful, creamy yc^llow coI<jr like ])ox, sweet-scented when dry, though the green leaves emit a disagreeable odor.
Bdula Occident alls, the only birch, is a small, slender tree restricted to tlie eastei'ii Hank of \\w range along stream-sides below the i»iiic-ltelt, es- pecially in Owen's Valley.
Alder, ]\ra)>l(', and Xuttall's Flowering Dogwood make Ix^autiful ))owci-s over swift, co(»l streams at an elevation of fi-om .'lOOO to '){){){) tVcl, ini\e<l more or less witii willows and cottonwoud; and
224 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
above these iu lake basins the aspen forms fine ornamental groves, and lets its light shine glori- ously in the autumn months.
The Chestnut Oak {Qiiercus densijiora) seems to have come from the coast range around the head of the Sacramento Valley, like the Chamcecyparis, but as it extends southward along the lower edge of the main j^ine-belt it grows smaller until it finally dwarfs to a mere chaparral bush. In the coast mountains it is a fine, tall, rather slender tree, about from sixty to seventy-five feet high, growing with the grand Sequoia sempervirens, or Redwood. But unfortunately it is too good to live, and is now being rapidly destroyed for tan- bark.
Besides the common Douglas Oak and the grand Quercus Wislizeni of the foot-hills, and several small ones that make dense growths of chaparral, there are two mountain-oaks that grow with the pines up to an elevation of about 5000 feet above the sea, and greatly enhance the beauty of the yo- semite parks. These are the Mountain Live Oak and the Kellogg Oak, named in honor of the ad- mirable botanical pioneer of California. Kellogg's Oak {Quercus KeUogcju) is a firm, bright, beautiful tree, reaching a height of sixty feet, four to seven feet in diameter, with wide-spreading l)ranches, and growing at an elevation of from 3000 to 5000 feet in sunii}^ valleys and flats among the ever- greens, and higher in a dwarfed state. In the cliff- bound parks about 4000 feet above the sea it is so abundant and effective it might fairly be called the Yosemite Oak. The leaves make beautiful
THE FORESTS 225
masses of purple iu the spring, and yellow in ripe autumn ; while its acorns are eagerly gathered by Indians, squirrels, and woodpeckers. The Mountain Live Oak {Q. Chrysoleins) is a tough, rugged moun- taineer of a tree, growing bravely and attaining noble dimensions on the roughest eartlKniake tal- uses in deep canons and yosemite valleys. The trunk is usually short, dividing near the ground into great, wide-spreading limbs, and these again into a nndti- tude of slender sprays, many of them cord-like and drooping to the ground, like those of the Great White Oak of the lowlands {(^. lohata). Tiie top of the tree where there is plenty of space is broad and bossy, "svith a dense covering of shining leaves, mak- ing delightful canopies, the complicated system of gray, interlacing, arching branches as seen from be- neath Ijeing exceedingly rich and picturesque. No other tree that I know dwarfs so regularly and com- j>letely as this under changes of climate due to changes in elevation. At the foot of a canon 4000 feet above the sea you may find magnificent speci- mens of this oak fifty feet high, with craggy, Ijulg- ing trunks, five to seven feet in diameter, and at the head of the canon, 2r)00 feet higher, a dense, soft, low, shrul)by growtli of the same s})ecies, wliile all the way up the eahoii he'lweeu these extremes of siz(^ and habit a jx-rfect gradation may b(^ traciMl. Tlit^ larg<^st I have seen was fifty feet higli, eiglit feet in dianietei', jiikI .-iltoiit sev<'nty-li\'e feet in sprca*!. The ti'uiik was all kiiols ami luit ti'csses, gi'ay like granite, and alxnil as aiiguhii" ami in-c^iil.-ir as llic boulders (III wliii'li il was gi'owing — a tyjie <»t' stead- fast, unwedgeabie strength.
15
CHAPTER IX
THE DOUGLAS SQUIEEEL {Sciurus Douglasii)
THE Douglas Squirrel is by far the most interest- ing and influential of the California sciuridae, surpassing every other species in force of character, numbers, and extent of range, and in the amount of influence he Ijrings to bear upon the health and distribution of the vast forests he inhabits.
Go where you will throughout the noble woods of the Sierra Nevada, among the giant pines and spruces of the lower zones, up through the towering Silver Firs to the storm-bent thickets of the sum- mit peaks, you everywhere find this little squirrel the master-existence. Though only a few inches long, so intense is his fiery vigor and restlessness, he stirs every grove with wild life, and makes him- self more important than even the huge bears that shuffle through the tangled underbrush beneath him. Every wind is fretted by his voice, almost every bole and branch feels the sting of his sharp feet. How much the growth of the trees is stimu- lated by this means it is not easy to learn, but his action in manipulating their seeds is more appre- ciable. Nature has made him master forester and committed most of her coniferous crops to his
226
THE DOUGLAS SQUIRREL 227
paws. Probably over fifty per cent, of all the eones rij)eued oii the Sierra are cut off aud handled by the Douglas alone, and of those of the Big Trees per- haps ninety per cent, pass through his hands : the gi'eater portion is of course stored away for food to last during the winter and spring, but some of them are tucked separately into loosely covered holes, where some of the seeds germinate and become trees. But the Sierra is only one of the many provinces over which he holds sway, for his dominion extends over all the Kedwood Belt of the Coast Mountains, and far northward throughout the majestic forests of Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. I make haste to mention these facts, to show upon how substantial a foundation the importance I ascribe to him rests.
The Douglas is closely allied to the Red Squirrel or Chickaree of the eastern woods. Ours may be a lineal descendant of this species, distriljuted west- ward to th(^ Pacific by way of the Great Lakes and the Rocky Mountains, and thence southward along our forested ranges. This view is suggested by the fact that our species becomes redder and more Chickaree-like in general, the farther it is traced back along the (,'ourse indicated above. But what- ever tlH'if i-elationsliij), and the evolutionary forces that have acted u[)on them, the Douglas is now the largor and more beautiful animal.
Fi-o)n.tlu^ nose to the root of tlie tail he mea- sures about <'ight inches; and liis tail, wliicli lie so effectively uses in iTiterpreting his feelings, is a))out six iiiclh's ill Ii'iiM'tli. ITo wears dark bluish-gray over the l)a(;k ati<l half-way <Io\vii tlio sides, bright
228 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
buft* Oil tlie belly, with a stripe of dark gray, nearly black, separating the upper and under colors ; this dividing stripe, however, is not very sharply de- fined. He has long black whiskers, 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 not unlike the lusty exclamation he utters on his way up a tree when excited. Most mountaineers in California call him the Pine Squirrel ; and when I asked an old trapper whether he knew our little forester, he replied with brightening countenance : " Oh, yes, of course I know him ; everybody knows him. When I 'm huntiii' in the woods, I often find out where the deer are by his barkiii' 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 and movements ; but the Douglas is preem- inently so, possessing, as he does, every attribute peculiarly squirrelish enthusiastically concen- trated. He is the squirrel of squirrels, flashing from liranch to branch of his favorite evergreens crisp and glossy and undiseased as a sunbeam. Grive him wings and he would outfly any bird in the woods. His big gray cousin is a looser animal, seemingly light enough to float on the wind ; yet when leaping from limb to limb, or out of one tree- top to another, he sometimes halts to gather strength, as if making efforts concerning the up-
THE DOUGLAS SQUIRREL 229
shot of which he does not always feel exactly con- fident. But the Douglas, with his denser body, leaps and glides in hidden strength, seemingly as independent of coiiuiiou nuiscles as a mountain stream. He threads the tassoled Ijranches of the pines, stirring their needles like a rustling breeze ; now shooting across openings in arrowy lines; now launching in curves, glinting deftly from side to side in sudden zigzags, and swirling in giddy loops and spirals around the knotty trunks; getting into wliat seem to be the most impossible situations without sense of danger; now on his haunches, now on his head; yet ever graceful, and punctuating his most irrepressible outbursts of energy with little dots and dashes of perfect repose. Ho is, without exception, the wildest animal I ever saw, — a fiery, sputtering little bolt of life, luxuriating in ([uick oxygen and th(^ woods' best juices. One can hardly think of such a creature l)oing depen<lent, like the rest of us, on climate and food. But, after all, it requires no long acquaintance to learn he is human, for he works for a living. His busiest time is in the Indian summer. TIk'H he gathers biii's .-iiid li;i/.cl- nuts like a i»lodding farmer, working continuously every day for hours; saying not a woi-d ; cutting off thf ripe cones at the top of his speed, as if em- l)loycd by tlie job, ;iiid ('xnniiniiig every branch in reguljii- order, as if curct'ui that not one should es- cape him; then, <l(!scending, he stores tlieni away beneatli logs and stumps, in nntici])ation of the pinching hunger days of win tci-. lie sccins himself a kind of conifei-ons fruit, — ix.lli fruit and llower. The resiny essences of the pines pervade every
230 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
pore of his body, and eating his flesh is like chew- ing gum.
One never tires of this bright chip of nature, — this brave httle voice crying in the wilderness, — of observing his many works and ways, and listening to his curious language. His musical, piny gossip is as savory to the ear as balsam to the palate ; and, though he has not exactly the gift of song, some of his notes are as sweet as those of a linnet — almost flute-like in softness, while others prick and tingle like thistles. He is the mocking-bird of squirrels, pouring forth mixed chatter and song hke a perennial fountain; barking like a dog, screaming like a hawk, chirping like a blackbird or a sparrow; while in bluff, audacious noisiness he is a very jay.
In descending the trunk of a tree with the inten- tion of alighting on the ground, he preserves a cautious silence, mindful, perhaps, of foxes and wildcats ; but while rocking safely at home in the pine-tops there is no end to his capers and noise ; and woe to the gray squirrel or chipmunk that ventures to set foot on his favorite tree ! No matter how sl}dy they trace the furrows of the bark, they are speedily discovered, and kicked down-stairs with comic vehemence, while a torrent of angry notes comes rushing from his whiskered lips that sounds remarkably like swearing. He will even attempt at times to drive away dogs and men, especially if he has had no previous know- ledge of them. Seeing a man for the first time, he approaches nearer and nearer, until within a few feet; then, with an angry outburst, he makes a
THE DOUGLAS SQUIEKEL
231
sudden rush, all teeth and eyes, as if about to eat you up. But, finding that the big, forked animal does n't scare, he prudently beats a retreat, and sets himself up to reconnoiter on some overhanging branch, scrutinizing every movement you make with ludicrous solemnity. Gath- ering courage, he ventures down the trunk again, cliurring and chirping, and jerking nervously up and down in curious loops, eyeing you all the time, as if sho^ving off and denumding your admiration. Finally, grow- ing calmer, he settles down in a comfort a] jle posture on some horizontal branch commanding a good view, and beats time with his tail to a steady "Chee-u]>! chee-up ! " or, when somewhat less excited, "Pee-ali!" with tlio first syllable keenly accented, and the second drawn out like the scream of a hawk, — repeat- ing tliis slowly and nioi-e em- phatically at fii'st, then gradu- ally faster, until a i';it(^ of about l-")!) words a min- ute is rcaclit'(l; usually sitting all the time on his haunches, with ])aws resting on his breast, which pulses visibly wilii each word. It is remarkable, too, that, tlK)ngh ;ii't iciil.it ing distinctly, he kcejts his mouth shut most «>f i he t iinc, and speaks thi'ough his nose. I have; occasionally (>l)scr\'<'<l him cxcii eating Heipioia seeds and niltbling a liouMcsomo
TRACK OF DOUGLAS SQUIRREL ONCK DOWN AND UP A PINE-TREE WHEN SHOWING OFF" TO A Sl'EC'TATOK.
232 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
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 descending the 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 are near enough you may see the bulging strength of his short, bear-like arms, and note his sinewy fists clinched in the bark.
Whether going up or down, he carries his tail ex- tended at full length in line with his body, unless it be required for gestures. But while running along horizontal limbs or fallen trunks, it is fre- quently folded forward over the back, with the airy tip daintily upcurled. In cool weather it keeps him warm. Then, after he has finished his meal, you may see him crouched close on some level limb with his tail-robe neatly spread and reaching forward to his ears, the electric, outstanding hairs quivering in the breeze like pine-needles. But in wet or very cold weather he stays in his nest, and while curled up there his comforter is long enough to come for- ward around his nose. It is seldom so cold, how- ever, 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 Mount Shasta, the thermometer nearly at zero and the sky thick with driving snow, a Douglas came bravely out several times from one of the lower hollows of a Dwarf Pine near my camp, faced the wind without seeming to feel it much, frisked lightly about over the mealy snow, and dug his way down to some hidden seeds with wonder-
THE DOUGLAS SQUUIREL 233
fill precision, as if to his eyes the thick snow- covering were glass.
No other of the Sierra animals of my acqnain- tanee is better fed, not even the deer, amid abnn- danee of sweet herbs and shrubs, or the mountain sheep, or omnivorous bears. His food consists of grass-seeds, berries, hazel-nuts, chin({uapins, and the nuts and seeds of all the coniferous trees without exception, — Pine, Fir, Spruce, Libocedrus, Juniper, and Sequoia, — he is fond of them all, and they all agree with him, green or ripe. No cone is too large for him to manage, none so small as to be beneath his notice. The smaller ones, such as those of the Hemlock, and the Douglas Spruce, and the Two-leaved Pine, he cuts off and eats on a branch of the tree, without allowing them to fall ; begin- ning at the bottom of the cone and cutting away the scales to expose the seeds; not gna\\ing by guess, like a bear, but turning them round and round in regular order, in compliance witli their spiral arrangement.
AVhen tlius employed, his location in the tree is betrayed by a dril)bl<^ of scales, sliells, and seed- wings, and, every few minutes, by the fall of the sti-i)»ped axis of tlie cone. Then of course he is I'c.iiiy for ,'nu)tli('r, and if you are watching you jiKiy ciilfh a glimpse of liini as ho gUd(\s silently out to tlie end of a branch and see him examining the cone-clusters until lir (inds one In his mind; Ili<'n, Ii-aning o\'cr, i>u]| It.ick llic s]»iMngy needles out of liis way, gi'as]) the cone with his ]»aws to prevent its falling, snip i( (>(V in ;in inci^-dibly shoi-t time, seize it wilh jaws grotescpicly stretclu'd, .md
234
THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
return to his cliosen seat near the trunk. But the immense size of the cones of the Sugar Pine — from fifteen to twenty inches in length — and those of the Jeffrey variety of the Yellow Pine compel him to adopt a quite different method. He cuts them off without attempting to hold them, then goes down and drags them from where they have chanced to fall up to the bare, swelling ground around the instep of the tree, where he demol- ishes them in the same methodical way, begin- ning at the bottom and following the scale-spirals to the top.
From a single Sugar Pine cone he gets from two to four hundred seeds about half the size of a hazel- nut, so that in a few minutes he can procure enough to last a week. He seems, however, to prefer those of the two Silver First above all others ; perhaps because they are most easily obtained, as the scales drop off when ripe without needing to be cut. Both species are filled with an exceedingly pungent, aromatic oil, which spices all his flesh, and is of itself sufficient to account for his lightning energy.
You may easily know this little workman by his chips. On sunny hillsides around the principal trees they lie in big piles, — bushels and basketfuls
SEEDS, WINGS, AND SCALE OF SUGAR PINE. (NAT. SIZE.)
THE DOUGLAS SQUIRREL 235
of them, all fresh and clean, making the most beantiful kitchen-middens imaginable. The brown and yellow scales and imt-shells are as abmidant and as delicately i^enciled and tinted as the shells along the sea-shore; while the beautiful red and purple seed-wings mingled with them would lead one to fancy that innumerabli^ butterflies had there met their fate.
He feasts on all the species long Ijefore they are ripe, but is wise enough to wait until they are ma- tured before he gathers them into his barns. This is in October and iSrovemT)er, which with him are the two Ijusiest months of the year. All kinds of burs, big and little, are now cut off and showered down alike, and the ground is speedily covered with them. A constant thudding and bum^ung is kept up ; some of the larger cones chancing to fall on old logs make the forest reecho with the sound. Other nut-eaters less industrious know well what is going on, ;iiid liasten to carry away the cones as tlx'v fall. But however busy the harvester may be, he is not slow to desciy the pilferers below, and in- stantly leaves liis \v()i-k to drive them away. The little striped taniias is a tlioni in his flesh, stealing persistently, punish him as ]io may. Tlu^ large Gray S<|uii"rel gives trouble also, although the Douglas li;is Ijcen accused of stealing from him. Oenerall), however, just the opposite is the case.
^i'lic ('X(<'ll<'nce of the Sierra evergreens is well known tn nnrs<'iyin''n t lii-nui;-hout the woi-ld, coii- s<'(jnfntly iImtc is considcr.-ililc (lcni;MHl tnr tlic seeds, 'i'lie greater portion of tli.' supply li;is liitlit'iio been ]»i-(»(Mn'e(l 1 »y chopping down the t rees
236 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
in the more accessible sections of the forest along- side of bridle-paths that cross the range. Seqnoia seeds at fii'st bronght from twenty to thirty dollars per ponnd, and therefore were eagerly songlit after. Some of the smaller frnitfnl trees were cut down in the groves not protected by government, especially those of Fresno and King's River. Most of the Se- quoias, however, are of so gigantic a size that the seedsmen have to look for the greater portion of their supplies to the Douglas, who soon learns he is no match for these freebooters. He is wise enough, however, to cease working the instant he perceives them, and never fails to embrace every opportunity to recover his burs whenever they happen to be stored in any place accessible to him, and the busy seedsman often finds on returning to camp that the little Douglas has exhaustively spoiled the spoiler. I know one seed-gatherer who, whenever he robs the squirrels, scatters wheat or barley be- neath the trees as conscience-money.
The want of appreciable life remarked by so many travelers in the Sierra forests is never felt at this time of year. Banish all the humming in- sects and the birds and quadrupeds, leaving only Sir Douglas, and the most solitary of our so-called solitudes would still throb with ardent life. But if you should go impatiently even into the most populous of the groves on purpose to meet him, and walk about looking up among the branches, you would see very little of him. But lie down at the foot of one of the trees and straightway he will come. For, in the midst of the ordinary forest soimds, the falling of burs, piping of quails, the
THE DOUGLAS SQUIEREL '2'M
screaiiiiiiy" t»i" llie ( 'lurk Crow, and the rustling of deer and bears among the chaparral, he is quick to detect your strange footsteps, and Avill hasten 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, hut more likely the first intimation of his approadi Avill be the prickly sounds of his feet as he descends the tree overhead, just before he makes his savage onrush to frighten you and proclaim your presence to every squirrel and bird in the neighborhood. If you renuun per- fectly motionless, he will come nearer and nearer, and probably set your flesh a-tingle by frisking across your body. Once, while I was seated at the foot <»f a TTemlock Spruce in one of the most in- accessil)le of the San Joaipiin j^osemites engaged in sketching, a reckl(\ss fellow cam(* up behind me, passed uiid<'i- niy bended arm, and junqxHl on my l)aper. And one warm afternoon, while an old friend of mine was reading out in the shade of his cabin, one of his Douglas neighbors jumped from the gal)le upon his head, and then with admirable as- sui'aiicc ran down over liis shoidder and on to the book h(! hflil in liis liand.
Our Dougkis enj(n's a large social circle; for, besides his immerous relatives, S(}i<n<s fossor, Ta- tiiias (jua(Jrir/((ftKs, 7'. y'ofntscndii, Spirnioji/iilKs BccrJif'ij}^ S. J)(/i(f/l((sii, lie maintains intimate rela- tions with the nut-eating bii'ds, particulai'ly th(^ C'larl< ( "i-ow (I'irirorvus c()Ji(nihi(nnis) and llie nu- lud'ons \\<i(i(l]H'rl<ci's and jays. ^Fhe two spcrnm- ]»liiles are astonisliingly almndant in t lir lowlands ami lower foot-hills, but nioi-e an<l more sparingly
238 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
distributed up through the Douglas domains, — sel- dom veuturiug higher than six or seven thousand feet above the level of the sea. The gray sciurus ranges but little higher than this. The little striped tamias alone is associated with him every- where. In the lower and middle zones, where they all meet, they are tolerably harmonious — a happy family, though very amusing skirmishes may oc- casionally be witnessed. Wherever the ancient gla- ciers have spread forest soil there you find our wee hero, most abundant where depth of soil and genial climate have given rise to a corresponding luxuri- ance in the trees, but following every kind of growth up the cur\dng moraines to the highest glacial fountains.
Though I cannot of course expect all my readers to sympathize fully in my admiration of this little animal, few, I hoi3e, will think this sketch of his life too long. I cannot begin to tell here how much he has cheered my lonely wanderings during all the years I have been pursuing my studies in these glo- rious wilds ; or how much unmistakable humanity I have found in him. Take this for example : One calm, creamy Indian summer morning, when the nuts were ripe, I was camped in the upper pine- woods of the south fork of the San Joaquin, where the squirrels seemed to be about as plentiful as the ripe burs. They were taking an early breakfast before going to their regular harvest-work. While I was busy with my own breakfast I heard the thudding fall of two or three heavy cones from a Yellow Pine near me. I stole noiselessly forward within about twenty feet of the base of it to ob-
THE DOUGLAS SQUIRKEL 239
serve. In a few moments down came the Douglas. The Lreakfast-burs he had cut olt' liad rolled on the gently sloping ground into a clump of cea- notlius bushes, but he seemed to know exactly where they were, for he found them at once, ap- parently without searching for them. They were more than twice as heavy as himself, but after turning them into the right j)osition for getting a good hold with his long sickle-teeth he managed to drag them up to the foot of the tree from which he had cut them, moving backward. Then seating himself comfortably, he held them on end, bottom up, and demolished them at his ease. A good deal of nil)l)ling had to be done before he got anything to eat, because the lower scales are barren, but when he had patiently worked his way up to the fertile ones he found two sweet nuts at the base of each, shaped like trimmed hams, and sjwtted 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 would b(; puzzled to cut them open with a jack- knife, he accomplislied his meal with easy dignity and cleanliness, making less cft'ort a|)pai-cntly than a man would in eating soft cookery from a plate.
Breakfast d<jne, I whistled a tun<^ for him before he went to work, curious to see Imw he would be affected by it. lie IkkI not seen nir all this while; hilt till' iii<l;int I began 1o wliistic he darted n|) the tree nearest tn him, and eanu' ont nn a small dead linih opposite nie, and eonij»ose(l liiniself to listen. 1 sang and whistled nioi'e than a dozen aii"s, and as the ninsie changed his eyes spai'kled, and
240 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
he turned his head quickly from side to side, but made no other response. Other squirrels, hearing the strange sounds, came around on all sides, also chipmunks and birds. One of the birds, a hand- some, speckle-breasted thrush, seemed even more interested than the squirrels. After listening for awhile on one of the lower dead sprays of a pine, he came swooping forward within a few feet of my face, and remained fluttering in the air for half a minute or so, sustaining himself with whirring wing-beats, like a humming-bird in front of a flower, while I could look into his eyes and see his inno- cent wonder.
By this time my performance must have lasted nearly half an hour. I sang or whistled " Bonnie Doon," " Lass o' Gowrie," " O'er the Water to Char- lie," "Bonnie Woods o' Cragie Lee," etc., all of which seemed to be listened to with bright interest, my first Douglas sitting patiently through it all, with his telling eyes fixed upon me until I ven- tured to give the " Old Hundredth," when he screamed his Indian name, Pillillooeet, turned tail, and darted with ludicrous haste up the tree out of sight, his voice and actions in the case leaving a somewhat profane impression, as if he had said, " I '11 be hanged if you get me to hear anything so solemn and unpiny." This acted as a signal for the general dispersal of the whole hairy trilje, though the birds seemed willing to wait further developments, music being naturally more in their line.
What there can be in that grand old church-tune that is so offensive to birds and squirrels I can't
THE DOUGLAS SQUIKKEL 241
imagine. A year or two after this High Sierra concert, I was sitting one fine day on a hill in the Coast liange where the common Ground S(iuirrels were abundant. They were very shy on account of being hunted so much ; but after I had been silent and motionless for half an hour or so they began to venture out of their holes and to feed on the seeds ( >f the grasses and thistles around me as if I were no more to be feared than a tree-stump. Then it occurred to me that this was a good opportunity to find out whether they also disliked "Old Hun- dr<'<lth." Tiierefore I began to whistle as nearly as I could remember the same familiar airs that had pleased the mountaineers of the Sierra. They at once stopped eating, stood erect, and listened pa- tiently until I came to " Old Hundredth," when with ludicrous haste every one of them rushed to their holes and bolted in, their feet twinkling in the air for a moment as they vanished.
No one who makes the acquaint am-e of our for- estei' will fail to adniiiv! him; but he is far too self- reliant aial warlike ever to be taken for a darling.
How long the life of a Douglas Squirrel nuxy be,
T <lon't know. The young seem to sprout from
knot-holes, perfe(;t from the first, and as enduring
as their own trees. It is dillicnlt, indeed, to rc^dize
that so condensed a piece of sun-lire should ever
l)econie dim or di<? at all. He is seldom kilK'd by
hunters, for he is too small to encourages nuieh of
t heir attention, and w lirn ])ursiied in settled regions
becomes excessively shy, and keei)S close in the
furrows of th(5 highest trunks, many of which are of
the same color as himself. Indian buys, however, 111
242 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
lie in wait with unbounded patience to shoot them with arrows. In the lower and middle zones a few fall a prey to rattlesnakes. Occasionally he is pur- sued by hawks and wildcats, etc. But, upon the whole, he dwells safely in the deep bosom of the woods, the most highly favored of all his happy tribe. May his tribe increase !
H ^
ir
K
CHAPTER X
A WIND-STOEM IN THE FORESTS
THE mountain winds, like the dew and rain, sunshine and snow, are measured and bestowed with love on the forests to develop their strength and beauty. However restricted the scope of other forest influences, that of the winds is universal. The snow bends and trims the upper forests every winter, the lightning strikes a single tree here and there, while avalanches mow down thousands at a swoop as a gardener trims out a bed of flowers. But the winds go to every tree, fingering every leaf and branch and furrowed bole ; not one is forgotten; the Mountain Pine towering with outstretched arms on the rugged buttresses of the icy peaks, the lowliest and most retiring tenant of the dells ; they seek and find them all, caressing them tenderly, bending them in lusty exercise, stimulating their growth, plucking off a leaf or limb as required, or removing au entire tree or grove, now whispering and cooing through the branches like a sleepy child, now roaring like the ocean; the winds blessing the forests, the forests the winds, with ineffable beauty and har- mony as the sure result.
After one has seen pines six feet in diameter bending like grasses before a mountain gale, and
244
A WIND-STORM IX THE FORESTS
245
A W lM>-.sTl>lv.\I IN I III, t A lil r > >ii:> I A i < >iv i..^ i ,^. (AFTER A SKETCH BY THE AUTHOR.)
('V<'i- and aiion some giant fulling with a oasli that shakes tli<? hills, it seoms astoiiisliiiig that any, save Ihr lowest thickset trees, could evei- li,i\c I'niind a period snfiii'ii'iitly stonnlcss In cstaMish thciii- selves ; <>i", once established, that Ihey shniild not,
246 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
sooner or later, have been blown down. But when the storm is over, and we behold the same forests tranquil again, towering fresh and unscathed in erect majesty, and consider what centuries of storms have fallen upon them since they were first planted, — hail, to break the tender seedlings ; lightning, to scorch and shatter; snow, winds, and avalanches, to crush and overwhelm, — while the manifest re- sult of all this wild storm-culture is the glorious perfection we behold; then faith in Nature's for- estry is established, and we cease to deplore the violence of her most destructive gales, or of any other storm-implement whatsoever.
There are two trees in the Sierra forests that are never blown down, so long as they continue in sound health. These are the Juniper and the Dwarf Pine of the summit peaks. Their stiff, crooked roots grip the storm-beaten ledges like eagles' claws, while their lithe, cord-like branches bend round compliantly, offering but slight holds for winds, however violent. The other alpine coni- fers— the Needle Pine, Mountain Pine, Two-leaved Pine, and Hemlock Spruce — are never thinned out by this agent to any destructive extent, on account of their admirable toughness and the closeness of their growth. In general the same is true of the giants of the lower zones. The kingly Sugar Pine, towering aloft to a height of more than 200 feet, offers a fine mark to storm-winds; but it is not densely foliaged, and its long, horizontal arms swing round compliantly in the blast, like tresses of green, fluent algae in a brook ; while the Silver Firs in most places keep their ranks well together
A WlND-STOliM IN THE FOliESTS 247
in iiuited strength. The Yellow or Silver Pine is more frequently overturned thau any other tree on the Sierra, because its leaves and branches form a larger mass in proportion to its height, while in many places it is planted sparsely, leaving open lanes through which storms may enter with full force. Furtliermore, because it is distributed along the lower portion of the range, which was the first to be left bare on the l^reaking up of the ice-sheet at the close of the glacial winter, the soil it is grow- ing upon has been longer exposed to post-glacial weathering, and consequently is in a more crumb- ling, decayed condition than the fresher soils farther up the range, and therefore offers a less secure anchorage for the roots.
While exploring the forest zones of Mount Shasta, I discovered the path of a hurricane strewn with thousands of pines of this species. Great and small had been uprooted or wrenched off by sheer force, making a clean gap, like that made by a snow avalanche. But hurricanes capa- ble of doing this class of work are rare in the Sierra, and when we have explored the forests from one? extremity of the range to the other, we are compcllc*! to believe that they are the most Ijeautiful on the face of the earth, however wo may regard the agents that have made them so.
There is always sometliing dei^ply exciting, not only in tlie sounds of wi nils in 1 he woods, wliicli oxcrt more or less iiifhirnce over every mind, Imt in tlicir
vari<'(l \V;il<'iTlk<' (Inw ;is lii;iliirfsltMl liy tilt' lii()\-t>-
inents of the trees, espcci.-illy tli<>sr ol' the conirci-s. I>v no otlier trees ai'c tlicv ifndci'tMl so cxtciisixt'lv
248 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
and impressively visible, not even by the lordly tropic palms or tree-ferns responsive to the gent- lest breeze. The waving of a forest of the giant Sequoias is indescribably impressive and snbhme, but the pines seem to me the best interpreters of winds. They are mighty waving goldenrods, ever in tune, singing and writing wind-music all their long century lives. Little, however, of this noble tree-wa\T.ng and tree-music will you see or hear in the strictly alpine portion of the forests. The burly Juniper, whose girth sometimes more than equals its height, is about as rigid as the rocks on which it grows. The slender lash-like sprays of the Dwarf Pine stream out in wavering ripples, but the tallest and slenderest are far too unyielding to wave even in the heaviest gales. They only shake in quick, short vibrations. The Hemlock Spruce, however, and the Mountain Pine, and some of the tallest thickets of the Two-leaved species bow in storms with considerable scope and gracefulness. But it is only in the lower and middle zones that the meeting of winds and woods is to be seen in all its grandeur.
One of the most beautiful and exhilarating storms I ever enjoyed in the Sierra occurred in De- cember, 1874-, when I happened to be exploring one of the triliutary valleys of the Yuba River. The sky and the ground and the trees had been thor- oughly rain-washed and were dry again. The day was intensely pure, one of those incomparable bits of California winter, warm and balmy and full of white sparkling sunshine, redolent of all the purest influences of the spring, and at the same time en-
A WIXD-STORM IN THE FORESTS 249
livened with one of the most bracing wind-storms conceivable. Instead of camping out, as I 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 into the woods to enjoy it. For on such occasions Nature has always some- thing rare to show us, and the danger to life and limb is hardly greater than one would experience crouching deprecatingly beneath a roof.
It was still early morning when I found my- self fairly adrift. Delicious sunshine came pour- ing over tlic liills, lighting the tops of the pines, and setting free a steam of summery fragrance that contrasted strangely with the wild tones of the storm. The air was mottled with pine-tassels and bright green i)lumes, that went flashing past in the suiiUght like Ijirds pursued. But there was not the slightest dustiness, nothing less pure than leaves, and ripe pollen, and flecks of withered bracken and moss. I heard trees falling for hours at the rate of one every two or tlu'ee minutes ; some ii[>i<)(»1<'«l, partly on account of the loose, wa- ter-soaked coiiditioii of the ground; others Itroken straight across, where some weakness caused by fire had determined the spot. Tlie gestnres of the various trees mad(» a delightful study. Young Su- gar Pines, light and t'eatheiy as siiuirrei-tails, were bowing almost to the ground; while the gi'and old pati-iarehs, whose massive boles had been trieil in a liiiiMlred stoi-ms, waved solemnly ;il>oV(^ them, llifii- long, iirdiinu' l)i';inc]ics strenniing (Incnlly on the gale, jinil cxny nct'dl*' tln-illiiig and ringing and shcddini!' oft' keen laiK-fS ot" li^:lit lik<' a <lia-
250 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
mend. The Douglas Spruces, with long sprays drawn out in level tresses, and needles massed in a gray, shimmering glow, presented a most striking appearance as they stood in bold relief along the hilltops. The madronos in the dells, with their red bark and large glossy leaves tilted every way, reflected the sunshine in throbbing spangles like those one so often sees on the rippled surface of a glacier lake. But the Silver Pines were now the most impressively beautiful of all. Colossal spires 200 feet in height waved like supple golden- rods chanting and bowing low as if in worship, while the whole mass of their long, tremulous foli- age was kindled into one continuous blaze of white sun-fire. The force of the gale was such that the most steadfast monarch of them all rocked down to its roots with a motion plainly perceptible w^hen one leaned against it. Nature was holding high festi- val, and every fiber of the most rigid giants thrilled with 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 a rock for shelter, or to gaze and listen. Even when the grand anthem had swelled to its highest pitch, I could distinctly hear the varying tones of individ- ual trees, — Spruce, and Fir, and Pine, and leafless Oak, — and even the infinitely gentle rustle of the withered grasses at my feet. Each was expressing itself in its own way, — singing its own song, and making its own peculiar gestures, — manifesting a richness of variety to be found in no other forest I have yet seen. The coniferous woods of Canada,
A WIND-STOKM IN THE FORESTS 251
aud the Caroliuas, and Florida, are made up of trees that resemble one another about as nearly as blades of grass, and grow close together in much the same way. Coniferous trees, in general, sel- dom possess individual character, such as is mani- fest among Oaks and Elms. But the California forests are made up of a greater mimber of distinct species than any other in the world. And in them we find, not only a marked differentiation into special groups, Ijut also a marked individuality in almost every tree, giving rise to storm effects in- describably glorious.
Toward midday, after a long, tingling scramble through copses of hazel and ceanothus, I gained the summit of the highest ridge in the neighbor- hood ; and then it occurred to me that it would be a fine thing to climl) one of the trees to obtain a wider outlook and get my ear close to the ^olian music of its topmost needles. But under the cir- cumstances the choice of a tree was a serious mat- ter. One whose instep was not very strong seemed in danger of being blown down, or of being struck by others in case they should fall ; another was branchless to a considerable hciglit above the ground, and at the same time too largo to be gi'asped with arms and logs in climbing; whil(> others wore not favorably situated for clear \ie\vs. After cauti(jusly casting about, T mad(^ choice of the tallest of a gi-oup of Douglas Spruces that were gi-owing closer togctlici- like a tuft of grass, no one of wliich s('onic<l likely l'> f;ill unless .-ill llir rest fell with it. Tiiouuli ('<iiii|>;iratively young, they were about 100 feet high, ;ind tlicir liihr.
252 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
brushy tops were rocking and swirling in wild ec- stasy. Being accustomed to climb trees in making botanical studies, I experienced no difficulty in reaching the top of this one, and never before did I enjoy so noble an exhilaration of motion. The slender tops fairly flapped and swished in the pas- sionate torrent, bending and swirling backward and forward, round and round, tracing indescriba- ble combinations of vertical and horizontal curves, while I clung with muscles firm braced, like a bobo- link on a reed.
In its widest sweeps my tree-top described an arc of from twenty to thirty degrees, but I felt sure of its elastic temper, having seen others of the same species still more severely tried — bent almost to the ground indeed, in heavy snows — with- out breaking a fiber. I was therefore safe, and free to take the wind into my pulses and enjoy the ex- cited forest from my superb outlook. The view from here must be extremely beautiful in any weather. Now my eye roved over the piny hills and dales as over fields of waving grain, and felt the light running in ripples and broad swelling un- dulations 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 a kind of beaten foam, and again, after chasing one another in regular order, they would seem to bend forward in concentric curves, and disappear on some hill- side, like sea-waves on a shelving shore. The quantity of light reflected from the bent needles was so great as to make whole groves appear as if
A WIND-STORM IN THE FORESTS 253
covered with snow, while the black shadows be- neath the trees greatly enhanced the effect of the silvery splendor.
Excepting only the shadows there was nothing somber in all this wild sea of pines. On the con- trary, notwithstanding this was the winter season, the colors were remarkably beautiful. The shafts of the pine and libocedrus w^ere brown and purple, and most of the foliage was w^ell tinged with yel- low; the laurel groves, with the pale undersides of their leaves turned upward, made masses of gray ; and then there was many a dash of chocolate color from clumps of manzanita, and jet of vivid crimson from the bark of the madronos, while the ground on the hillsides, appearing here and there through openings between the groves, displayed masses of pale i)urple and brown.
The sounds of the storm corresponded gloriously witli this wnld exul)eranco of liglit and motion. The profound bass of the naked branches and boles booming like waterfalls ; the quick, tense viljrations of the i)ine-needles, now rising to a shrill, whistling hiss, now falling to a. silky mur- mur; the rustling of lauivl groves in llif ddls, ;iii(l the keen metalli"- dick of leaf on leaf — all this was lifaid in easy analysis when llir attciilion was calmly IxMil.
The vai'icd gestures of the multitude were seen to line ad\'aiitage, so that one conld I'ecognize the ditferent s})ecies at a distance of se\'eral mili's Ity this means alone, as well as by their forms and colors, and tiie way they reflected the light. All seemed strong and cond'oital^le, as if i-eally enjoy-
254 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
ing the storm, while responding to its most en- thnsiastic greetings. We hear mnch nowadays concerning the universal struggle for existence, but no struggle in the common meaning of the word was manifest here ; no recognition of danger by any tree ; no deprecation ; but rather an invin- cible gladness as remote from exultation as from fear.
I kept my lofty perch for hours, frequently clos- ing my eyes to enjoy the music by itself, or to feast quietly on the delicious fragrance that was streaming past. The fragrance of the woods was less marked than that j)roduced during warm rain, when so many balsamic buds and leaves are steeped like tea; but, from the chafing of resiny branches against each other, and the incessant attrition of myriads of needles, the gale was spiced to a very tonic degree. And besides the fragrance from these local sources there were traces of scents brought from afar. For this wind came first from the sea, rubbing against its fresh, briny waves, then distilled through the redwoods, threading rich ferny gulches, and spreading itself in broad undu- lating currents over many a flower-enameled ridge of the coast mountains, then across the golden plains, up the purple foot-hills, and into these piny woods with the varied incense gathered by the way.
Winds are advertisements of all they touch, however much or little we may be able to read them ; telling their wanderings even by their scents alone. Mariners detect the flowery perfume of land-winds far at sea, and sea-winds carry the fra- grance of dulse and tangle far inland, where it is
A WIND-STOKM IN THE FOllESTS 255
(juickly recognized, tliuiigk mingled with the scents of a thousiind laiid-Uowei's. As an ilhistration of this, I may tell here that I Ijreathed sea-air on the Firth of Forth, in Scotland, while a boy; then was taken to Wisconsin, where I remained nineteen years ; then, without in all this time haA^- ing breathed one breath of the sea, I walked quietly, alone, from the middle of the ]\Iississippi Valley to the Gulf of Mexico, on a botanical excur- sion, and while in Florida, far from the coast, my attention wholly bent on the splendid tropical vegetation about me, I suddenly recognized a sea- breeze, as it came sifting through the palmettos and Tjlooming vine-tangles, which at once awak- ened and set free a thousand dormant associations, and made me a boy again in Scotland, as if all the intervening years had been annihilated.
Most peopl(3 like to look at mountain rivers, and bear them in mind ; but few care to look at the win<ls, though far more beautiful and sublime, and though they become at times about as visible as flowing water. When the north winds in winter are making upward sweeps over the cm'ving sum- mits of the High Sierra, the fact is sometimes pul >- lished with Hying snow-banners a mile long. Those portions of tlie winds thus embodied can scarce be wholly invisil)le, even to the darkest imagination. And when we look around over an agitated forest, we may see somctliing of tlie wind that stirs it, by its effects upon tin- trees. Yonder it descends in a rush of watcr-likr ripples, and sweeps over the bending pines tVoiii liill to liill. X^'arci', we see detached plumes and leaves, now speeding by on
256 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
level currents, now whirling in eddies, or, escaping over the edges of the whirls, soaring aloft on grand, npswelling domes of air, or tossing on flame-like crests. Smooth, deep currents, cascades, falls, and swirling eddies, sing around every tree and leaf, and over all the varied topography of the region with telling changes of form, like mountain rivers conforming to the features of their channels.
After tracing the Sierra streams from their foun- tains to the plains, marking where they bloom white in falls, glide in crystal plumes, surge gray and foam-filled in boulder-choked gorges, and slip through the woods in long, tranquil reaches — after thus learning their language and forms in detail, we may at length hear them chanting all together in one grand anthem, and comprehend them all in clear inner vision, covering the range like lace. But even this spectacle is far less sublime and not a whit more substantial than what we may behold of these storm-streams of air in the mountain woods.
We all travel the milky way together, trees and men ; but it never occurred to me until this storm- day, while swinging in the wind, that trees are travelers, in the ordinary sense. They make many journeys, not extensive ones, it is true ; but our own little journeys, away and back again, are only little more than tree-wavings — many of them not so much.
When the storm began to abate, I dismounted and sauntered down through the calming woods. The storm-tones died away, and, turning toward the east, I beheld the countless hosts of the forests hushed and tranquil, towering above one another
A WIND-STORM IX THE FORESTS 257
on the .slopes of the hiUs hke u devout audience. The setting sun filled them with amber light, and seemed to say, while they listened, " My peace I give unto you."
As I gazed on the impressive scene, all the so- called ruin of the storm was forgotten, and never before did these noble woods appear so fresh, so joyous, so immortal.
T7
CHAPTER XI
THE EIVEK FLOODS
THE Sierra rivers are flooded every spring by the melting of the snow as regularly as the famous old Nile. They begin to rise in May, and in June high- water mark is reached. But because the melting does not go on rapidly over all the fountains, high and low, simultaneously, and the melted snow is not reinforced at this time of year by rain, the spring floods are seldom very violent or destructive. The thousand falls, however, and the cascades in the canons are then in full bloom, and sing songs from one end of the range to the other. Of course the snow on the lower tributaries of the rivers is first melted, then that on the higher fountains most exposed to sunshine, and about a month later the cooler, shadowy fountains send down their treasures, thus allowing the main trunk streams nearly six weeks to get their waters hurried through the foot-hills and across the lowlands to the sea. Therefore very violent spring floods are avoided, and will be as long as the shading, restraining forests last. The rivers of the north half of the range are still less subject to sudden floods, because their upper fountains in great part lie protected from the changes of
258
THE RIVER FLOODS 259
the weather beneath thick folds of lava, just as iiiauy of the rivers of Alaska lie lieueath folds of ice, eomiiig to the light farther down the range in large springs, while those of the high Sierra lie on the surface of solid granite, exposed to every change of temperature. More than ninety per cent, of the water derived from the snow and ice of Mount Shasta is at once absorbed and drained away beneath the porous lava folds of the moun- tain, where munil)ling and groj)ing in the dark they at length lind larger fissures and tunnel-like caves from which they emerge, filtered and cool, in the form of large springs, some of them so large they give Ijirth to rivers that set out on their jom- neys beneath the sun without any visible interme- diate period of childhood. Thus the Shasta River issues from a large lake-like spring in Shasta Valley, and about two thirds of the volume of the iMcCloud River gushes forth suddenly from the face of a lava bluff in a roaring spring seventy-five yards wide.
These spring rivers of the north are of com-se shorter than those of the south whose tributaries extend up to the tops of the mountains. Fall Rivei', ail iiii])ortant tri])utary of the Pitt or Upper Sacramento, is only al>out ten miles long, and is all falls, cascades, and springs fi-om its head to its coiifhunK'e with tin; Pitt. Pouiitifnl s[>rings, charm- ingly emljowen'd, issue tVoin tlie rocks at one end of it, a snowy fall a hni Mired ;in<l eiglity feet higli lliunders at the other, and a rush of crystal rapids sing and dance betweim. < )t' course such streams are l)ut little affected bv the weathei-. Shell. 'i-fd
260 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
from evaporation their flow is nearly as full in the autumn as in the time of general spring floods. While those of the high Sierra diminish to less than the hundredth part of their springtime prime, shallowing in autumn to a series of silent pools among the rocks and hollows of their channels, connected by feeble, creeping threads of water, like the sluggish sentences of a tired writer, con- nected by a drizzle of " ands " and " buts." Strange to say, the greatest floods occur in winter, when one would suppose all the wild Avaters would be muf&ed and chained in frost and snow. The same long, all-day storms of the so-called Rainy Season in California, that give rain to the lowlands, give dry frosty snow to the mountains. But at rare intervals warm rains and warm winds invade the mountains and push back the snow line from 2000 feet to 8000, or even higher, and then come the big floods.
I was usually driven down out of the High Si- erra about the end of November, but the winter of 187-4 and 1875 was so warm and calm that I was tempted to seek general views of the geology and topography of the basin of Feather River in Janu- ary. And I had just completed a hasty survey of the region, and made my way down to winter quarters, when one of the grandest flood-storms that I ever saw broke on the mountains. I was then in the edge of the main forest belt at a small foot-hill town caUed Kuoxville, on the divide be- tween the waters of the Feather and Yuba rivers. The cause of this notable flood was simply a sud- den and copious fall of warm wind and rain on the
THE lilVEll FLOODS 261
basins of these rivers at a time when they con- tained a considerable quantity of snow. The rain was so heavy and long-sustained that it was, of itself, sufficient to make a good wild flood, while the snow which the warm wind and rain melted on the upper and middle regions of the basins was sufficient to make another flood equal to that of the rain. Now these two distinct harvests of flood waters were gathered simultaneously and poured out on the plain in one magnificent avalanche. The basins of the Yuba and Feather, like many others of tln> Sierra, arc admirably adapted to the gi'owth of floods of this kind. Their many tribu- taries radiate far and wide, comprehending ex- tensive areas, and tln^ triljutaries are steeply inclined, whilo the trunks are comjiaratively level. While the flood-storm was in progress the ther- mometer at Knoxville ranged between 44° and 50° ; and when warm wind and warm rain fall simulta- neously on snow contained in basins like these, both the rain and that portion of the snow which fix' rain an<l wind melt are at first sponged up and lii'M Itack until the com]>incd mass becomes sludge, wliicli at length, suddenly dissolving, slips and de- scends all togetlx'i- to tlie trunk channel; aii«l since llic <lceper the stream the faster it flows, the flooded [>ortion of the ciUTent a])Ove overtakes tlie slower foot-liill jtoi'tion lu'low it, and all sweei>ing foi'wni'd togctlici' witli ;i liigli, ovci-ciirliiig fi-ont, debouclics on ill*' ojx'ii |il;iiii witli ji violence and snddeiiiiess that at iirsl seem wiiolly unacconnlable. '1^1 ic desti'uctiveness of the lower poi-lion of this |»ar- ticular Hood was somewhat augnienleil 1)\- mining
262 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
gravel in the river channels, and by levees which gave way after having at first restrained and held back the accumulating waters. These exaggerating conditions did not, however, greatly influence the general result, the main effect having been caused by the rare combination of flood factors indicated above. It is a pity that but few joeople meet and enjoy storms so noble as this in their homes in the mountains, for, spending themselves in the open levels of the plains, they are likely to be remem- bered more by the bridges and houses they carry away than by their beauty or the thousand bless- ings they bring to the flelds and gardens of Nature.
On the morning of the flood, January lOtli, all the Feather and Yuba landscapes were covered with running water, muddy torrents filled every gulch and ravine, and the sky was thick with rain. The pines had long been sleeping in sun- shine ; they were now awake, roaring and waving with the beating storm, and the winds sweeping along the curves of hill and dale, streaming through the woods, surging and gurgling on the tops of rocky ridges, made the wildest of wild storm melody.
It was easy to see that only a small part of the rain reached the ground in the form of drops. Most of it was thrashed into dusty spray like that into which small waterfalls are divided when they dash on shehdng rocks. Never have I seen water coming from the sky in denser or more passionate streams. The wind chased the spray forward in choking drifts, and compelled me again and again to seek shelter in the dell copses and back of large trees to rest and catch my breath. Wherever I
THE KIVEK FLOODS 263
went, on ridges or in hollows, enthusiastic water still flashed and gurgled about my ankles, recalling a wild winter flood in Yosemite when a hundred waterfalls came booming and chanting together and filled the grand valley with a sea-like roar. After drifting an hour or two in the lower woods, I set out for the summit of a hill 900 feet high, with a view to getting as near the heart of the storm as possible. In order to reach it I had to cross Dry Creek, a triljutary of the Yuba that goes crawling along the base of the hill on the northwest. It was now a booming river as large as the Tuolumne at ordinary stages, its current brown with mining- mud washed down from many a " claim," and mot- tled with sluice-boxes, fence-rails, and logs that had long lain above its reach. A slim foot-bridge stretched across it, now scarcely above the swollen current. Here I was glad to linger, gazing and listening, while the storm was in its richest mood — the gray rain-flood above, the brown river-flood beneath. The language of the river was scarcely less enchanting than that of the wind and rain; the sublime overboom of the main bouncing, exult- ing current, the swash and gurgle of the eddies, the keen dash and clash of heavy waves breaking against rocks, and the smooth, downy hush of shal- low currents feeling their way through the willow thickets of the margin. And amid all this varied throng of sounds I heard the smothered bumping and rumbling of boulders on the bottom as they were shoving and rolling forward against one an- other in a wild rush, after having lain still for probably 100 years or more.
264 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
The glad creek rose high above its banks and wandered from its channel out over many a briery sand-flat and meadow. Alders and willows waist- deep were bearing up against the cui-rent with nervous trembling gestures, as if afraid of being carried away, while supple branches bending con- fidingly, dipped lightly and rose again, as if strok- ing the wild waters in play. Leaving the bridge and passing on through the storm-thrashed woods, all the ground seemed to be moving. Pine-tassels, flakes of bark, soil, leaves, and broken branches were being swept forward, and many a rock-frag- ment, weathered from exposed ledges, was now re- ceiving its first rounding and polishing in the wild streams of the storm. On they rushed through every gulch and hollow, leaping, gliding, working with a Avill, and rejoicing like living creatures.
Nor was the flood confined to the ground. Every tree had a water system of its own spreading far and mde like miniature Amazons and Mississippis.
Toward midday, cloud, wind, and rain reached their highest development. The storm was in full bloom, and formed, from my commanding outlook on the hilltop, one of the most glorious views I ever beheld. As far as the eye could reach, above, beneath, around, wind-driven rain filled the air like one vast waterfall. Detached clouds swept impos- ingly up the valley, as if they were endowed with independent motion and had special work to do in replenishing the mountain wells, now rising above the pine-tops, now descending into their midst, fondling their arrowy spires and soothing every branch and leaf with gentleness in the midst of all
THE RIVER FLOODS 265
the savage sound and motion. Others keeping near the ground glided behind separate groves, and brought them forward into relief with admirable distinctness; or, passing in front, eclipsed whole groves in succession, pine after pine melting in their gray fringes and bursting forth again seemingly clearer than before.
The forms of storms are in great part measured, and controlled by the toj>ograpliy of the regions where they rise and over which they pass. When, therefore, we attempt to study them from the val- leys, or from gaps and openings of the forest, we are confounded by a multitude of separate and ap- parently antagonistic impressions. The bottom of the storm is broken up into innumerable waves and currents that surge against the hillsides like sea-waves against a shore, and these, reacting on the nether surface of the storm, erode immense cavernous hollows and canons, and sweep for- ward the resulting detritus in long trains, like the moraines of glaciers. But, as we ascend, these partial, confusing effects disappear and the phenom- ena are beheld united and harmonious.
The longer I gazed into the storm, the more plainly visible it became. The drifting cloud de- tritus gave it a kind of visil)le body, which ex- plained many perplexing phenomena, and published its movements in plain terms, while the texture of the falling mass of rain rounded it out and ren- dered it more complete. Because raindrops differ in size they fall at different velocities and overtake and clash against one another, producing mist and spray. They also, of course, yield unequal
266 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
compliance to the force of the wiucl, which gives rise to a still greater degree of interference, and passionate gnsts sweep off clonds of spray from the groves like that torn from wave-tops in a gale. All these factors of irregnlarity in density, color, and texture of the general rain mass tend to make it the more appreciable and telling. It is then seen as one grand 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 over the 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 large - Sugar Pines stood near the thicket in which I was sheltered, bowing solemnly and tossing their long arms as if interpreting the very words of the storm while ac- cepting its wildest onsets with passionate exhil- aration. The lions were feeding. Those who have observed sunflowers feasting on sunshine during the golden days of Indian summer know that none of their gestures express thankfulness. Their celes- tial food is too heartily given, too heartily taken to leave room for thanks. The pines were evi- dently accepting the benefactions of the storm in the same whole-souled manner ; and when I looked down among the budding hazels, and still lower to the young violets and fern-tufts on the rocks, I noticed the same divine methods of giving and taking, and the same exquisite adaptations of what seems an outbreak of violent and uncontrollable
THE KIVER FLOODS 267
force to the purposes of beautiful and delicate life. Calms like sleep come upon landscapes, just as they do on people and trees, and storms awaken them in the same way. In the dry midsummer of the lower portion of the range the withered hills and valleys seem to lie as empty and expression- less as dead shells on a shore. Even the highest mountains may be found occasionally dull and un- communicative as if in some way they had lost countenance and shrunk to less than half their real stature. But when the lightnings crash and echo in the canons, and the clouds come down wreathing and crowning their bald snowy heads, every fea- ture beams with expression and they rise again in all their imposing majesty.
Storms are fine speakers, and tell all they know, but their voices of lightning, torrent, and rushing wind are much less numerous than the nameless still, small voices too low for human ears; and because we are poor listeners we fail to catch much that is fairly within reach. Our best rains are heard mostly on roofs, and winds in chimneys; and when by choice or compulsion we are j)ushed into the heart of a storm, the confusion made by cumbersome equipments and nervous haste and mean fear, prevent our hearing any other than the loudest expressions. Yet we may draw en- joyment from storm sounds that are beyond hear- ing, and storm movements we cannot see. The sublime whirl of planets around their suns is 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 gestures inexpressibly
268 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
gentle manifested in the midst of what is called violence and fury, bnt easily recognized by all who look and listen for them. The rain brought out the colors of the woods with delightful freshness, the rich brown of the bark of the trees and the fallen burs and leaves and dead ferns; the grays of rocks and lichens; the light purple of swelling buds, and the warm yellow greens of the libocedrus and mosses. The air was steaming with delightful fragrance, not rising and wafting past in separate masses, but diffused through all the atmosphere. Pine woods are always fragrant, but most so in spring when the young tassels are opening and in warm weather when the various gums and balsams are softened by the sun. The wind was now chafing their innumerable needles and the warm rain was steeping them. Monardella grows here in large beds in the openings, and there is plenty of laurel in dells and manzanita on the hillsides, and the rosy, fragrant chamoebatia carpets the ground almost everywhere. These, with the gums and balsams of the woods, form the main local fragrance-foun- tains of the storm. The ascending clouds of aroma wind-rolled and rain-washed became pure like light and traveled with the wind as part of it. Toward the middle of the afternoon the main flood cloud lifted along its western border revealing a beautiful section of the Sacramento Valley some twenty or thirty miles away, brilliantly sun-lighted and glistering with rain-sheets as if paved with silver. Soon afterward a jagged bluff-like cloud with a sheer face appeared over the valley of the Yuba, dark-colored and roughened with immerous
THE EIVER FLOODS 2G9
furrows like some huge lava-table. The blue Coast Rauge was seen stretching along the sky like a beveled wall, and the somber, craggy Marysville Buttes rose impressively out of the flooded plain like islands out of the sea. Then the rain began to abate and I sauntered down through the dripping- bushes reveling in the universal vigor and fresh- ness that inspired all the life about me. How clean and unworn and immortal the woods seemed to be! — the lofty cedars in full bloom laden with golden pollen and their washed plumes shining; the pines rocking gently and settling back into rest, and the evening sunbeams sjjangling on the broad leaves of the madronos, their tracery of yellow boughs relieved against dusky thickets of Chestnut Oak ; liverworts, lycopodiums, ferns were exulting in glorious revival, and every moss that had ever lived seemed to be coming crowding back from the dead to clothe each trunk and stone in living green. The steaming ground seemed fairly to throl) and tingle with life; smilax, fritillaria, saxifrage, and young violets were pushing up as if already conscious of the summer glory, and in- numerable green and yellow buds were peeping and smiling everywhere.
As for the birds and squirrels, not a wing or tail of them was to be seen while the storm was blow- ing. Squirrels dislike wet weather more than cats do ; therefore they were at home rotiking in their dry nests. The birds were hiding in the dells out of the wind, some of the strongest of them pecking at acorns and manzanita berries, but most were perched on low twigs, their breast feathers puffed
270 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
out and keeping one another company tlirougli the hard time as best they could.
"When I arrived at the village about sundown, the good people bestirred themselves, pitying my be- draggled condition as if I were some benumbed cast- away snatched from the sea, while I, in turn, warm with excitement and reeking like the ground, pitied them for being dry and defrauded of all the glory that Nature had spread round about them that day.
CHAPTEE XII
SIEERA THUNDER-STOEMS
THE weather of spring and summer in the mid- dle region of the Sierra is usually well flecked with rains and light dustings of snow, most of which are far too obviously joyful and life-giving to be regarded as storms ; and in the picturesque beauty and clearness of outlines of their clouds they offer striking contrasts to those boundless, all- embracing cloud-mantles of the storms of winter. The smallest and most perfectly individualized specimens present a richly modeled cumulous cloud rising above the dark woods, about 11 A. m., swell- ing with a visible motion straight up into the calm, sunny sky to a height of 12,000 to 14,000 feet above the sea, its white, pearly bosses relieved by gray and pale purple shadows in the hollows, and showing outlines as keenly defined as those of the glacier-polished domes. In less than an hour it attains full development and stands poised in the blazing sunshine like some colossal mountain, as beautiful in form and finish as if it were to become a permanent addition to the landscape. Presently a thunderbolt crashes through the crisp air, ring- ing like steel on steel, sharp and clear, its startling detonation breakii^mitito a spray of echoes against
271
272 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
the cliffs and canon walls. Then down comes a cataract of rain. The big drops sift through the pine-needles, plash and patter on the granite pave- ments, and pour down the sides of ridges and domes in a netwoi'k of gray, bubbling rills. In a few minutes the cloud withers to a mesh of dim filaments and disappears, leaving the sky perfectly clear and bright, every dust-particle wiped and washed out of it. Everything is refreshed and in- vigorated, a steam of fragrance rises, and the storm is finished — one cloud, one lightning-stroke, and one dash of rain. This is the Sierra mid- summer thunder-storm reduced to its lowest terms. But some of them attain much larger proportions, and assume a grandeur and energy of expression hardly surpassed by those bred in the depths of winter, producing those sudden floods called "cloud-bursts," which are local, and to a consider- able extent periodical, for they appear nearly every day about the same time for weeks, usually about eleven o'clock, and lasting from five miimtes to an hour or two. One soon becomes so accustomed to see them that the noon sky seems empty and aban- doned without them, as if Nature were forgetting something. When the glorious pearl and alabaster clouds of these noonday storms are being built I never give attention to anything else. No moun- tain or mountain-range, however divinely clothed with light, has a more enduring charm than those fleeting mountains of the sky — floating foun- tains bearing water for every well, the angels of the streams and lakes ; brooding in the deep azure, or sweeping softly along the ground over ridge and
SIEERA THUNDEE-STORMS 273
dome, over meadow, over forest, over garden and grove ; lingering with cooling shadows, refreshing every flower, and soothing rngged rock-brows with a gentleness of touch and gesture wholly divine.
The most beautiful and imposing of the summer storms rise just above the upper edge of the Silver Fir zone, and all are so beautiful that it is not easy to choose any one for particular description. The one that I remember best fell on the mountains near Yosemite Valley, July 19, 1869, while I was encamped in the Silver Fir woods. A range of bossy cumuli took possession of the sky, huge domes and peaks rising one beyond another with deep canons between them, bending this way and that in long curves and reaches, interrupted here and there with white upboiling masses that looked like the spray of waterfalls. Zigzag lances of light- ning followed each other in quick succession, and the thunder was so gloriously loud and massive it seemed as if surely an entire mountain was being- shattered at every stroke. Only the trees were touched, however, so far as I could see, — a few firs 200 feet high, perhaps, and five to six feet in diameter, were si^lit into long rails and slivers from top to bottom and scattered to all points of the compass. Then came the rain in a hearty flood, covering the ground and making it shine with a continuous sheet of water that, like a trans- parent 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 on the present landscapes of the Sierra ; and in the few tens of thousands of years
18
274 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
of stormy cultivation they have been blest with, how beautiful they have become ! The first rains fell on raw, crumbling moraines and rocks with- out a plant. Now scarcely a drop can fail to find a beautiful mark : on the tops of the peaks, on the smooth glacier pavements, on the curves of the domes, on moraines full of crystals, on the thou- sand forms of yosemitic sculpture with their tender beauty of balmy, flowery vegetation, lav- ing, plashing, glinting, pattering; some falling softly on meadows, creeping out of sight, seeking and finding every thirsty rootlet, some through the spires of the woods, sifting in dust through the needles, and wliisj)ering good cheer to each of them ; some falling with blunt tapping sounds, drumming on the broad leaves of veratrum, cypri- pedium, saxifrage; some falling straight into fra- grant corollas, kissing the lips of lilies, glinting on the sides of crystals, on shining grains of gold; some falling into the fountains of snow to swell their well-saved stores; some into the lakes and rivers, patting the smooth glassy levels, making dimples and bells and spray, washing the moimtain windows, washing the wandering winds ; some plashing into the heart of snowy falls and cascades as if eager to join in the dance and the song and beat the foam yet finer. Good work and happy work for the merry mountain raindrops, each one of them a brave fall in itself, rushing from the cliffs and hollows of the clouds into the cliffs and hol- lows of the mountains ; away from the thunder of the sky into the thunder of the roaring rivers. And how far they have to go, and how many cups
SIEREA THUNDER-STOEMS 275
to fill — cassiope-cnps, liokliiig half a drop, and lake basins between the hills, each replenished with eqnal care — every drop God's messenger sent on its way with glorious pomp and display of power — silvery new-born stars with lake and river, moun- tain and valley — all that the landscape holds — re- flected in their crystal depths.
CHAPTER XIII
THE WATER-OUZEL
THE waterfalls of the Sierra are frequented by- only one bird, — the Ouzel or Water Thrush {Cincliis Mexicanus, Sw.). He is a singularly joy- ous and lovable little fellow, about the size of a robin, clad in a plain waterproof suit of bluish gray, with a tinge of chocolate on the head and shoulders. In form he is about as smoothly plump and compact as a pebble that has been whirled in a pot-hole, the flowing contour of his body being interrupted only by his strong feet and bill, the crisp wing-tips, and the up-slanted wren-like tail. Among all the countless waterfalls I have met in the course of ten years' exploration in the Sierra, whether among the icy peaks, or warm foot-hills, or in the profound yosemitic canons of the middle region, not one was found without its Ouzel. No canon is too cold for this little bird, none too lonely, provided it be rich in falling water. Find a fall, or cascade, or rushing rapid, anywhere upon a clear stream, and there you will surely find its comple- mentary Ouzel, flitting about in the spray, diving in foaming eddies, whirling like a leaf among beaten foam-bells ; ever vigorous and enthusiastic, yet self- contained, and neither seeking nor shunning your company.
276
THE WATEK-OUZEL
277
WATER-OUZEL DIVING AND FEEDING.
If disturbed while dipping about in the margin shallows, he either sets off with a rapid whir to some other feeding-ground up or down the stream, or alights on some half-submerged rock or snag out in the current, and immediately begins to nod and courtesy like a wren, turning his head from side to side with many other odd dainty move-
278 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
ments that never fail to fix the attention of the observer.
He is the mountain streams' own darling, the humming-bird of blooming waters, loving rocky ripple-slopes and sheets of foam as a bee loves flowers, as a lark loves sunshine and meadows. Among all the mountain birds, none has cheered me so much in my lonely wanderings, — none so imfailingly. For both in Avinter and summer he sings, sweetly, cheerily, independent alike of sun- shine and of love, requiring no other inspiration than the stream on which he dwells. Wliile water sings, so must he, in heat or cold, calm or storm, ever attuning his voice in sure accord ; low in the drought of summer and the drought of winter, but never silent.
During the golden days of Indian summer, after most of the snow has been melted, and the mountain streams have become feeble, — a succession of silent pools, linked together by shallow, transparent cur- rents and strips of silvery lacework, — then the song of the Ouzel is at its lowest ebb. But as soon as the winter clouds have bloomed, and the mountain treasuries are once more replenished with snow, the voices of the streams and ouzels increase in strength and richness until the flood season of early summer. Then the torrents chant their no- blest 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 most song-birds, however joyous, suffer a long winter eclipse; but the Ouzel sings on through all the seasons and every kind of storm. Indeed no storm
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can be more violent than those of the waterfalls in the midst of which he delights to dwell. How- ever dark and boisterous the weather, snowing, blowing, or cloudy, all the same he sings, and with never a note of sadness. No need of spring sun- shine to thaw his song, for it never freezes. Never shall you hear anything wintry from Ms warm breast ; no pinched cheeping, no wavering notes be- tween sorrow and joy; his mellow, fluty voice is ever tuned to downright gladness, as free from dejection as cock-crowing.
It is pitiful to see wee frost-pinched sparrows on cold mornings in the mountain groves shaking the snow from their feathers, and hopping about as if anxious to be cheery, then hastening back to their hidings out of the wind, puffing out their breast-feathers over their toes, and subsiding among the leaves, cold and breakfastless, while the snow continues to fall, and there is no sign of clearing. But the Ouzel never calls 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 of every influence that makes en- durance necessary.
One wild winter morning, when Yosemite Valley was swept its length from west to east by a cordial snow-storm, I sallied forth to see what I might learn and enjoy. A sort of gray, gloaming-like darkness filled the valley, the huge walls were out of sight, all ordinary sounds were smothered, and even the loudest booming of the falls was at times buried beneath the roar of the heavy-laden blast. The loose snow was already over five feet deep on
280 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
tlie meadows, making extended walks impossible withont the aid of snow-slioes. I found no great difficulty, however, in making my way to a certain ripple on the river where one of my ouzels lived. He was at home, busily gleaning his breakfast among the pebbles of a shallow j)ortion of the margin, apparently unaware of anything extraor- dinary in the weather. Presently he flew out to a stone against which the icy current was beating, and turning his back to the wind, sang as delight- fully as a lark in springtime.
After spending an hour or two with my favorite, I made my way across the valley, boring and wal- lowing through the drifts, to learn as definitely as possible how the other birds were spending their time. The Yosemite birds are easily found during the winter because all of them excepting the Ouzel are restricted to the sunny north side of the valley, the south side being constantly eclipsed by the great frosty shadow of the wall. And because the Indian Canon groves, from their peculiar exposure, are the warmest, the birds congregate there, more especially in severe weather.
I found most of the robins cowering on the lee side of the larger branches where the snow could not fall upon them, while two or three of the more enterprising were making desperate efforts to reach the mistletoe berries by clinging nervously to the under side of the snow-crowned masses, back downward, like woodpeckers. Every now and then they would dislodge some of the loose fringes of the snow-crown, which would come sifting down on them and send them screaming back to camp.
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where they would subside among their companions with a shiver, muttering in low, querulous chatter like hungry children.
Some of the sparrows were busy at the feet of the larger trees gleaning seeds and benmnbed insects, joined now and then by a robin weary of his unsuccessful attempts upon the snow-covered berries. The brave woodpeckers were clinging to the snowless sides of the larger boles and overarch- ing branches of the camp trees, making short flights from side to side of the grove, pecking now and then at the acorns they had stored in the bark, and chattering aimlessly as if unable to keep still, yet evidently putting in the time in a very dull way, like storm-bound travelers at a country tavern. The hardy nut-hatches were threading the open furrows of the trunks in their usual industri- ous manner, and uttering their quaint notes, evi- dently less distressed than their neighbors. The Steller jays were of course making more noisy stir than all the other birds combined; ever coming and going with loud bluster, screaming as if each had a lump of melting sludge in his throat, and taking good care to improve the favoraV)le op- portunity afforded by the storm to steal from the acorn stores of the woodpeckers. I also noticed one solitary gray eagle braving the storm on the top of a tall pine-stump just outside the main grove. He was standing bolt upright with his back to the wind, a tuft of snow piled on his square shoulders, a monument of passive endur- ance. Thus every snow-bound Ijird seemed more or less uncomfortable if not in positive distress.
282 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
The storm was reflected in every gesture, and not one cheerful note, not to say song, came from a single bill; their cowering, joyless endurance offer- ing a striking contrast to the spontaneous, irre- pressible gladness of the Ouzel, who could no more help exhaling sweet song than a rose sweet fra- grance. He must sing though the heavens fall. I re- member noticing the distress of a pair of robins during the violent earthquake of the year 1872, when the pines of the Valley, with strange movements, flapped and waved their branches, and beetling rock-brows came thundering down to the meadows in tremendous avalanches. It did not occur to me in the midst of the excitement of other observa- tions to look for the ouzels, but I doubt not they were singing straight on through it all, regarding the terrible rock-thunder as fearlessly as they do the booming of the waterfalls.
What may be regarded as the separate songs of the Ouzel are exceedingly difficult of description, because they are so variable and at the same time so confluent. Though I have been acquainted with my favorite ten years, and during most of this time have heard him sing nearly every day, I still detect notes and strains that seem new to me. Nearly all of his music is sweet and tender, lapsing from his round breast like water over the smooth lip of a pool, then breaking farther on into a sparkling foam of melodious notes, which glow with subdued enthusiasm, yet without expressing much of the strong, gushing ecstasy of the bobolink or skylark.
The more striking strains are perfect arabesques of melody, composed of a few full, round, mellow
THE WATER-OUZEL 283
notes, embroidered with delicate trills which fade and melt in long slender cadences. In a general way his mnsic is that of the streams refined and spiritnalized. The deep booming notes of the falls are in it, the trills of rapids, the gurgling of mar- gin eddies, the low whispering of level reaches, and the sweet tinkle of separate drops oozing from the ends of mosses and falling into tranquil pools.
The Ouzel never sings in chorus with other birds, nor with his kind, but only with the streams. And like flowers that bloom beneath the surface of the ground, some of our favorite's best song-blossoms never rise above the surface of the heavier music of the w^ater. I have often observed him singing in the midst of beaten spray, his music completely buried beneath the water's roar ; yet I knew he was surel}^ singing by his gestures and the movements of his bill.
His food, as far as I have noticed, consists of all kinds of water insects, which in summer are chiefly procured along shallow margins. Here he wades about ducking his head under water and deftly turning over peljbles and fallen leaves with his bill, seldom choosing to go into deep water where he has to use his wings in diving.
He seems to be especially fond of the larvae of mosquitos, fomid in abundance attached to the bottom of smooth rock channels where the cur- rent is shallow. When feeding in such places he wades up-stream, and often while his head is under water the swift current is deflected upward along the glossy curves of his neck and shoulders, in the form of a clear, crystalline shell, which fairly
284 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
incloses him like a bell-glass, the shell being broken and re-f ornied as he lifts and dips his head ; while ever and anon he sidles out to where the too pow- erful current carries him off his feet ; then he dex- terously rises on the wing and goes gleaning again in shallower places.
But during the winter, when the stream-banks are embossed in snow, and the streams them- selves are chilled nearly to the freezing-point, so that the snow falling into them in stormy weather is not wholly dissolved, but forms a thin, blue sludge, thus rendering the current opaque — then he seeks the deeper portions of the main rivers, where he may dive to clear water beneath the sludge. Or he repairs to some open lake or mill- pond, at the bottom of which he feeds in safety.
When thus compelled to betake himself to a lake, he does not plunge into it at once like a duck, but always alights in the first place upon some rock or fallen pine along the shore. Then flying out thirty or forty yards, more or less, ac- cording to the character of the bottom, he alights with a dainty glint on the surface, swims about, looks down, finally makes up his mind, and dis- appears with a sharp stroke of his wings. After feeding for two or three minutes he suddenly re- appears, showers the water from his wings with one vigorous shake, and rises abruptly into the air as if pushed up from beneath, comes back to his perch, sings a few minutes, and goes out to dive again ; thus coming and going, singing and diving at the same place for hours.
The Ouzel is usually found singly; rarely in
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pairs, excepting during the breeding season, and iwrtj rarely in threes or fours. I once ob- served three thus spending a winter morning in company, upon a small glacier lake, on the Upper Merced, about 7500feetabove the level of the sea. A storm had occurred during the night, but the morning sun shone unclouded, and the shadowy lake, gleaming darkly in its setting of fresh, snow, lay smooth and motionless as a mirror. My camp chanced to be within a few feet of the
water's edge, opposite a fallen pine, some of the branches of which leaned out over the lake. Here
1 1
V ' M' |\i
k I i
ONE OF THE LATE-SUMMER FEEDING- GROUNDS OP THE OUZEL.
286 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
my three dearly welcome visitors took up their station, and at once began to embroider the frosty air with their delicious melody, doubly delightful to me that particular morning, as I had been some- what apprehensive of danger in breaking my way down through the snow-choked canons to the low- lands.
The portion of the lake bottom selected for a feeding-ground lies at a depth of fifteen or twenty feet below the surface, and is covered with a short growth of algffi and other aquatic plants, — facts I had previously determined while sailing over it on a raft. After alighting on the glassy surface, they occasionally indulged in a little play, chasing one another round about in small circles ; then all three would suddenly dive together, and then come ashore and sing.
The Ouzel seldom swims more than a few yards on the surface, for, not being web-footed, he makes rather slow progress, but by means of his strong, crisp wings he swims, or rather flies, with celerity under the surface, often to considerable distances. But it is in withstanding the force of heavy rap- ids that his strength of wing in this respect is most strikingly manifested. The following may be regarded as a fair illustration of his power of sub-aquatic flight. One stormy morning in winter when the Merced River was blue and green with unmelted snow, I observed one of my ouzels perched on a snag out in the midst of a swift-rushing rapid, singing cheerily, as if everything was just to his mind; and while I stood on the bank admiring him, he suddenly plunged into the sludgy current,
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287
leaving his song abruptly broken off. After feed- ing a minute or two at the bottom, and when one would suppose that he must inevitably be swept far down-stream, he emerged just where he went down, alighted on the same snag, showered the water-beads from his feathers, and continued his
unfinished
song.
seemingly
tranquil ease as if it had suffered no interruption.
The Ouzel alone of all birds dares to enter a white torrent. And though strictly terrestrial in structure, no other is so insep- arably related to water, not even the duck, or the bold ocean alba- tross, or the stormy-pet- rel. For ducks go ashore as soon as they finish feed- ing in undis- turbedplaces, and very of- tenmakelong flights over- land from laketolakeor
-4
a-
y-.-^'i\
OUZEL ENTERING A "WHITE CURRENT.
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 boulder in the midst of it, seldom leaves
288 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
it for a single moment. For, notwithstanding lie is often on the wing, he never flies overland, but whirs with rapid, quail-like beat above the stream, tracing all its windings. Even when the stream is quite small, say from five to ten feet wide, he sel- dom shortens his flight by crossing a bend, how- ever abrupt it may be ; and even when disturbed by meeting some one on the bank, he prefers to fly over one's head, to dodging out over the ground. When, therefore, his flight along a crooked stream is viewed endwise, it appears most strikingly wav- ered— a description on the air of every curve with lightning-like rapidity.
The vertical curves and angles of the most pre- cipitous torrents he traces with the same rigid fidelity, swooping down the inclines of cascades, dropping sheer over dizzy falls amid the spray, and ascending with the same fearlessness and ease, seldom seeking to lessen the steepness of the ac- clivity by Ijeginning to ascend before reaching the base of the fall. No matter though it may be sev- eral hundred feet in height he holds straight on, as if about to dash headlong into the throng of boom- ing rockets, then darts abruptly upward, and, after alighting at the top of the precipice to rest a moment, proceeds to feed and sing. His flight is solid and impetuous, without any intermission of wing-beats, — one homogeneous buzz like that of a laden bee on its way home. And while thus buzzing freely from fall to fall, he is frequently heard giving utterance to a long outdrawn train of unmodulated notes, in no way connected with his song, but cor- responding closely with his flight in sustained vigor.
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Were the flights of aU the ouzels in the Sierra traced on a chart, they would indicate the direction of the flow of the entire system of ancient glaciers, from about the period of the breaking up of the ice-sheet until near the close of the glacial winter ; because the streams which the ouzels so rigidly follow are, with the unimportant exceptions of a few side tributaries, all flowing in channels eroded for them out of the solid flank of the range by the vanished glaciers, — the streams tracing the ancient glaciers, the ouzels tracing the streams. Nor do we find so complete compliance to glacial conditions in the life of any other mountain bird, or animal of any kind. Bears frequently accept the pathways laid down by glaciers as the easiest to travel ; but they often leave them and cross over from canon to canon. So also, most of the birds trace the moraines to some extent, because the forests are growing on them. But they wander far, crossing the canons from grove to grove, and draw exceed- ingly angular and complicated courses.
The Ouzel's nest is one of the most extraordinary pieces of bird architecture I ever saw, odd and novel in design, perfectly fresh and beautiful, and in every way Avorthy of the genius of the little builder. It is about a foot in diameter, round and bossy in outline, with a neatly arched opening near the bottom, somewhat like an old-fashioned brick oven, or Hottentot's hut. It is built almost exclusively of green and yellow mosses, chiefly the beautiful fronded hypnum that covers the rocks and old drift-logs in the vicinity of waterfalls. These are deftly interwoven, and felted together
19
290 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
into a cliarmiug little hut; and so situated that many of the outer mosses continue to flourish as if they had not been plucked. A few fine, silky- stemmed grasses are occasionally found interwoven with the mosses, but, with the exception of a thin layer lining the floor, their presence seems acci- dental, as they are of a species found growing with the mosses and are probably plucked with them. The site chosen for this curious mansion is usually some little rock-shelf within reach of the lighter particles of the spray of a waterfall, so that its walls are kept green and growing, at least during the time of high water.
No harsh lines are presented by any portion of the nest as seen in place, but when removed from its shelf, the back and bottom, and sometimes a portion of the top, is found quite sharply angular, because it is made to conform to the surface of the rock upon which and against which it is built, the little architect always taking advantage of slight crevices and protuberances that may chance to offer, to render his structure stable by means of a kind of gripping and dovetailing.
In choosing a building-spot, concealment does not seem to be taken into consideration ; yet not- withstanding the nest is large and guilelessly ex- posed to view, it is far from being easily detected, chiefly because it swells forward like any other bulging moss-cushion growing naturally in such situations. This is more especially the case where the nest is kept fresh by being well sprinkled. Sometimes these romantic little huts have their beauty enhanced by rock-ferns and grasses that
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spring up around the mossy walls, or in front of the door-sill, dripping with crystal beads.
Furthermore, at certain hours of the day, when the sunshine is poured down at the required angle, the whole mass of the spray enveloping the fairy establishment is brilliantly irised ; and it is through so glorious a rainbow atmosphere as this that someof our blessed ouzels obtain their 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 ; and one might almost be pardoned in fancying they come direct from the living waters, like flowers from the ground. At least, from whatever cause, it never occurred to me to look for their nests until more than a year after I had made the acquaintance of the birds themselves, although I found one the very day on which I began the search. In making my way from Yosemite to the glaciers at the heads of the Mevced and Tuolumne rivers, I camped in a particularly wild and romantic portion of the Nevada canon where in previous excursions I had never failed to enjoy the company of my favorites, who were attracted here, no doubt, by the safe nesting-places in the shelving rocks, and l)y the abundance of food and falling water. The river, for miles above and below, consists of a succession of small falls from ten to sixty feet in height, con- nected by flat, plume-like cascades that go flash- ing from fall to fall, free and almost channelless, over waving folds of glacier-polished granite.
On the south side of one of the falls, that por- tion of the precipice which is bathed by the spray
292 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
presents a series of little shelves and tablets 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 tiie most charming spot for an Ouzel's nest." Then carefully scanning the fretted face of the j)recipice through the spray, I at length no- ticed a yellowish moss-cushion, growing on the edge of a level tablet within five or six feet of the outer folds of the fall. But apart from the fact of its being situated where one acquainted with the lives of ouzels would fancy an Ouzel's nest ought to be, there was nothing in its appearance visible at first sight, to distinguish it from other bosses of rock-moss similarly situated with reference to perennial spray ; and it was not until I had scru- tinized it again and again, and had removed my shoes and stockings and crept along the face of the rock within eight or ten feet of it, that I could decide certainly whether it was a nest or a natui'al 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, for they hear them all their lives, and even before they are born.
I have often observed the young just out of the nest making their odd gestures, and seeming in every way as much at home as their experienced parents, like young bees on their first excursions to the flower fields. No amount of familiarity with people and their ways seems to change them in the least. To all appearance their behavior is just the
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same on seeing a man for the first time, as when they have seen him freqnently.
On the lower reaches of the rivers where mills
.Mil V} rm
are built, they sing- on through the din of the machinery, and all the noisy confusion of dogs, cattle, and work- men. On one occasion, while a wood-chopper was at work on the river-bank, I ob- served one cheerily singing within reach of the fiying chips. Nor does any kind of unwonted disturbance put him in bad humor, or frighten him out of calm self-possession. In passing through a narrow
I
^.-^^"'
THE OUZEL AT HOME.
294 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
gorge, I once drove one ahead of me from rapid to rapid, disturbing him four times in quick succes- sion where he could not very well fly past me on account of the narrowness of the channel. Most birds under similar circumstances fancy themselves pursued, and become suspiciously uneasy ; but, in- stead of growing nervous about it, he made his usual dippings, and sang one of his most tranquil strains. When observed within a few yards their eyes are seen to express remarkable gentleness and intelligence ; but they seldom allow so near a view unless one wears clothing of about the same color as the rocks and trees, and knows how to sit still. On one occasion, while rambling along the shore of 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 the water's edge, upon which it seemed the ouzels and sandpipers were in the habit of alighting when they came to feed on that part of the shore, and some of the other birds also, when they came down to wash or drink. In a few minutes, along came a whirring Ouzel and alighted on the stone beside me, within reach of my hand. Then suddenly observing me, he stooped nervously as if about to fly on the in- stant, but as I remained as motionless as the stone, he gained confidence, and looked me steadily in the face for about a minute, then flew quietly to the outlet and began to sing. Next came a sandpiper and gazed at me with much the same guileless ex- pression of eye as the Ouzel. Lastly, down with a swoop came a Steller's jay out of a fir-tree, proba- bly with the intention of moistening his noisy
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throat. But instead of sitting confidingly as my other visitors had done, he rushed off at once, nearly tnmbling heels over head into the lake in his suspicious confusion, and with loud screams roused the neighborhood.
Love for song-birds, with their sweet human voices, appears to be more common and unfailing than love for flowers. Every one loves flowers to some extent, at least in life's fresh morning, at- tracted by them as instinctively as humming-birds and bees. Even the young Digger Indians have sufficient love for the brightest of those found growing on the mountains to gather them and braid them as decorations for the hair. And I was glad to discover, through the few Indians that could be induced to talk on the subject, that they have names for the wild rose and the lily, and other con- spicuous flowers, whether available as food or oth- erwise. Most men, however, whether savage or civilized, become apathetic toward all plants that have no other apparent use than the use of beauty. But fortunately one's first instinctive love of song- birds is never wholly obliterated, no matter what the influences upon our lives may be. I have often been delighted to see a pure, spiritual glow come into the countenances of hard business-men and old miners, when a song-bird chanced to alight near them. Nevertheless, the little mouthful of meat that swells out the breasts of some song-birds is too often the cause of their death. Larks and robins in particular are brought to market in hundreds. But fortunately the Ouzel has no enemy so eager to eat his little body as to follow him into the moun-
296 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
tain solitudes. I never 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, over- grown creature, about as broad-shouldered as a lynx. During the winter, while the snow lay deep, the mountaineer sat in his lonely cabin among the pines smoking his pipe and wearing the dull time away. Tom was his sole companion, sharing his bed, and sitting beside him on a stool with much the same drowsy expression of eye as his master. The good-natured bachelor was content with his hard fare of soda-bread and bacon, but Tom, the only creature in the world acknowledging depen- dence on him, must needs be provided with fresh meat. Accordingly he bestirred himself to contrive squirrel-traps, and waded the snowy woods with his gun, making sad havoc among the few winter birds, sparing neither robin, sparrow, nor tiny nut- hatch, and the pleasure of seeing Tom eat and grow fat was his great reward.
One cold afternoon, while hunting along the river-bank, he noticed a plain-feathered little bird skipping about in the shallows, and immediately raised his gun. But just then the confiding song- ster began to sing, and after listening to his sum- mery melody the charmed hunter turned away, saying, " Bless your little heart, I can't shoot you, not even for Tom."
Even so far north as icy Alaska, I have found my glad singer. When I was exploring the gla- ciers between Mount Fairweather and the Stikeen River, one cold day in November, after trying
TOSEMITE BIKUS, SNOW-LOLNx. AT IHE l^J^JL v^r It^i^xi^Js GAl^ON.
298 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
ill vain to force a wav tlirono-h the iiiiinmerable icebergs of Sum Duin Bay to the great glaciers at the head of it, I was weary and baffled and sat resting in my canoe convinced at last that I would have to leave this part of my work for another year. Then I began to plan my escape to open water before the young ice which was beginning to form should shut me in. While I thus lingered drifting with the bergs, in the midst of these gloomy forebodings and all the terrible glacial des- olation and grandeur, I suddenly 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 with a hap|)y 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 topmost jag of a stranded iceberg, and began to nod and bow as though he were on one of his favorite boulders in the midst of a sunny Sierra cascade.
The species is distributed all along the mountain- ranges of the Pacific Coast from Alaska to Mexico, and east to the Rocky Mountains. Nevertheless, it is as yet comparatively little known. Audubon and Wilson did not meet it. Swainson was, I be- lieve, the first naturalist to describe a specimen from Mexico. Specimens were shortly afterward procured by Drummond near the sources of the Athabasca River, between the fifty-fourth and fifty-sixth parallels; and it has been collected by nearly all of the numerous exploring expeditions undertaken of late through our Western States and
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Territories; for it never fails to engage the atten- tion of naturalists in a very particular manner.
Such, then, is our little cinclus, beloved of every one who is so fortunate as to know him. Tracing on strong wing every curve of the most precipitous torrents from one extremity of the Sierra to the other; not fearing to follow them through their darkest gorges and coldest snow-tunnels; ac- quainted with every waterfall, echoing their divine music ; and throughout the whole of their beautiful lives interpreting all that we in our unbelief call terrible in the utterances of torrents and storms, as only varied expressions of Grod's eternal love.
CHAPTER XIV
THE WILD SHEEP {Ovis montana)
THE wild sheep ranks highest among the ani- mal mountaineers of the Sierra. Possessed of keen sight and scent, and strong limbs, he dwells secure amid the loftiest summits, leaping unscathed from crag to crag, up and down the fronts of giddy precipices, crossing foaming torrents and slopes of frozen snow, exposed to the wildest storms, yet maintaining a brave, warm life, and developing from generation to generation in perfect strength and beauty.
Nearly all the lofty mountain-chains of the globe are inhabited by wild sheep, most of which, on account of the remote and all but inaccessible regions where they dwell, are imperfectly known as yet. They are classified by different naturalists under from five to ten distinct species or varieties, the best known being the burrhel of the Himalaya {Ovis hurrhel, Blyth); the argali, the large wild sheep of central and northeastern Asia {0. a)mnon, Linn., or Caprovis argali); the Corsican mouflon {0. musimon, Pal.); the aoudad of the mountains of northern AJfrica {Ammotragus tragelaplms); and the Rocky Mountain bighorn (0. montana^ Cuv.).
300
THE WILD SHEEP 301
To this last-named species belongs the wild sheep of the Sierra. Its range, according to the late Pro- fessor Baird of the Smithsonian Institution, extends " from the region of the upper Missouri and Yel- lowstone to the Eocky Mountains and the high grounds adjacent to them on the eastern slope, and as far south as the Rio Grrande. Westward it ex- tends to the coast ranges of Washington, Oregon, and California, and follows the highlands some dis- tance into Mexico." ^ Throughout the vast region bounded on the east by the Wahsatch Mountains and on the west by the Sierra there are more than a hundred subordinate ranges and mountain groups, trending north and south, range beyond range, with summits rising from eight to twelve thousand feet above the level of the sea, probably all of which, according to my own observations, is, or has been, inhabited by this species.
Compared with the argali, which, considering its size and the vast extent of its range, is probably the most important of all the wild sheep, our species is about the same size, but the horns are less twisted and less divergent. The more im- portant characteristics are, however, essentially the same, some of the best naturalists maintaining that the two are only varied forms of one species. In accordance with this view, Cuvier conjectures that since central Asia seems to be the region where the sheep first appeared, and from which it has been distributed, the argali may have been dis- tributed over this continent from Asia by crossing Bering Strait on ice. This conjecture is not so ill
1 Pacific Railroad Survey, Vol. VIII, page 678.
302 THE MOUNTAINS QF CALIFORNIA
founded as at first sight would appear; for the Strait is only about fifty miles wide, is interrupted by three islands, and is jammed with ice nearly every winter. Furthermore the argali is abundant on the mountains adjacent to the Strait at East Cape, where it is well known to the Tschuckchi hunters and where I have seen many of their horns.
On account of the extreme variability of the sheep under culture, it is generally supposed that the innumerable domestic breeds have all been derived from the few wild species; but the whole question is involved in obscurity. According to Darwin, sheep have been domesticated from a very ancient period, the remains of a small breed, differ- ing from any now known, having been found in the famous Swiss lake-dwellings.
Compared mth the best-known domestic breeds, we find that our wild sjDecies is much larger, and, instead of an all-wool garment, wears a thick over- coat of hair like that of the deer, and an under- covering of fine wool. The hair, though rather coarse, is comfortably soft and spongy, and lies smooth, as if carefully tended with comb and brush. The predominant color during most of the year is brownish-gray, varying to bluish-gray in the autumn; the belly and a large, conspicuous patch on the buttocks are white; and the tail, which is very short, like that of a deer, is black, with a yellowish border. The wool is white, and grows in beautiful spirals down out of sight among the shining hair, like delicate climbing vines among stalks of corn.
The horns of the male are of immense size, mea-
THE WILD SHEEP 303
suring in their greater diameter from five to six and a half inches, and from two and a half to three feet in length around the curve. They are yellow- ish-white in color, and ridged transversely, like those of the domestic ram. Their cross-section near the base is somewhat triangular in outline, and flattened toward the tip. Eising boldly from the top of the head, they curve gently backward and outward, then forward and outward, until about three fourths of a circle is described, and until the flattened, blunt tips are about two feet or two and a half feet apart. Those of the female are flattened throughout their entire length, are less curved than those of the male, and much smaller, measuring less than a foot along the curve.
A ram and ewe that I obtained near the Modoc lava-beds, to the northeast of Mount Shasta, mea- sured as follows :
Ram. Ewe.
ft. in. ft. in.
Height at shoulders 3 6 3 0
Girth around shoulders 3 11 3 3f
Length from nose to root of tail 5 10^ 4 3 J
Length of ears 0 4f 0 5
Length of tail 0 4J 0 ^
Length of horns around curve 2 9 0 11^
Distance across from tip to tip of horns . . 2 5J
Circumference of horns at base 14 0 0
The measurements of a male obtained in the Rocky Mountains by Audubon vary but little as compared with the above. The weight of his speci- men was 344 pounds,^ which is, perhaps, about an
lAudubou and Bachman's "Quadrupeds of North America."
304 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
average for fiiU-growii males. The females are about a third lighter.
Besides these differences in size, color, hair, etc., as noted above, we may observe that the domestic sheep, in a general way, is expressionless, like a dull bundle of something only half alive, while the wild is as elegant and graceful as a deer, every move- ment manifesting admirable strength and charac- ter. The tame is timid; the wild is bold. The tame is always more or less ruffled and dirty ; while the wild is as smooth and clean as the flowers of his mountain pastures.
The earliest mention that I have been able to find of the wild sheep in America is by Father Picolo, a Catholic missionary at Monterey, in the year 1797, who, after describing it, oddly enough, as "a kind of deer with a sheep-like head, and about as large as a calf one or two years old," naturally hurries on to remark: "I have eaten of these beasts; their flesh is very tender and delicious." Mackenzie, in his northern travels, 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 the head waters of the Missouri, they saw plenty of wild sheep, but they were "too shy to be shot."
A few of the more energetic of the Pah Ute In- dians hunt the wild sheep every season among the more accessible sections of the High Sierra, in the neighborhood of passes, where, from having been pursued, they have become extremely wary ; but in the rugged wilderness of peaks and canons, where the foaming tributaries of the San Joaquin and King's rivers take their rise, they fear no hunter
THE WILD SHEEP 305
save the wolf, and are more guileless and approach- able than their tame kindred.
While engaged in the woi'k of exploring high re- gions where they delight to roam I have been greatly interested in studying their habits. In the months of November and December, and prol^ably during a considerable portion of midwinter, they all flock together, male and female, old and young. I once found a complete band of this kind numbering up- ward of fifty, which, on being alarmed, went bound- ing away across a jagged lava-bed at admirable speed, led by a majestic old ram, with the lambs safe in the middle of the flock.
In spring and summer, the full-grown rams form separate bands of from three to twenty, and are usually found feeding along the edges of glacier meadows, or resting among the castle-like crags of the high summits ; and wdiether quietly feeding, or scaling the wild cliffs, their noble forms and the power and beauty of their movements never fail to strike the beholder with lively admiration.
Their resting-places seem to be chosen with ref- erence to sunshine and a wide outlook, and most of all to safety. Their feeding-grounds are among the most beautiful of the wild gardens, bright with daisies and gentians and mats of purple bryan- thus, lying hidden away on rocky headlands and canon sides, where sunshine is al^undant, or down in the shady glacier valleys, along the banks of the streams and lakes, where the plushy sod is greenest. Here they feast all summer, the happy wanderers, perhaps relishing the beauty as well as the taste of the lovely flora on which they feed.
20
306
THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
When the winter storms set in, loading their highland pastures with snow, then, like the birds.
SNOW-BOUND ON MOUNT SHASTA.
they gather and go .to lower climates, nsnally de- scending the eastern flank of the range to the rough, volcanic table-lands and treeless ranges of the
THE WILD SHEEP 307
Great Basin adjacent to the Sierra. They never make haste, however, and seem to have no dread of storms, many of the strongest only going down leisurely to bare, wind-swept ridges, to feed on bushes and dry bunch-grass, and then returning up into the snow. Once I was snow-bound on Mount Shasta for three days, a little below the tim])er line. It was a dark and stormy time, 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 wild sheep had weathered the stoiiii in the lee of a clump of Dwarf Pines a few yards above my storm-nest, where the snow was eight or ten feet deep. I was warm back of a rock, with blankets, bread, and fire. My brave companions lay in the snow, without food, and with only the partial shelter of the short trees, yet they made no sign of suffering or faint-heartedness.
In the months of May and June, the wild sheep bring forth their young in solitary and almost inac- cessible crags, far above the nesting-rocks of the eagle. I have frequently come upon the beds of the ewes and lambs at an elevation of from 12,000 to 13,000 feet above sea-level. These beds are simply oval-shaped hollows, pawed out among loose, disin- tegrating rock-chips and sand, upon some sunny spot commanding a good outlook, and partially shel- tered from tlie winds that sweep those lofty peaks almost without intermission. Such is the cradle of the little mountaineer, aloft in the very sky ; rocked in storms, curtained in clouds, sleeping in thin, icy air ; but, wrapped in his hairy coat, and nourished
308 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
by a strong, warm mother, defended from the talons of the eagle and the teeth of the sly coyote, the bonny lamb grows apace. He soon learns to nibble the tufted rock-grasses and leaves of the white spiraea ; his horns begin to shoot, and before summer is done he is strong and agile, and goes forth with the flock, watched by the same divine love that tends the more helpless human land) in its cradle by the fireside.
Nothing is more commonly remarked by noisy, dusty trail-travelers in the Sierra than the want of animal life — no song-birds, no deer, no squirrels, no game of any kind, they say. But if such could only go away quietly into the wilderness, saunter- ing afoot and alone with natural deliberation, they would soon learn that these mountain mansions are not without inhabitants, many of whom, confiding and gentle, would not try to shun their acquaintance.
In the fall of 1873 I was tracing the South Fork of the San Joaquin up its wild canon to its farth- est glacier fountains. It was the season of alpine Indian summer. The sun beamed lovingly; the squirrels were nutting in the pine-trees, butterflies hovered about the last of the goldenrods, the wil- low and maple thickets were yellow, the meadows brown, and the whole sunny, mellow landscape glowed like a countenance in the deepest and sweetest repose. On my way over the glacier-pol- ished rocks along the river, I came to an exi^anded portion of the canon, about two miles long and half a mile wide, which formed a level park inclosed with picturesque granite walls like those of Yo- seniite Valley. Down through the middle of it
THE WILD SHEEP
309
ol
poured the beautiful river shining and spanghng in the golden light, yellow groves on its banks, and strips of brown meadow ; while the whole park was astir with wild life, some of which even the noisiest
HEAD OP THE MERINO RAM (DOMESTIC).
and least observing of travelers must have seen had they been with me. Deer, with their supple, well- grown fawns, bounded from thickest to thicket as I advanced ; grouse kept rising from the brown grass with a great whirring of wings, and, alighting on
310 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
the lower branches of the pines and poplars, al- lowed a near approach, as if curious to see me. Farther on, a broad-shouldered wildcat showed himself, coming out of a grove, and crossing the river on a flood-jamb of logs, halting for a moment to look back. The bird-like tamias frisked about my feet everywhere among the pine-needles and seedy grass-tufts ; cranes waded the shallows of the river-bends, the kingfisher rattled from perch to perch, and the blessed ouzel sang amid the spray of every cascade. Where may lonely wanderer find a more interesting family of mountain-dwell- ers, earth-born companions and fellow-mortals ! It was afternoon when I joined them, and the glo- rious landscape began to fade in the gloaming be- fore I awoke from their enchantment. Then I sought a camp-ground on the river-bank, made a cupful of tea, and lay down to sleep on a smooth place among the yellow leaves of an aspen grove. Next day I discovered yet grander landscapes and grander life. Following the river over huge, swell- ing rock-bosses through a majestic canon, and past innumerable cascades, the scenery in general be- came gradually wilder and more alpine. The Su- gar Pine and Silver Firs gave place to the hardier Cedar and Hemlock Spruce. The canon walls be- came more rugged and bare, and gentians and arc- tic daisies became more abundant in the gardens and strips of meadow along the streams. Toward the middle of the afternoon I came to another val- ley, strikingly wild and original in all its features, and perhaps never before touched by human foot. As regards area of level bottom-land, it is one of
THE WILD SHEEP
311
the very smallest of the Yosemite type, but its walls are sublime, rising to a height of from 2000 to 4000 feet above the river. At the head of the vaUey the main canon forks, as is found to be the case in all yosemites. The formation of this one is due
HEAD OF liOCKY MOUNTAIN WILD SHEEl',
chiefly to the action of two great glaciers, whose fountains lay to the eastward, on the flanks of Mounts Humphrey and Emerson and a cluster of nameless peaks farther south.
312 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
The gray, boulder-chafed river was singing loudly- through the valley, but above its massy roar I heard the booming of a waterfall, which drew me eagerly on ; and just as I emerged from the tangled groves and brier-thickets at the head of the valley, the main fork of the river came in sight, falling fresh from its glacier fountains in a snowy cas- cade, between granite walls 2000 feet high. The steep incline down which the glad waters thundered seemed to bar all farther progress. It was 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 crosses the canon, and divides the cataract nearly in the middle. Here I sat down to take breath and make some entries in my note-book, taking advantage, at the same time, of my elevated position above the trees to gaze back over the valley into the heart of the noble landscape, little knowing the while what neighbors were near.
After spending a few minutes in this way, I chanced to look across the fall, and there stood three sheep quietly observing me. Never did the sudden appearance of a mountain, or fall, or hu- man friend more forcibly seize and rivet my at- tention. Anxiety to observe accurately held me perfectly still. Eagerly I marked the flowing un- dulations of their firm, braided muscles, their strong legs, ears, eyes, heads, their graceful rounded necks, the color of their hair, and the bold, up- sweeping curves of their noble horns. When they moved I watched every gesture, while they, in no wise disconcerted either by my attention or by the
THE WILD SHEEP 313
tumultuous roar of the water, advanced deliberately alongside the rapids, between the two divisions of the cataract, turning now and then to look at me. Presently they came to a steep, ice-burnished ac- clivity, which they ascended by a succession of quick, short, stiff-legged leaps, reaching the top without a struggle. This was the most startling feat of mountaineering I had ever witnessed, and, considering only the mechanics of the thing, my astonishment could hardly have been greater had they displayed wings and taken to flight. " Sure- footed" mules on such ground would have fallen and rolled like loosened boulders. Many a time, where the slopes are far lower, I have been com- pelled to take off my shoes and stockings, tie them to my belt, and creep barefooted, with the utmost caution. No wonder then, that I watched the progress of these animal mountaineers with keen sympathy, and exulted in the boundless sufficiency of wild nature displayed in their invention, con- struction, and keeping. A few minutes later I caught sight of a dozen more in one band, near the foot of the upper fall. They were standing on the same side 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 by their tracks, which I had seen in the Little Yosemito, and by their present position, that when I came up the canon they were all feeding together down in the valley, and in their haste to reach high ground,where they could look about them to ascertain the nature of the strange disturl)ance, they were divided, three ascending on one side the river, the rest on the other.
314
THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
CROSSING A CANON STREAM.
The main band, headed by an experienced chief, now began to cross the wild rapids between the two divisions of the cascade. This was another
THE WILD SHEEr 315
exciting feat ; for, among all the varied experiences of mountaineers, the crossing of boisterous, rock- dashed torrents is found to be one of the most trying to the nerves. Yet these fine fellows walked fearlessly to the brink, and jumped from boulder to boulder, holding themselves in easy poise above the whirling, confusing current, as if they were doing nothing extraordinary.
In the immediate foreground of this rare picture there was a fold of ice-burnished granite, traversed by a few bold lines in which rock-ferns and tufts of bryanthus were growing, the gray canon walls on the sides, nobly sculptured and adorned with brown cedars and pines ; lofty peaks in the distance, and in the middle ground the snowy fall, the voice and soul of the landscape ; fringing bushes beating time to its thunder-tones, the brave sheep in front of it, their gray forms slightly obscured in the spray, yet standing out in good, heavy relief against the close white water, with their huge horns rising like the upturned roots of dead pine-trees, while the even- ing sunbeams streaming up the canon colored all the picture a rosy purple and made it glorious. After crossing the river, the dauntless climbers, led by their chief, at once began to scale the canon wall, turning now right, now left, in long, single file, keeping well apart out of one another's way, and leaping in regular succession from crag to crag, now ascending slippery dome-curves, now walking leisurely along the edges of precipices, stopping at times to gaze down at me from some flat-topped rock, with heads held aslant, as if curious to learn what I thought about it, or whether I was likely to
316 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
follow tliem. After reaching the top of the wall, which, at this place, is somewhere between 1500 and 2000 feet high, they were still visible against the sky as they lingered, looking down in groups of twos or threes.
Throughout the entire ascent they did not make a single awkward step, or an unsuccessful eifort of any kind. I have frequently seen tame sheep in mountains jump upon a sloping rock-surface, hold on tremulously a few seconds, and fall back baffled and irresolute. But in the most trying situations, where the slightest want or inaccuracy would have been fatal, these always seemed to move in comfort- able reliance on their strength and skill, the limits of which they never appeared to know. Moreover, each one of the flock, while following the guidance of the most experienced, yet climbed with intelli- gent independence as a perfect individual, capable of separate existence whenever it should wish or be compelled to withdraw from the little clan. The domestic sheep, on the contrary, is only a fraction of an animal, a whole flock being required to form an individual, just as numerous flowerets are re- quired to make one complete sunflower.
Those shepherds who, in summer, drive their flocks to the mountain pastures, and, while watch- ing them night and day, have seen them frightened by bears and storms, and scattered like wind- driven chaff, will, in some measure, be able to ap- preciate the self-reliance and strength and noble individuality of Nature's sheep.
Like the Alp-climbing ibex of Europe, our moun- taineer is said to plunge headlong down the faces
THE WILD SHEEP 317
of sheer precipices, and alight on his big horns. I know only two hunters who claim to have actu- ally witnessed this feat ; I never was so fortunate. They describe the act as a diving head-foremost. The horns are so large at the base that they cover the upper portion of the head down nearly to a level with the eyes, and the skull is exceedingly strong. I struck an old, bleached specimen on Mount Ritter a dozen blows with my ice-ax with- out breaking it. Such skulls would not fracture very readily by the wildest rock-diving, but other bones could hardly be expected to hold together in such a performance; and the mechanical difficul- ties in the way of controlling their movements, after striking upon an irregular surface, are, in themselves, sufficient to show this boulder-like method of progression to be impossible, even in the absence of all other evidence on the subject; moreover, the ewes follow wherever the rams may lead, although their horns are mere spikes. I have found many pairs of the horns of the old rams con- siderably battered, doubtless a result of fighting. I was particularly interested in the question, after witnessing the performances of this San Joaquin band upon the glaciated rocks at the foot of the falls; and as soon as I procured specimens and examined their feet, all the mystery disappeared. The secret, considered in connection with excep- tionally strong muscles, is simply this: the wide posterior portion of the bottom of the foot, instead of wearing down and becoming flat and hard, like the feet of tame sheep and horses, bulges out in a soft, rubber-like pad or cushion, which not only
318 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
grips and liolds well on smooth rocks, but fits into small cavities, and down upon or against slight protuberances. Even the hardest portions of the edge of the hoof are comparatively soft and elastic; furthermore, the toes admit of an extraordinary amount of both lateral and vertical movement, al- lowing the foot to accommodate itself still more per- fectly to the irregularities of rock surfaces, while at the same time increasing the gripping power.
At the base of Sheep Rock, one of the winter strongholds of the Shasta flocks, there lives a stock- raiser who has had the advantage of observing the movements of wild sheep every winter; and, in the course of a conversation with him on the sub- ject of their diving habits, he jDointed to the front of a lava headland about 150 feet high, which is only eight or ten degrees out of the per]3endicular. " There," said he, " I followed a band of them fel- lows to the back of that rock yonder, and expected 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 wall near the top and comes to an end where they could n't get away without falling and being killed ; but they jumped off, and landed all right, as if that were the regular thing with them."
" What ! " said I, " jumped 150 feet i3erpendicular! Did you see them do it f "
"No," he replied, "I did n'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 found their tracks where they struck on the loose rub- bish at the bottom. They just sailed right off, and
THE WILD SHEEP
319
landed on their feet right side up. That is the kind of animal tliey is — beats any- thing else that goes on four legs."
On another occa- sion, a flock that was pursued by hunters retreated to another portion of this same cliff where it is still higher, and, on being- followed, they were seen jumping down in perfect order, one behind another, by two men who hap- pened to be chop- ping where they had a fair view of them and could watch their progress from top to bottom of the precipice. Both ewes and rams made the frightful descent withoutevincingany extraordinary con- cern, hugging the rock closely, andcon- trolling the velocity of their half falling,
WILD SHEEP JUMPING OVEK A PRECIPICE.
320 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
half leaping nioyements l>y striking at short in- tervals and holding back with their cushioned, rubber feet upon small ledges and roughened in- clines until near the bottom, when they " sailed off" into the free air and alighted on their feet, but with their bodies so nearly in a vertical position that they apj)eared to be diving.
It appears, therefore, that the methods of this wild mountaineering become clearly comprehensi- ble as soon as w^e make ourselves acquainted with the rocks, and the kind of feet and muscles brought to bear upon them.
The Modoc and Pah Ute Indians are, or rather have been, the most successful hunters of the wild sheep in the regions that have come under my own observation. I have seen large numbers of heads and horns in the caves of Mount Shasta and the Modoc lava-beds, where the Indians had been feast- ing in stormy weather ; also in the canons of the Sierra opposite Owen's Valley ; while the heavy ob- sidian arrow-heads found on some of the highest peaks show that this warfare has long been going on.
In the more accessible ranges that stretch across the desert regions of western Utah and Nevada, considerable numbers of Indians used to hunt in company like 23acks of wolves, and being perfectly acquainted with the topography of their hunting- grounds, and with the habits and instincts of the game, they were pretty successful. On the tops of nearly every one 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 com23an-
THE WILD SHEEP
321
ious scoured the ridges below, knowing that the alarmed sheep would surely run to the summit, and when they could be made to aj^proach wdth the wind they were shot at short range.
INDIANS HUNTING WILD SHEEP.
Still larger bands of Indians used to make exten- sive hunts upon some dominant mountain much fre- quented by the sheep, such as Mount Grant on the Wassuck Eange to the west of Walker Lake. On
322 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
some particular spot, favorably situated with ref- erence to the well-knowu trails of the sheep, they built a high-walled corral, with loug guiding wdngs diverging from the gateway ; and into this inclos- ure they sometimes succeeded in driving the noble game. Grreat numbers of Indians were of coiu'se re- quired, more, indeed, than they could usually mus- ter, counting in squaws, children, and all ; they were compelled, therefore, to build rows of dummy hun- ters out of stones, along the ridge-tops which they wished to i3revent the sheep from crossing. And, without discrediting the sagacity of the game, these dummies were found effective ; for, with a few live Indians moving about excitedly among them, they could hardly be distinguished at a little distance from men, by any one not in the secret. The whole ridge-top then seemed to be alive with hunters.
The only animal that may fairly be regarded as a companion or rival of the sheep is the so- called Rocky Mountain goat {Aplocerus montana, Rich.), which, as its name indicates, is more ante- lope than goat. He, too, is a brave and hardy climber, fearlessly crossing the wildest summits, and braving the severest storms, but he is shaggy, short-legged, and much less dignified in demeanor than the sheep. His jet-black horns are only about five or six inches in length, and the long, white hair with Avhich he is covered obscures the expression of his limbs. I have never yet seen a single speci- men in the Sierra, though possibly a few flocks may have lived on Mount Shasta a comparatively short time ago.
The ranges of these two mountaineers are pretty
THE WILD SHEEP 323
distinct, and they see but little of each other ; the sheep being restricted mostly to the dry, inland mountains ; the goat or chamois to the wet, snowy glacier-laden mountains 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 Eainier ; and while I was exploring the glaciers of Alaska I saw flocks of these admirable mountaineers nearly every day, and often followed their trails through the mazes of bewildering crevasses, in which they are excellent guides.
Three species of deer are found in California, — the black-tailed, white-tailed, and mule deer. The fii-st mentioned {Cervus Cohimhiaiius) is by far the most abundant, and occasionally meets the sheep during the summer on high glacier meadows, and along the edge of the timber line ; but being a forest animal, seeking shelter and rearing its young in dense thickets, it seldom visits the wild sheep in its higher homes. The antelope, though not a mountaineer, is occasionally met in winter by the sheep while feeding along the edges of the sage-plains and bare volcanic hills to the east of the Sierra. So also is the mule deer, which is al- most restricted in its range to this eastern region. The white-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 and crouching among long grass and bushes, pounces upon the antelope and deer, but seldom crosses the bald, craggy thresholds of the sheep. Neither can
324 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
the bears be regarded as enemies ; for, though they seek to vary theu* every-day diet of nuts and ber- ries by an occasional meal of mutton, they prefer to hunt tame and helpless flocks. Eagles and co- yotes, no doubt, caf)ture an unprotected lamb at times, or some unfortunate beset in deej), soft snow, but these cases are little more than acci- dents. So, also, a few perish in long-continued snow-storms, though, in all my mountaineering, I have not found more than five or six that seemed to have met their fate in this way. A little band of three were discovered snow-bound in Bloody Canon a few years ago, and were killed with an ax by mountaineers, who chanced to be crossing the range in winter.
Man is the most dangerous enemy of all, but even from him our brave mountain-dweller has little to fear in the remote solitudes of the High Sierra. The golden plains of the Sacramento and San Joaquin were lately thronged with bands of elk and antelope, but, being fertile and accessible, they were required for human pastures. So, also, are many of the feeding-grounds of the deer — hill, valley, forest, and meadow — but it will be long be- fore man will care to take the highland castles of the sheep. And when we consider here how rapidly entire species of noble animals, such as the elk, moose, and buffalo, are being pushed to the very verge of extinction, all lovers of wildness will re- joice with me in the rocky security of Ovis mon- tana, the bravest of all the Sierra mountaineers.
CHAPTER XV
IN THE SIEKEA FOOT-HILLS
MURPHY'S CAMP is a curious old mining-town in Calaveras County, at an elevation of 2400 feet above the sea, situated like a nest in the cen- ter of a rough, gravelly region, rich in gold. Gran- ites, slates, lavas, limestone, iron ores, quartz veins, auriferous gravels, remnants of dead fire-rivers and dead water-rivers are developed here side by side within a radius of a few miles, and placed in- vitingly open before the student like a book, while the people and the region beyond the camp fur- nish mines of study of never-failing interest and variety.
When I discovered this curious place, I was tracing the channels of the ancient pre-glacial rivers, instruc- tive sections of which have been laid bare here and in the adjacent regions by the miners. Rivers, ac- cording to the poets, " go on forever " ; but those of the Sierra are young as yet and have scarcely learned the way down to the sea ; while at least one generation of them have died and vanished together with most of the basins they drained. All that remains of them to tell their history is a series of interrupted fragments of channels, mostly choked with gravel, and buried beneath broad,
325
326 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
thick sheets of lava. These are known as the "Dead Rivers of California," and the gravel de- posited in them is comi^rehensively called the " Bine Lead." In some places the channels of the present rivers trend in the same direction, or nearly so, as those of the ancient rivers; but, in general, there is little correspondence between them, the entire drainage having been changed, or, rather, made new. Many of the hills of the an- cient landscapes have become hollows, and the old hollows have become hUls. Therefore the fragmentary channels, with their loads of aurifer- ous gravel, occui' in all kinds of unthought-of places, trending obliquely, or even at right angles to the 2^1'esent drainage, across the tops of lofty ridges or far beneath them, presenting impressive illustrations of the magnitude of the changes ac- complished since those ancient streams were anni- hilated. The last volcanic period preceding the regeneration of the Sierra landscapes seems to have come on over all the range almost simulta- neously, like the glacial period, notwithstanding lavas of different age occm* together in many places, indicating numerous periods of acti\dty in the Sierra fire-fountains. The most important of the ancient river-channels in this region is a sec- tion that extends from the south side of the town beneath Coyote Creek and the ridge beyond it to the Canon of the Stanislaus ; but on account of its depth below the general surface of the j)resent valleys the rich gold gravels it is known to contain cannot be easily worked on a large scale. Their extraordinary richness may be inferred from the
IN THE SIEKEA FOOT-HILLS 327
fact that many claims were profitably worked in them by sinking shafts to 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 Stanislaus Canon available as a dump, then the grand deposit might be worked by the hy- draulic method, and although a long, expensive tunnel would be required, the scheme might still prove profitable, for there is " millions in it."
The importance of these ancient gravels as gold fountains is well known to miners. Even the su- perficial placers of the present streams have de- rived much of their gold from them. According to all accounts, the MurjDhy placers have been very rich — " terrific rich," as they say here. The hills have been cut and scalped, and every gorge and gulch and valley torn to pieces and disemboweled, expressing a fierce and desperate energy hard to understand. Still, any kind of effort-making is better than inaction, and there is something sub- lime in seeing men working in dead earnest at any- thing, pursuing an object with glacier-like energy and persistence. Many a brave fellow has recorded a most eventful chapter of life on these Calaveras rocks. But most of the pioneer miners are sleep- ing now, their wild day done, while the few survi- vors linger languidly in the washed-out gulches or sleepy village like harried bees around the ruins of their hive. " We have no industry left noii\^^ they told me, " and lio men ; everybody and everything hereabouts has gone to decay. We are only bum- mers — out of the game, a thin scatterin' of poor, dilapidated cusses, compared with what we used
328 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
to be in the grand old gold-days. We were giants then, and yon can look around here and see our tracks." But although these lingering pioneers are perhaps more exhausted than the mines, and about as dead as the dead rivers, they are yet a rare and interesting set of men, with much gold mixed with the rough, rocky gravel of their characters; and they manifest a breeding and intelligence little looked for in such surroundings as theirs. As the heavy, long-continued grinding of the glaciers brought out the features of the Sierra, so the in- tense experiences of the gold period have brought out the features of these old miners, forming a richness and variety of character little known as yet. The sketches of Bret Harte, Hayes, and Miller have not exhausted this field by any means. It is interesting to note the extremes possible in one and the same character: harshness and gentleness, manliness and childishness, apathy and fierce en- deavor. Men who, twenty years ago, would not cease their shoveling to save their lives, now play in the streets with children. Their long, Micaw- ber-like waiting after the exhaustion of the placers has brought on an exaggerated form of dotage. I heard a group of brawny pioneers in the street eagerly discussing the quantity of tail required for a boy's kite ; and one graybeard undertook the 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, however ancient outside ! " Mines, morals, politics, the immortality of the soul, etc., were discussed beneath shade- trees and in saloons, the time for each being gov-
IN THE SIEKEA FOOT-HILLS 329
erned apparently by the temperature. Contact with Nature, and the habits of observation acquired in gold-seeking, had made them all, to some extent, collectors, and, like wood-rats, they had gathered all kinds of odd specimens into their cabins, and now required me to examine them. They were themselv'es the oddest and most interesting speci- mens. 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 everytliing, and gather beetles and snakes and anything that 's queer ; and so some don't like me, and call me eccentric. I 'm always trying to find out things. iSTow, there 's a weed ; the Indians eat it for gi'eens. What do you call those long-bodied flies with big heads I " " Dragon-flies," I suggested. " Well, their jaws work sidewise, instead of up and down, and grasshoppers' jaws work the same way, and therefore I think they are the same species. I always notice everything like that, and just be- cause I do, 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 City Cave, and advised me to explore it. This I was very glad to do, and finding a guide who knew the way to the mouth of it, I set out from Murphy the next morning.
The most beautiful and extensive of the moun- tain caves of California occur in a belt of metamor- pliic limestone that is pretty generally developed along the western flank of the Sierra from the Mc-
330 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
Cloud River on the north, to the Kaweah on the sonth, a distance of over 400 miles, at an elevation of from 2000 to 7000 feet above the sea. Besides this regular belt of caves, the California landscapes are diversified by long imposing ranks of sea-caves, rugged and variable in architecture, carved in the coast headlands and precipices by centuries of wave-dashing; and innumerable lava-caves, great and small, originating in the unequal flowing and hardening of the lava sheets in which they occur, fine illustrations of which are presented in the fa- mous Modoc Lava Beds, and around the base of icy Shasta. In this comprehensive glance we may also notice the shallow wind-worn caves in strati- fied sandstones along the margins of the plains; and the cave-like recesses in the Sierra slates and granites, where bears and other mountaineers find shelter during the fall of sudden storms. In gen- eral, however, the grand massive uplift of the Sierra, as far as it has been laid bare to observa- tion, is about as solid and caveless as a boulder.
Fresh beauty opens one's eyes wherever it is really seen, but the very abundance and complete- ness of the common beauty that besets our steps prevents its being absorbed and appreciated. It is a good thing, therefore, to make short excursions now and then to the bottom of the sea among dulse and coral, or up among the clouds on mountain- tops, or in balloons, or even to creep like worms into dark holes and caverns underground, not only to learn something of what is going on in those out-of-the-way places, but to see better what the sun sees on our return to common every -day beauty.
IN THE SIEEKA FOOT-HILLS 331
Our way from Murphy's to the cave lay across a series of picturesque, moory ridges iu the chaparral region between the brown foot-hills and the forests, a flowery stretch of rolling hill-waves breaking here and there into a kind of rocky foam on the higher summits, and sinking into delightful bosky hollows embowered with vines. The day was a fine specimen of California summer, pure sunshine, unshaded most of the time by a single cloud. As the sun rose higher, the heated air began to flow in tremulous waves from every southern slope. The sea-breeze that usually comes up the foot-hills at this season, with cooling on its wings, was scarcely perceptible. The birds were assembled beneath leafy shade, or made short, languid flights in search of food, all save the majestic buzzard ; with broad wings out- spread he sailed the warm air un wearily from ridge to ridge, seeming to enjoy the fervid sunshine like a butterfly. Squirrels, too, whose spicy ardor no heat or cold may abate, were nutting among the pines, and the innumerable hosts of the insect king- dom 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 have almost wholly disappeared. Here, also, once roamed the mastodon and elephant, whose bones are found en- tombed in the river gravels and beneath thick folds of lava. Toward noon, as we were riding slowly over bank and brae, basking in the unfeverish sun-heat, we witnessed the upheaval of a new moun- tain-range, a Sierra of clouds abounding in land-
332 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
scapes as truly sublime and beautiful — if only we have a mind to think so and eyes to see — as the more ancient rockv Sierra beneath it, with its for- ests and waterfalls ; reminding us that, as there is a lower world of caves, so, also, there is an upper world of clouds. Huge, bossy cumuli developed with astonishing rapidity from mere buds, swelling with visible motion into colossal mountains, and piling higher, higher, in long massive ranges, peak beyond peak, dome over dome, with many a pic- turesque valley and shadowy cave between ; while the dark firs and pines of the upper benches of the Sierra were projected against their pearl bosses with exquisite clearness of outline. These cloud mountains vanished in the azure as quickly as they were developed, leaving no detritus ; but they were not a whit less real or interesting on this account. The more enduring hills over which we rode were vanishing as surely as they, only not so fast, a dif- ference which is great or small according to the standpoint from which it is contemplated.
At the bottom of every dell we found little home- steads embosomed in wild brush and vines wher- ever the recession of the hills left patches of arable ground. These secluded flats are settled mostly by Italians and Germans, who plant a few vegetables and grape-vines at odd times, while their main business is mining and prospecting. In spite of all the natural beauty of these dell cabins, they can hardly be called homes. They are only a better kind of camp, gladly abandoned whenever the hoped-for gold harvest has been gathered. There is an air of profound unrest and melancholy about
IN THE SIEKRA FOOT-HILLS 333
the best of them. Their beauty is thrust upon them by exuberant Nature, apart from which they are only a few logs and boards rudely jointed and without either ceiling or floor, a rough fireplace with corresponding cooking utensils, a shelf-bed, and stool. The ground about them is strewn with battered prospecting-j^ans, picks, sluice-boxes, and quartz specimens from many a ledge, indicating the trend of their owners' hard lives.
The ride from MuriDliy's to the cave is scarcely two hours long, but we lingered among quartz-ledges and banks of dead river gravel until long after noon. At length emerging from a narrow-throated gorge, a small house came in sight set in a thicket of fig-trees at the base of a limestone hill. "That," said my guide, pointing to the house, " is Cave City, and the cave is in that gray hill." Arriving at the one house of this one-house city, we were boisterously welcomed by three drunken men who had come to town to hold a spree. The mistress of the house tried to kei^p order, and in reply to our inquiries told us that the cave guide was then in the cave with a party of ladies. "And must we wait until he returns?" we asked. No, that was un- necessary ; we might take candles, and go into the cave alone, provided we shouted from time to time so as to be found by the guide, and were careful not to fall over the rocks or into the dark pools. Accordingly taking a trail from the house, we were led around the l^ase of the hill to the mouth of the cave, a small inconspicuous archway, mossy around the edges and shaped like the door of a water-ouzel's nest, with no appreciable hint or advertisement of
334 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
the grandeur of the many crystal chambers within. Lighting our candles, which seemed to have no illu- minating power in the thick darkness, we groped our way onward as best we could along narrow lanes and alleys, from chamber to chamber, around rustic columns and heaps of fallen rocks, stopping to rest now and then in particularly beautiful places — fairy alcoves furnished with admirable va- riety of shelves and tables, and round bossy stools covered with sparkling crystals. Some of the cor- ridors were muddy, and in plodding along these we seemed to be in the streets of some prairie village in spring-time. Then we would come to handsome marble stairways conducting right and left into upper chambers ranged above one another three or four stories high, floors, ceilings, and walls lavislily decorated with innumerable crystalline forms. After thus wandering exploringiy, and alone for a mile or so, fairly enchanted, a murmur of voices and a gleam of light betrayed the approach of the guide and his party, from whom, when they came up, we received a most hearty and natural stare, as we stood half concealed in a side recess among stalagmites. I ventured to ask the dripping, crouch- ing company how they had enjoyed their saunter, anxious to learn how the strange sunless scenery of the underworld had impressed them. "Ah, it 's nice ! It 's splendid ! " they all replied and echoed. "The Bridal Chamber back here is just glorious! This morinng we came down from the Calaveras Big Tree Grove, and the trees are nothing to it." After making this curious comparison they has- tened sunward, the guide j^romising to join us
IN THE SIEEKA FOOT-HILLS 335
shortly on the bank of a deep pool, where we were to wait for him. This is a charming little lakelet of unknown depth, never yet stirred by a breeze, and its eternal calm excites the imagination even more profomidly than the silvery lakes of the glaciers rimmed with meadows and snow and reflecting sublime mountains.
Om' guide, a jolly, rollicking Italian, led us into the heart of the hill, up and down, right and left, from chamber to chamber more and more magnifi- cent, all a-giitter like a glacier cave with icicle-like stalactites and stalagmites combined in forms of indescribable beauty. We were shown one large room that was occasionally used as a dancing-hall ; another that was used as a chapel, with natural puli^it and crosses and pews, sermons in every stone, where a priest had said mass. Mass-saying is not so generally developed in connection with natural wonders as dancing. One of the first conceits excited by the giant Sequoias was to cut one of them down and dance on its stump. We have also seen dancing in the spray of Niagara; dancing in the famous Bower Cave above Coulter- ville ; and nowhere have I seen so much dancing as in Yosemite. A dance on the inaccessible South Dome would likely follow the making 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 mighty results, such perfect repose combined with restless enthu- siastic energy. Though cold and bloodless as a landscape of polar ice, building was going on in the
336 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
dark with incessant activity. The archways and ceihngs were everywhere hung with down-growing crystals, hke inverted groves of leafless sajDlings, some of them large, others delicately attenuated, each tipped with a single drop of water, like the terminal bud of a pine-tree. The only ap]3reciable sounds were the dripping and tinkling of water falling into pools or faintly plashing on the crystal floors.
In some places the crystal decorations are ar- ranged in graceful flowing folds deeply plicated like stiif silken drapery. In others straight lines of the ordinary stalactite forms are combined with reference to size and tone in a regularly graduated system like the strings of a harp with musical tones corresponding thereto; and on these stone harps we played by striking the crystal strings with a stick. The delicious liquid tones they gave forth seemed perfectly divine as they sweetly whispered and wavered through the majestic halls and died away in faintest cadence, — the music of fairy-land. Here we lingered and reveled, rejoicing to find so much music in stony silence, so much splendor in darkness, so many mansions in the depths of the mountains, buildings ever in process of construc- tion, yet ever finished, developing from perfection to perfection, profusion without overabundance; every particle visible or invisible in glorious mo- tion, marching to the music of the spheres in a region regarded as the abode of eternal stillness and death.
The outer chambers of mountain caves are fre- quently selected as homes by wild beasts. In the
IN THE SIEREA FOOT-HILLS 337
Sierra, however, tliey seem to prefer homes and hiding-places in chaparral and beneath shelving precipices, as I have never seen their tracks in any of the caves. This is the more remarkable because notwithstanding the darkness and oozing water there is nothing uncomfortably cellar-like or sepul- chral about them.
When we emerged into the bright landscapes of the sun everything looked brighter, and we felt our faith in Nature's beauty strengthened, and saw more clearly that beauty is universal and immortal, above, beneath, on land and sea, mountain and plain, in heat and cold, light and darkness.
2a
CHAPTER XVI
THE BEE-PASTUEES
WHEN California was wild, it was one sweet bee-garden throughout its entire length, north and south, and all the way across from the snowy Sierra to the ocean.
Wherever a bee might fly within the bounds of this virgin wilderness — through the redwood for- ests, 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 the mountains — throughout every belt and section of climate up to the timber line, bee-flowers bloomed in lavish abundance. Here they grew more or less apart in special sheets and patches of no great size, there in broad, flow- ing folds hundreds of miles in length. — zones of polleny forests, zones of flowery chaparral, stream- tangles of rubus and wild rose, sheets of golden compositse, beds of violets, beds of mint, beds of bryanthus and clover, and so on, certain species blooming somewhere all the year round.
But of late years plows and sheep have made sad havoc in these glorious pastures, destroying tens of thousands of the flowery acres like a fire, and ban- ishing many species of the best honey-plants to
338
THE BEE-PASTUEES 339
rocky cliffs and fence-corners, while, on the other hand, cultivation thus far has given no adequate compensation, at least in kind ; only acres of alfalfa for miles of the richest wild pasture, ornamental roses and honeysuckles around cottage doors for cascades of wild roses in the dells, and small, square orchards and orange-groves for broad mountain- belts of chajoarral.
The Great Central Plain of California, during the months of March, April, and May, was one smooth, continuous bed of honey-bloom, so marvelously rich that, in walking from one end of it to the other, a distance of more than 400 miles, your foot would press about a hundred flowers at every step. Mints, gilias, nemophilas, castiUeias, and innumer- able compositas were so crowded together that, had ninety-nine per cent, of them been taken away, the plain would still have seemed to any but Califor- nians extravagantly flowery. The radiant, honey- ful corollas, touching and overlapping, and rising above one another, glowed in the living light like a sunset sky — one sheet of purple and gold, with the bright Sacramento pouring through the midst of it from the north, the San Joaquin from the south, and their many tributaries sweeping in at right angles from the mountains, dividing the plain into sections fringed with trees.
Along the rivers there is a strip of bottom-land, countersunk beneath the general level, and wider toward the foot-hills, where magnificent oaks, from three to eight feet in diameter, cast grateful masses of shade over the open, prairie-like levels. And close along the water's edge there was a fine jungle
340 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
of tropical luxuriance, composed of wild-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 the wild bees reveled in fresh bloom long after the flowers of the drier plain had withered and gone to seed. And in midsummer, when the " blackber- ries " were ripe, the Indians came from the moun- tains to feast — men, women, and babies in long, noisy trains, often joined by the farmers of the neighborhood, who gathered this wild fruit with commendable appreciation of its superior flavor, while their home orchards were full of ripe peaches, apricots, nectarines, and figs, and their vineyards were laden with grapes. But, though these luxuri- ant, shaggy river-beds were thus distinct from the smooth, treeless plain, they made no heavy divid- ing lines in general views. The whole appeared as one continuous sheet of bloom bounded only by the mountains.
When I first saw this central garden, the most extensive and regular of all the bee-pastures of the State, it seemed all one sheet of plant gold, hazy and vanishing in the distance, distinct as a new map along the foot-hills at my feet.
Descending the eastern slopes of the Coast Range through beds of gilias and 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, about ankle-deep next the foot-hills, knee-deep or more five or six
A BEE-RANCH IN LOWER CALIFORNIA.
342 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
miles out. Here were baliia, madia, madaria, bur- rielia, cliiysopsis, corethrogyiie, grindelia, etc., growing in close social congregations of various shades of yellow, blending finely with the purples of clarkia, orthocarpus, and Oenothera, whose deli- cate petals were drinking the vital sunbeams with- out giving back any sparkling glow.
Because so long a period of extreme drought succeeds the rainy season, most of the vegetation is composed of annuals, which spring up simultane- ously, and bloom together at about the same height above the ground, the general surface being but slightly ruffled by the taller phacelias, pentstemons, and groups of Salvia carduacea, the king of the mints.
Sauntering in any direction, hundreds of these happy sun-plants brushed against my feet at every step, and closed over them as if I were wading in liquid gold. The air was sweet with fragrance, the larks sang their blessed songs, rising on the wing as I advanced, then sinking out of sight in the pol- leny sod, while myriads of wild bees stirred the lower air with their monotonous hum — monoton- ous, yet forever fresh and sweet as every-day sun- shine. Hares and spermophiles showed themselves in considerable numbers in shallow j^laces, and small bands of antelopes were almost constantly in sight, gazing curiously from some slight elevation, and then bounding swiftly away with unrivaled grace of motion. Yet I could discover no crushed flowers to mark their track, nor, indeed, any de- structive action of any wild foot or tooth whatever.
The great yellow days circled by uncounted, while I drifted toward the north, observing the
THE BEE-PASTUEES 343
countless forms of life thronging about me, lying down almost anywhere on the approach of night. And what glorious botanical beds I had ! Often- times on awaking I would find several new species leaning over me and looking me full in the face, so that my studies would begin before rising.
About the first of May I turned eastward, cross- ing the San Joaquin River between the mouths of the Tuolumne and Merced, and by the time I had reached the Sierra foot-hills most of the vegetation had gone to seed and become as dry as hay.
All the seasons of the great plain are warm or temperate, and bee-flowers are never wholly want- ing ; but the grand springtime — the annual resur- rection— is governed by the rains, which usually set in about the middle of November or the begin- ning of December. Then the seeds, that for six months have lain on the ground dry and fresh as if they had been gathered into barns, at once unfold their treasured life. The general brown and pur- ple of the ground, and the dead vegetation of the preceding year, give place to the green of mosses and liverworts and myriads of young leaves. Then one species after another comes into flower, grad- ually overspreading the green with yellow and purple, which lasts until May.
The " rainy season " is by no means a gloomy, soggy period of constant cloudiness and rain. Perhaps nowhere else in North America, perhaps in the world, are the months of December, January, February, and March so full of bland, plant-build- ing sunshine. Referring to my notes of the winter and spring of 1868-69, every day of which I spent
344 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
out of doors, on that section of the plain lying be- tween the Tuolumne and Merced rivers, 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 the so-called rainy season, which was about an average one. The ordinary rain-storm of this region is seldom very cold or violent. The winds, which in settled weather come from the northwest, veer round into the opposite direction, the sky fills gradually and evenly with one general cloud, from which the rain falls steadily, often for days in succession, at a temperature of about 45° or 50°.
More than seventy-five per cent, of all the rain of this season came from the northwest, down the coast over southeastern Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon, though the local winds of these circular storms blow from the southeast. One magnificent local storm from the northwest fell on March 21. A massive, round-browed cloud came swelling 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 foun- tains like a cataract, beating down flowers and bees, and flooding the dry watercourses as suddenly as those of Nevada are flooded by the so-called "cloud- bursts." But in less than half an hour not a trace of the heavy, mountain-like cloud-structure was left in the sky, and the bees were on the wing, as if nothing more gratefully refreshing could have been sent them.
THE BEE-PASTUEES 345
By the end of January four species of plants were in flower, and five or six mosses had ah-eady adjusted their hoods and were in the prime of life ; but the flowers Avere not sufficiently numerous as yet to affect greatly the general green of the young leaves. Violets made their appearance in the first week of February, and toward the end of this month the warmer portions of the plain were al- ready golden with myriads of the flowers of rayed compositse.
This was the full springtime. The sunshine grew warmer and richer, new plants bloomed every day ; the air became more tuneful with humming wings, and sweeter with the fragrance of the open- ing flowers. Ants and ground squirrels were get- ting ready for their summer work, rubbing their benumbed limbs, and sunning themselves on the husk-piles before their doors, and spiders were busy mending their old webs, or weaving new ones.
In March, the vegetation was more than doubled in depth and color; claytonia, calandrinia, a large white gilia, and two nemophilas were in bloom, to- gether with a host of yellow compositae, tall enough now to bend in the wind and show wavering ripples of shade.
In April, plant-life, as a whole, reached its great- est height, and the plain, over all its varied surface, was mantled with a close, furred plush of purple and golden corollas. By the end of this month, most of the species had ripened their seeds, but undecayed, still seemed to be in bloom from the numerous corolla-like involucres and whorls of chaffy scales of the compositte. In May, the bees
346 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
found in flower only a few deep-set liliaceous plants and eriogonums.
June, July, August, and September is the season of rest and sleep, — a winter of dry lieat, — followed in October by a second outburst of bloom at tlie very driest time of the year. Then, after the shrunken mass of leaves and stalks of the dead vegetation crinkle and turn to dust beneath the foot, as if it had been baked in an oven, Hemitonia virc/ata, a slender, unobtrusive little plant, from six inches to three feet high, suddenly makes its ap- pearance in patches miles in extent, like a resurrec- tion of the bloom of April. I have counted upward of 3000 flowers, five eighths of an inch in diameter, on a single plant. Both its leaves and stems are so slender as to be nearly invisible, at a distance of a few yards, amid so showy a multitude of flowers. The ray and disk flowers are both yellow, the stamens purple, and the texture of the rays is rich and velvety, like the petals of garden pansies. The prevailing wind turns all the heads round to the southeast, so that in facing northwest- ward we have the flowers looking us in the face. In my estimation, this little plant, the last born of the brilliant host of compositse that glorify the plain, is the most interesting of all. It remains in flower until November, uniting with two or three species of wiry eriogonums, which continue the floral chain around December to the spring flowers of January. Thus, although the main bloom and honey season is only about three months long, the floral circle, however thin around some of the hot, rainless months, is never completely broken.
THE BEE-PASTURES 347
How long the various species of wild bees have lived in this honey-garden, nobody knows; prob- ably ever since the main body of the present flora gained possession of the land, toward the close of the glacial period. The first brown honey-bees brought to California are said to have arrived in San Francisco in March, 1853. A bee-keeper by the name of Shelton purchased a lot, consisting of twelve swarms, from some one at Aspinwall, who had brought them from New York. When landed at San Francisco, all the hives contained live bees, but they finally dwindled to one hive, which was taken to San Jose. The little immigrants flour- ished and multiplied in the bountiful pastures of the Santa Clara Valley, sending off three swarms the first season. The owner was killed shortly afterward, and in settling up his estate, two of the swarms were sold at auction for $105 and $110 re- spectively. Other importations were made, from time to time, by way of the Isthmus, and, though great pains were taken to insure success, about one half usually died on the way. Four swarms were brought safely across the plains in 1859, the hives being j)laced in the rear end of a wagon, which was stopped in the afternoon to allow the bees to fly and feed in the floweriest places that were within reach until dark, when the hives were closed.
In 1855, two years after the time of the first ar- rivals from New York, a single swarm was brought over from San Jose, and let fly in the Great Cen- tral Plain. Bee-culture, however, has never gained much attention here, notwithstanding the extraor-
348 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
dinary abundance of lioney-bloom, and the higli price of honey during the early years. A few hives are found here and there among settlers who chanced to have learned something about the busi- ness before coming to the State. But sheep, cattle, grain, and fruit raising are the chief industries, as they require less skill and care, while the profits thus far have been greater. In 1856 honey sold here at from one and a half to two dollars per pound. Twelve years later the price had fallen to twelve and a half cents. In 1868 I sat down to dinner with a band of ravenous sheep-shearers at a ranch on the San Joaquin, where fifteen or twenty hives were kept, and our host advised us not to spare the large pan of honey he had placed on the table, as it was the cheapest article he had to offer. In all my walks, however, I have never come upon a reg- ular bee-ranch in the Central Valley like those so common and so skilfully managed in the southern counties of the State. The few pounds of honey and wax produced are consumed at home, and are scarcely taken into account among the coarser products of the farm. The swarms that escape from their careless owners have a weary, perplexing time of it in seeking suitable homes. Most of them make their way to the foot-hills of the moun- tains, or to the trees that line the, banks of the rivers, where some hollow log or trunk may be found. A friend of mine, while out hunting on the San Joaquin, came upon an old coon trap, hidden among some tall grass, near the edge of the river, upon which he sat down to rest. Shortly afterward his attention was attracted to a crowd
THE BEE-PASTUKES 349
of angry bees that were flying excitedly about his head, when he discovered that he was sitting upon their hive, which was found to contain more than 200 pounds of honey. Out in the broad, swampy delta of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, the little wanderers have been known to build their combs in a bunch of rushes, or stiff, wiry grass, only slightly protected from the weather, and in dan- ger every spring of being carried away by floods. They have the advantage, however, of a vast ex- tent of fresh pasture, accessible only to themselves. The present condition of the Grand Central Grar- den is very different from that we have sketched. About twenty years ago, when the gold placers had been pretty thoroughly exhausted, the atten- tion of fortune-seekers — not home-seekers — was, in great part, turned away from the mines to the fertile plains, and many began experiments in a kind of restless, wild agriculture. A load of lum- ber would be hauled to some spot on the free wilderness, where water could be easily found, and a rude box-cabin built. Then a gang-plow was procured, and a dozen mustang ponies, worth ten or fifteen dollars apiece, and with these hundreds of acres were stirred as easily as if the land had been under cultivation for years, tough, perennial roots being almost wholly absent. Thus a ranch was established, and from these bare wooden huts, as centers of desolation, the wild flora vanished in ever-widening circles. But the arch destroyers are the shepherds, with their flocks of hoofed locusts, sweeping over the ground like a fire, and trampling down every rod that escapes the plow
350 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
as completely as if the whole plain were a cottage garden-plot without a fence. But notwithstanding these destroyers, a thousand swarms of bees may be pastured here for every one now gathering honey. The greater portion is still covered every season with a repressed growth of bee-flowers, for most of the species are annuals, and many of them are not relished by sheep or cattle, while the rapidity of their growth enables them to develop and ma- ture their seeds before any foot has time to crush them. The ground is, therefore, kept sweet, and the race is perpetuated, though only as a sugges- tive shadow of the magnificence of its wildness.
The time will undoul^tedly come when the entire area of this noble valley will be tilled like a garden, when the fertilizing waters of the mountains, 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 vanished primeval flora. In the mean time, the pure waste going on — the wanton destruction of the innocents — is a sad sight to see, and the sun may well be pitied in being compelled to look on.
The bee-pastures of the Coast Ranges last longer and are more varied than those of the great plain, on account of differences of soil and climate, moisture, and shade, etc. Some of the mountains are upward of 4000 feet in height, and small streams, springs, oozy bogs, etc., occm* in great abundance and variety in the wooded regions, while open parks, flooded with sunshine, and hill- girt valleys lying at different elevations, each with
THE BEE-PASTUKES 351
its own peculiar climate and exposure, possess the required conditions for the development of species and families of plants widely varied.
Next the plain there is, fii'st, a series of smooth hills, planted with a rich and showy vegetation that differs but little from that of the plain itself — as if the edge of the plain had been lifted and bent into flowing folds, with all its flowers in place, only toned down a little as to their luxuriance, and a few new species introduced, such as the hill lu- pines, mints, and gilias. The colors show finely when thus held to view on the slopes; patches of red, purple, blue, yellow, and white, blending around the edges, the whole appearing at a little distance like a map colored in sections.
Above this lies the park and chaparral region, with oaks, mostly evergreen, planted wide apart, and blooming shrubs from three to ten feet high ; manzanita and ceanothus of several species, mixed with rhamnus, cercis, pickeringia, cherry, amelan- chier, and adenostoma, in shaggy, interlocking thickets, and many species of hosackia, clover, monardella, castilleia, etc., in the openings.
The main ranges send out spurs somewhat par- allel to their axes, inclosing level valleys, many of them quite extensive, and containing a great pro- fusion of sun-loving bee-flowers in their wild state; but these are, in great part, already lost to the bees by cultivation.
Nearer the coast are the giant forests of the red- woods, extending from near the Oregon line to Santa Cruz. Beneath the cool, deep shade of these majestic trees the ground is occupied by ferns,
352 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
chiefly woodwardia and aspidiums, with only a few flowering plants — oxalis, trientalis, erythronium, fritillaria, smilax, and other shade-lovers. But all along the redwood belt there are sanny openings on hill-slopes looking to the south, where the giant trees stand back, and give the ground to the small sunflowers and the bees. Around the lofty red- wood walls of these little bee-acres there is usually a fringe of Chestnut Oak, Laurel, and Madrono, the last of which is a surpassingly beautiful tree, and a great favorite with the bees. The trunks of the largest specimens are seven or eight feet thick, and about fifty feet high ; the bark red and chocolate colored, the leaves plain, large, and glossy, like those of Magnolia grandiflora, while the flowers are yellowish- white, and urn-shaped, in well-23roportioned panicles, from five to ten inches long. When in full bloom, a single tree seems to be visited at times by a whole hive of bees at once, and the deep hum of such a multitude makes the listener guess that more than the ordinary work of honey-winning must be going on.
How perfectly enchanting and care-obliterating are these withdrawn gardens of the woods — long vistas opening to the sea — sunshine sifting and pouring upon the flowery ground in a tremulous, shifting mosaic, as the light-ways in the leafy wall open and close with the swaying breeze — shining leaves and flowers, birds and bees, mingling to- gether in springtime harmony, and soothing fra- grance exhaling from a thousand thousand foun- tains ! In these balmy, dissolving days, when the deep heart-beats of Nature are felt thrilling rocks
THE BEE-PASTUEES 353
and trees and everything alike, common business and fiiends are happily forgotten, and even the natural honey- work of bees, and the care of birds for their young, and mothers for their children, seem slightly out of place.
To the northward, in Humboldt and the adjacent counties, whole hillsides are covered with rhodo- dendron, making a glorious melody of bee-bloom in the spring. And the Western azalea, hardly less flowery, grows in massy thickets three to eight feet high around the edges of groves and woods as far south as San Luis Obispo, usually accompanied by manzanita; while the valleys, with their varying moisture and shade, yield a rich variety of the smaller honey-flowers, such as mentha, lycopus, micromeria, audibertia, trichostema, and other mints ; with vaccinium, wild strawberry, geranium, Calais, and goldenrod ; and in the cool glens along the stream-banks, where the shade of trees is not too deep, spiraea, dog-wood, heteromeles, and caly- canthus, and many species of rubus form inter- lacing tangles, some portion of which continues in bloom for months.
Though the coast region was the first to be in- vaded and settled by white men, it has suffered less from a bee point of view than either of the other main divisions, chiefly, no doubt, because of the unevenness of the surface, and because it is owned and protected instead of lying exposed to the flocks of the wandering " sheepmen." These remarks ap- ply more particularly to the north half of the coast. Farther south there is less moisture, less forest shade, and the honey flora is less varied.
23
354 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
The Sierra region is the largest of the three main divisions of the bee-lands of the State, and the most regularly varied in its subdivisions, owing to their gradual rise from the level of the Central Plain to the al^nne summits. The foot-hill region is about as dry and sunful, from the end of May until the setting in of the winter rains, as the I^lain. There are no shady forests, no damj) glens, at all like those lying at the same elevations in the Coast Mountains. The social composite© of the plain, with a few added species, form the bulk of the herbaceous portion of the vegetation up to a height of 1500 feet or more, shaded lightly here and there with oaks and Sabine Pines, and interrupted by patches of ceanothus and buckeye. Above this, and just below the forest region, there is a dark, heath-like belt of chaparral, composed almost ex- clusively of Adenostonia fasclciUata, a bush belong- ing to the rose family, from five to eight feet high, with small, round leaves in fascicles, and bearing a multitude of small white flowers in panicles on the ends of the upper branches. Where it occurs at all, it usually covers all the ground with a close, impenetrable growth, scarcely broken for miles.
Up through the forest region, to a height of about 9000 feet above sea-level, there are ragged patches of manzanita, and five or six species of cea- nothus, called deer-brush or California lilac. These are the most important of all the honey-bearing bushes of the Sierra. Chaincebatia foUolosa, a little shrub about a foot high, with flowers like the straw- berry, makes handsome carpets beneath the pines, and seems to be a favorite with the bees ; while
THE BEE-PASTUKES 355
pines themselves furnish nnlimited quantities of pollen and honey-dew. The product of a sin- gle tree, ripening its pollen at the right time of year, would be suf&cient for the wants of a whole hive. Along the streams there is a rich growth of lilies, larkspurs, pedicularis, castilleias, and clover. The alpine region contains the flowery glacier meadows, and countless small gardens in all sorts of places full of potentilla of several species, spraguea, ivesia, epilobium, and goldenrod, with beds of bryanthus and the charming cassiope cov- ered with sweet bells. Even the tops of the moun- tains are blessed with flowers, — dwarf phlox, pole- monium, ribes, hulsea, etc. I have seen wild bees and butterflies feeding at a height of 13,000 feet above the sea. Many, however, that go up these dangerous heights never come down again. Some, undoubtedly, perish in storms, and I have found thousands lying dead or benumbed on the smface of the glaciers, 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 is now generally distrib- uted throughout the whole length of the Sierra, up to an elevation of 8000 feet above sea-level. At this height they flourish without care, though the snow every winter is deep. Even higher than this several bee-trees have been cut which contained over 200 pounds of honey.
The destructive action of sheep has not been so general on the mountain pastures as on those of the great plain, but in many places it has been
356 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
more complete, owing to the more friable character of the soil, and its sloping position. The slant digging and down-raking action of hoofs on the steeper sloi3es of moraines has nprooted and bu- ried many of the tender plants from year to year, without allowing them time to mature their seeds. The shrubs, too, are badly bitten, especially the various species of ceanothus. Fortunately, neither sheep noi* cattle care to feed on the manza- nita, spiraea, or adenostoma ; and these fine honey- bushes are too stiff and tall, or grow in places too rough and inaccessible, to be trodden under foot. Also the canon walls and gorges, which form so considerable a part of the area of the range, while inaccessible to domestic sheep, are well fringed with honev-shrubs, and contain thousands of lovely bee-gardens, lying hid in narrow side-canons and recesses 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 escape the feet and teeth of the sheep are destroyed by the shepherds by means of running fires, which are set everywhere during the dry autumn for the purpose of burning off the old fallen trunks and underbrush, with a view to im- proving the pastures, and making more open ways for the flocks. These destructive sheep-fires sweep through nearly the entire forest belt of the range, from one extremity to the other, consuming not only the underbrush, but the young trees and seed- lings on which the permanence of the forests de- pends ; thus setting in motion a long train of evils
358 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
which will certainly reach far beyond bees and bee- keepers.
The plow has not yet invaded the forest region to any apjDreciable extent, neither has it accom- plished mnch in the foot-hills. Thousands of bee- ranches might be established along the margin of the plain, and up to a height of 4000 feet, wherever water could be obtained. The climate at this ele- vation admits of the making of permanent homes, and by moving the hives to higher pastures as the lower pass out of bloom, the annual }aeld of honey would be nearly doubled. The foot-hill pastures, as we have seen, fail about the end of May, those of the chaparral belt and lower forests are in full bloom in June, those of the upper and alpine region in July, August, and September. In Scot- land, after the best of the Lowland bloom is j^ast, the bees are carried in carts to the Highlands, and set free on the heather hills. In France, too, and in Poland, they are carried from pasture to pasture among orchards and fields in the same way, and along the rivers in barges to collect the honey of the delightful vegetation of the banks. In Egypt they are taken far up the Nile, and floated slowly home again, gathering the honey-harvest of the various fields on the way, timing their movements in accord with the seasons. Were similar methods pursued in California the productive season would last nearly all the year.
The average elevation of the north half of the Sierra is, as we have seen, considerably less than that of the south half, and small streams, with the bank and meadow gardens dependent upon them,
THE BEE-PASTUEES 359
are less abundant. Around the head waters of the Yuba, Feather, and Pitt rivers, tlie extensive table- lands of lava are sparsely planted with pines, through which the sunshine reaches the ground with little interruption. Here flourishes a scat- tered, tufted growth of golden applopappus, linosy- ris, bahia, wyetheia, arnica, artemisia, and similar plants; with manzanita, cherry, plum, and thorn in ragged patches on the cooler hill-slopes. At the extremities of the Great Central Plain, the Sierra and Coast Ranges curve around and lock together in a labyrinth of mountains and valleys, through- out which their floras are mingled, making at the north, with its temperate climate and copious rain- fall, a perfect paradise for bees, though, strange to say, scarcely a single regular bee-ranch has yet been established in it.
Of all the upper flower fields of the Sierra, Shasta is the most honeyful, and may yet surpass in fame the celebrated honey hills of Hybla and heartily Hymettus. Regarding this noble moun- tain from a bee point of view, encircled by its many climates, and sweeping aloft from the tor- rid plain into the frosty azure, we find the first 5000 feet from the summit generally snow-clad, and therefore about as honeyless as the sea. The base of this arctic region is girdled by a belt of crumbling lava measuring about 1000 feet in ver- tical breadth, and is mostly free from snow in summer. Beautiful lichens enliven the faces of the cliffs with their lu'ight colors, and in some of the warmer nooks there are a few tufts of alpine daisies, wall-flowers and pentstemons; but, notwithstanding
360 THE MOUNTAINS OF C.iLIFORNIA
these bloom freely in the late summer, the zone as a whole is almost as honeyless as the icy smnmit, and its lower edge may be taken as the honey-line. Immediately below this comes the forest zone, cov- ered with a rich growth of conifers, chiefly Silver Firs, rich in pollen and honey-dew, and diversified with countless garden openings, many of them less than a hundred yards across. Next, in orderly suc- cession, comes the great bee zone. Its area far sur- passes that of the icy summit and both the other zones combined, for it goes sweeping majestically around the entire mountain, with a breadth of six or seven miles and a circumference of nearly a hundred miles.
Shasta, as we have already seen, is a fire-moun- tain created by a succession of eruptions of ashes and molten lava, which, flowing over the lips of its several craters, grew outward and u]3ward like the trunk of a knotty exogenous tree. Then followed a strange contrast. The glacial winter came on, loading the cooling mountain with ice, which flowed slowly outward in every direction, radiating from the summit in the form of one vast conical glacier — a down-crawling mantle of ice upon a fountain of smoldering fire, crushing and grinding for centuries its brown, flinty lavas with incessant activity, and thus degrading and remodeling the entire mountain. When, at length, the glacial period began to draw near its close, the ice-mantle was gradually melted off around the bottom, and, in receding and breaking into its present fragmen- tary condition, irregular rings and heaps of mo- raine matter were stored upon its flanks. The
THE BEE-PASTURES 361
glacial erosion of most of the Sliasta lavas pro- duces detritus, composed of rough, sub-angular boulders of moderate size and of porous gravel aud sand, which yields freely to the transporting power of running water. Magnificent floods from the ample fountains of ice and snow working with sublime energy upon this prepared glacial detritus, sorted it out and carried down immense quantities from the higher slopes, and reformed it in smooth, delta-like beds around the base; and it is these flood-beds joined together that now form the main honey-zone of the old volcano.
Thus, by forces seemingly antagonistic and de- structive, has Mother Nature accomplished her beneficent designs — now a flood of fire, now a flood of ice, now a flood of water ; and at length an out- burst of organic life, a milky way of snowy petals and wings, girdling the rugged mountain like a cloud, as if the vivifying sunbeams beating against its sides had broken into a foam of plant-bloom and bees, as sea-waves break and bloom on a rock shore.
In this flowery wilderness the bees rove and revel, rejoicing in the bounty of the sun, clambering eag- erly through bramble and hucklebloom, ringing the myriad bells of the manzanita, now hmnming aloft among poUeny willows and firs, now down on the ashy ground among gilias and buttercups, and anon plunging deep into snowy banks of cherry and buckthorn. They consider the lilies and roll into them, and, like lilies, they toil not, for they are impelled by sun-power, as water-wheels by water- power ; and when the one has plenty of high-pres-
362 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
sure water, the other plenty of sunshine, they hum and quiver ahke. Sauntering in the Shasta bee-lands in the sun-days of summer, one may readily infer the time of day from the comparative energy of bee-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 again to the stillness of night. In my excursions among the glaciers I occasionally meet bees that are hungry, like mountaineers who venture too far and remain too long above the bread-line; then they droop and wither like autumn leaves. The Shasta bees are perhaps better fed than any 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 humming- birds seldom set foot upon a flower, but poise on the wing in front of it, and reach forward as if they were sucking through straws. But bees, though as dainty as they, hug their favorite flow- ers with profound cordiality, and push their blunt, poUeny faces against them, like l^abies on their mother's bosom. And fondly, too, with eternal love, does Mother Nature clasp her small bee-babies, and suckle them, multitudes at once, on her warm Shasta breast.
Besides the common honey-bee there are many other species here — fine mossy, burly fellows, who were nourished on the mountains thousands of sunny seasons before the advent of the domestic species. Among these are the bumblebees, mason-
THE BEE-PASTUKES 363
bees, carpenter-bees, and leaf-cutters. Bntterflies, too, and moths of every size and pattern ; some broad-winged like bats, flapping slowly, and sailing in easy curves; others like small, flying violets, shaking about loosely in short, crooked flights close to the flowers, feasting luxuriously night and day. Great numbers of deer also delight to dwell in the brushy portions of the bee-pastures.
Bears, too, roam the sweet wilderness, their blunt, shaggy forms harmonizing well with the trees and tangled bushes, and with the bees, also, notwith- standing the disparity in size. They are fond of all good things, and enjoy them to the utmost, with but little troublesome discrimination — flowers and leaves as well as berries, and the bees themselves as well as their honey. Though the California bears have as yet had but little experience with honey- bees, they often succeed in reaching their bountiful stores, and it seems doubtful whether bees them- selves enjoy honey with so great a relish. By means of their powerful teeth and claws they can gnaw and tear open almost any hive conveniently accessible. Most honey-bees, however, in search of a home are wise enough to make choice of a hollow in a living tree, a considerable distance above the ground, when such places are to be had ; then they are pretty secure, for though the smaller black and brown bears climb well, they are unable to break into strong hives while compelled to exert them- selves to keep from falling, and at the same time to endure the stings of the fighting bees without hav- ing their paws free to rub them off. But woe to the black bumblebees discovered in their mossy
364 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
nests in tlie ground ! With a few strokes of their huge paws the bears uncover the entire establish- ment, and, before time is given for a general buzz, bees old and yoimg, larvse, honey, stings, nest, and all are taken in one ravishing mouthful.
Not the least influential of the agents concerned in the superior sweetness of the Shasta flora are its storms — storms I mean that are strictlv local, bred and born on the mountain. The magical rapidity with which they are grown on the mountain-top, and bestow their charity in rain and snow, never fails to astonish the inexperienced lowlander. Often in calm, glowing days, while the bees are still on the wing, a storm-cloud may be seen far above in the pure ether, swelling its pearl bosses, and growing silently, like a plant. Presently a clear, ringing discharge of thunder is heard, followed by a rush of wind that comes sounding over the bending woods like the roar of the ocean, miugling rain- drops, snow-flowers, honey-flowers, and bees in wild storm harmony.
Still more impressive are the warm, reviving days of spring in the mountain pastures. The blood of the plants throbbing beneath the life-giving sun- shine seems to be heard and felt. Plant growth goes on before our eyes, and every tree in the woods, and every bush and flower is seen as a hive of restless in- dustry. The deeps of the sky are mottled with singing wings of every tone and color ; clouds of brilliant chrysididse dancing and swirling in ex- quisite rhythm, golden-barred vespidae, dragon-flies, butterflies, grating cicadas, and jolly, rattling grasshoppers, fairly enameling the light.
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366 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
On bright, crisp mornings a striking optical ef- fect may frequently be observed from the shadows of the higher mountains while the sunbeams are pouring i^ast overhead. Then every insect, no matter what may be its own proper color, burns white in the light. Gauzy-winged hymenoptera, moths, jet-black beetles, all are transfigured alike in pure, spiritual white, like snowflakes.
In Soathern California, where bee-culture has had so much skilful attention of late years, the pasturage is not more abundant, or more advan- tageously varied as to the number of its honey- plants and their distribution over mountain and plain, than that of many other portions of the State where the industrial currents flow in other channels. The famous White Sage {Audihertia), belonging to the mint family, flourishes here in all its glory, blooming in May, and yielding great quantities of clear, pale honey, which is greatly prized in every market it has yet reached. This species grows chiefly in the valleys and low hills. The Black Sage on the mountains is part of a dense, thorny chaparral, which is composed chiefly of ad- enostoma, ceanothus, manzanita, and cherry — not differing greatly from that of the southern portion of the Sierra, but more dense and continuous, and taller, and remaining longer in bloom. Stream- side gardens, so charming a feature of both the Sierra and Coast Mountains, are less numerous in Southern California, but they are exceedingly rich in honey-flowers, wherever found, — melilotus, col- umbine, collinsia, verbena, zauschneria, wild rose, honeysuckle, philadelphus, and lilies rising from
THE BEE-PASTUEES 367
the warm, moist dells in a very storm of exuber- ance. Wild buckwheat of many species is devel- oped in abundance over the dry, sandy valleys and lower slopes of the mountains, toward the end of summer, and is, at this time, the main dependence 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 yield sufficient for the bees.
According to Mr. J. T. Gordon, President of the Los Angeles County Bee-keepers' Association, the first bees introduced into the county were a single hive, which cost $150 in San Francisco, and arrived in September, 1854.^ In April, of the following- year, this hive sent out two swarms, which were sold for $100 each. From this small beginning the bees gradually multiplied to about 3000 swarms in the year 1873. In 1876 it was estimated that there were between 15,000 and 20,000 hives in the county, producing an annual yield of about 100 pounds to the hive — in some exceptional cases, a much greater yield.
In San Diego County, at the beginning of the season of 1878, there Avere about 2-1,000 hives, and the shipments from the one port of San Diego for the same year, from July 17 to November 10, were 1071 barrels, 15,544 cases, and nearly 90 tons. The
1 Fifteen hives cf Italian bees were introduced into Los Angeles County in 1855, and in 1876 they had increased to 500. The marked superiority claimed for them over the common species is now at- tracting considei'able attention.
368 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
largest bee-raiiclies have about a thousand hives, and are carefully and skilfully managed, every scientific appliance of merit being brought into use. There are few bee-keepers, however, who own half as many as this, or who give their undi- vided attention to the business. Orange culture, at present, is heavily overshadowing every other business.
A good many of the so-called bee-ranches of Los Angeles and San Diego counties are still of the rudest pioneer kind imaginable. A man unsuc- cessful in everything else hears the interesting story of the profits and comforts of bee-keeping, and concludes to try it ; he buys a few colonies, or gets them from some overstocked ranch on shares, takes them back to the foot of some canon, where the pasturage is fresh, squats on the land, with, or without, the permission of the owner, sets up his hives, makes a box-cabin for himself, scarcely bigger than a bee-hive, and awaits his fortune.
Bees suffer sadly from famine during the dry years which occasionally occur in the southern and middle portions of the State. If the rainfall amounts only to three or four inches, instead of from twelve to twenty, as in ordinary seasons, then sheep and cattle die in thousands, and so do these small, winged cattle, unless they are carefully fed, or removed to other pastures. The year 1877 will long be remembered as exceptionally rainless and distressing. Scarcely a flower bloomed on the dry valleys away from the stream-sides, and not a single grain-field depending upon rain was reaped. The seed only sprouted, came up a little way, and
A BEE-RANCH OK A SPUR OP THE SAN GABRIEL. RANGE. CARDINAL FLOWER. 24
370 THE MOUNTAINS OP CALIFORNIA
withered. Horses, cattle, and slieej) grew tliinner 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 the settlement of the country.
In the course of a trip I made during the sum- mer of that year through Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Los Angeles counties, the deplorable effects of the drought were everywhere visible — leafless fields, dead and dying cattle, dead bees, and half-dead people with dusty, doleful faces. Even the birds and squirrels were in distress, though their suffering was less pain- fully apparent than that of the poor cattle. These were falling one by one in slow, sure starvation along the banks of the hot, sluggish streams, while thousands of buzzards correspondingly fat were sailing above them, or standing gorged on the ground beneath the trees, waiting with easy faith for fresh carcasses. The quails, prudently consid- ering the hard times, abandoned all thought of pairing. They were too poor to marry, and so continued in flocks all through the year without attempting to rear young. The ground-squirrels, though an exceptionally industrious and enterpris- ing 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 bossy masses of dark green foliage presented a striking contrast to the ashen baldness of the ground beneath them. The squirrels, leaving their accustomed feeding- grounds, betook themselves to the leafy oaks to gnaw out the acorn stores of the provident wood-
372 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA
peckers, but the latter kept up a vigilant watch upon their movemeuts. I noticed four woodpeckers in league against one squirrel, driving the poor fellow out of an oak that they claimed. He dodged round the knotty trunk from side to side, as nimbly as he could in his famished condition, only to find a sharp bill everywhere. But the fate of the bees that year seemed the saddest of all. In different portions of Los Angeles and San Diego counties, from one half to three fourths of them died of sheer starvation. Not less than 18,000 colonies perished in these two counties alone, while in the adjacent counties the death-rate was hardly less.
Even the colonies nearest to the mountains suf- fered this year, for the smaller vegetation on the foot-hills was affected by the drought almost as severely as that of the valleys and plains, and even tiie hardy, deep-rooted chaparral, the surest de- pendence of the bees, bloomed sparingly, while much of it was beyond reach. Every swarm could have been saved, however, by promptly supplying them with food when their own stores began to fail, and before they became enfeebled and discouraged; or by cutting roads back into the mountains, and taking them into the heart of the flowery chapar- ral. The Santa Lucia, San Rafael, San G-abriel, San Jacinto, and San Bernardino ranges are almost untouched as yet save by the wild bees. Some idea of their resources, and of the advantages and disadvantages they offer to bee-keepers, may be formed from an excursion that I made into the San Gabriel Range about the beginning of August
THE BEE-PASTUEES 373
of " the dry year." This range, containing most of the 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 word than any other that I ever attempted to penetrate. The slopes are exce23tionally steep and insecure to the foot, and they are covered with . thorny bushes from five to ten feet high. With the exception of little spots not visible in general views, the entire surface is covered with them, massed in close hedge growth, sweeping gracefully down into every gorge and hollow, and sweUing over every ridge and summit in shaggy, ungovern- able exuberance, offering more honey to the acre for half the year than the most crowded clover- field. But when beheld from the open San Gabriel Valley, beaten with dry sunshine, all that was seen of the range seemed to wear a forbidding aspect. From base to summit all seemed gray, barren, silent, its glorious chaparral appearing like dry moss creeping over its dull, wrinkled ridges and hollows.
Setting out from Pasadena, I reached the foot of the range about sundown; and being weary and heated with my walk across the shadeless valley, concluded to camp for the night. After resting a few moments, I began to look about among the flood-boulders of Eaton Creek for a camp-ground, when I came upon a strange, dark-looking man who had been chopping cord-wood. He seemed surprised at seeing me, so I sat down with him on the live-oak log he had been cutting, and made
374 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA
haste to give a reason for my appearance in his sohtude, explaining that I was anxious to find ont something about the mountains, and meant to make my way up Eaton 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 moun- tains, where a small spring oozes out of a bank overgrown with wild-rose bushes. After supper, when the daylight was gone, he explained that he was out of candles ; so we sat in the dark, while he gave me a sketch of his life in a mixture of Span- ish and English. He was born in Mexico, his father Irish, his mother Spanish. He had been a miner, rancher, prospector, hunter, etc., rambling always, and wearing his life away in mere 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 "make money and marry a Spanish woman." People mine here for water as for gold. He had been running a tunnel into a spm- of the mountain back of his cabin. " My prospect is good," he said, " and if I chance to strike a good, strong flow, I '11 soon be worth $5000 or $10,000. For that flat out there," referring to a small, irregular patch of bouldery detritus, two or three acres in size, that had been deposited by Eaton Creek during some flood sea- son,— "that flat is large enough for a nice orange- grove, and the bank behind the cabin will do for a vineyard, and after watering rfiy own trees and vines I will have some water left to sell to my neighbors below me, down the valley. And then," he continued, "I can keep bees, and make money
A BEE-PASTURE ON THE MORAINE DESERT. SPANISH BAYONET.
376 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
that way, too, for the mountains above here are just full of honey in the summer-time, and one of my neighbors down 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 this prospective affluence in the sunken, boulder-choked flood-bed of a mountain-stream ! Leaving the bees out of the count, most fortune- seekers would as soon think of settling on the summit of Mount Shasta. Next morning, wishing my hopeful entertainer good luck, I set out on my shaggy excui'sion.
About half an hour's walk above the cabin, I came to " The Fall," famous throughout the valley settlements as the finest yet discovered in the San Gabriel Mountains. It is a charming little thing, with a low, sweet voice, 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 the cliff back of it, and on both sides, is smoothly covered and embossed with mosses, against which the white water shines out in showy relief, like a silver instrument in a velvet case. Hither come the San Glabriel lads and lassies, to gather ferns and dabble away their hot holidays in the cool water, glad to escape from their common- place palm-gardens and orange-groves. The delicate maidenhair gi'ows on fissured rocks within reach of the sjDray, while broad-leaved maples and syca- mores cast soft, mellow shade over a rich profusion of bee-flowers, growing among boulders in front of the pool — the fall, the flowers, the bees, the ferny rocks, and leafy shade forming a charming little
THE BEE-PASTUEES 377
poem of wildness, the last of a series extending down the flowery slopes of Mount San Antonio through the rugged, foam-beaten bosses of the main Eaton Canon.
From the base of the fall I followed the ridge that forms the western rim of the Eaton basin to the summit of one of the principal peaks, which is about 5000 feet above sea-level. Then, turning eastward, I crossed the middle of the basin, forcing a way over its many subordinate ridges and across its eastern rim, having to contend almost every- where with the floweriest and most impenetrable growth of honey-bushes I had ever encountered since first my mountaineering began. Most of the Shasta chaparral is leafy nearly to the ground ; here the main stems are naked for three or four feet, and interspiked with dead twigs, forming a stiff clievaux defrise through which even the bears make their way with difficulty. I was compelled to creep for miles on all fours, and in following the bear-trails often found tufts of hair on the bushes where they had forced themselves through.
For 100 feet or so above the fall the ascent was made possible only by tough cushions of club-moss that clung to the rock. Above this the ridge wea- thers away to a thin knife-blade for a few hundred yards, and thence to the summit of the range it car- ries a bristly mane of chaparral. Here and there small openings occur on rocky places, commanding fine views across the cultivated valley to the ocean. These I found by the tracks were favorite outlooks and resting-places for the wild animals — bears, wolves, foxes, wildcats, etc. — which abound here.
378 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
and would have to be taken into account in tlie es- tablishment of bee-ranches. In the deepest thick- ets I found wood-rat villages — groups of huts four to six feet high, built of sticks and leaves in rough, tapering piles, like musk-rat cabins. I noticed a good many bees, too, most of them wild. The tame honey-bees seemed languid and wing-weary, as if they had come all the way up from the flowerless valley.
After reaching the summit I had time to make only a hasty survey of the basin, now glowing in the sunset gold, before hastening down into one of the tributary canons in search of water. Emerg- ing from a particularly tedious breadth of chapar- ral, I found myself free and erect in a beautiful park-like grove of Mountain Live Oak, where the ground was planted with aspidiums and brier-roses, while the glossy foliage made a close canopy over- head, leaving the gray dividing trunks bare to show the beauty of their interlacing arches. The bot- tom of the canon was dry where I first reached it, but a bunch of scarlet mimulus indicated water at no great distance, and I soon discovered about a bucketful in a hollow of the rock. This, however, was full of dead bees, wasps, beetles, and leaves, well steeped and simmered, and would, therefore, re- quire boiling and filtering through fresh charcoal before it could be made available. Tracing the dry channel about a mile farther down to its junction with a larger tributary canon, I at length discov- ered a lot of boulder pools, clear as crystal, brim- ming full, and linked together by glistening stream- lets just strong enough to sing audibly. Flowers in
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A bee-keeper's cabin. — BURRIELIA (ABOVE). — MADIA (BELOW).
380 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA
full bloom adorned their margins, lilies ten feet high, larkspur, columbines, and luxuriant ferns, leaning and overarching in lavish abundance, while a noble old Live Oak spread its rugged arms over all. Here I camped, making my bed on smooth cobblestones.
Next day, in the channel of a tril^utary that heads on Mount San Antonio, I passed about fif- teen or twenty gardens like the one in which I slept — lilies in every one of them, in the full pomp of bloom. My third camp was made near the middle of the general basin, at the head of a long system of cascades from ten to 200 feet high, one following the other in close succession down a rocky, inaccessible canon, making a total descent of nearly 1700 feet. Above the cascades the main stream passes through a series of open, sunny levels, the largest of which are about an acre in size, where the wild bees and their companions were feasting 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 we have 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 was one vast bee-pasture, a rolling wil- derness of honey-bloom, scarcely broken 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 general north- erly direction to Nevada and along the eastern base of the Sierra beyond Mono Lake.
THE BEE-PASTUEES 381
The greater portion of this immense region, in- chiding Owen's Valley, Death Valley, and the Sink of the Mohave, the area of which is nearly one fifth that of the entire State, is nsnally regarded as a desert, not because of any lack in the soil, but for want of rain, and rivers available for irrigation. Very little of it, however, is desert in the eyes of a bee.
Looking now over all the available pastures of California, it appears that the business of bee- keeping is still in its infancy. Even in the more enterprising of the southern counties, where so vig- orous a beginning has been made, less than a tenth of their honey resources have as yet been devel- oped ; while in the Great Plain, the Coast Ranges, the Sierra Nevada, and the northern region about Mount Shasta, the business can hardly be said to exist at all. What the limits of its developments in the future may be, with the advantages of cheaper transportation and the invention of better methods in general, it is not easy to guess. Nor, on the other hand, are we able to ineasure the influence on bee interests likely to follow the de- struction of the forests, now rapidly falling before fire and the ax. As to the sheep evil, that can hardly become greater than it is at the present day. In short, notwithstanding the wide-spread deterioration and destruction of every kind already effected, California, with her incomparable climate and flora, is still, as far as I know, the best of all the bee-lauds of the world.
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