OUR NATIONAL 93 ON 4 LWA WEN aay Cae HARVARD UNIVERSITY Ls LIBRARY OF THE Museum of Comparative Zoology DEPOSITED IN THE LIBRARY OF THE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORIES Tah Mae A | chy a oie NE ; vi ee pet a tae 6 2 Ftc, ifs GROVE (Page 134) , MARIPOSA SEQUOIAS HAE MEME MEME NE MEM Mee ACME M MEME NE MEME ME NE EME NEMEC) OUR NATIONAL PARKS s BY JOHN MUIR BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY : Che Vivergide Press, Cambridge (3) 1901 (os) s SS t) Y + 49, UERELE ELLE RRR LAER EL EERE LEER ER REN COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY JOHN MUIR ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published November, root. MUS. COMP. 7001 LIBRA a3 — =*- ont Git #3) if TO CHARLES SPRAGUE SARGENT STEADFAST LOVER AND DEFENDER OF OUR COUNTRY’S FORESTS THIS LITTLE BOOK Js Affectionatelp Dedicated é mi wet hy rieei ye PREFACE In this book, made up of sketches first pub- lished in the Atlantic Monthly, I have done the best I could to show forth the beauty, gran- deur, and all-embracing usefulness of our wild mountain forest reservations and parks, with a view to inciting the people to come and enjoy them, and get them into their hearts, that so at length their preservation and right use might be made sure MARTINEZ, CALIFORNIA September, 1901 ‘ f ae CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. THe Witp Parks AND ForEST RESERVATIONS ORMTREE WABSTY 1a, a) (Stil ey ved! uceils to), /ary es Acbawy ects porns eed II. Tuk YELLOwsToNE NATIONAL PARK... . . 37 Ill. Tue Yosemite NatTionaL ParK ..... . 16 IV. THe Forests oF THE YOSEMITE PARK ... . 98 V. THE WILD GARDENS OF THE YOSEMITE ParK . 137 VI. AMoNnG THE ANIMALS OF THE YOSEMITE .. . 172 VII. AmMonG THE BIRDS OF THE YOSEMITE... . 213 VIII. THe FountTAINS AND STREAMS OF THE YOSEMITE INAVRTONAT ECARKa\Ceasoliveuitah mals elt atyioh Ceialionnn aieeel IX. THe SEQUOIA AND GENERAL GRANT NATIONAL TVARKS cc Miele nical Wiel Maly ciel lela seuligemee NN ae? tenbe cite 2OS XS Dr AMERICAN HORESTS, “J 60S ae. BBL Ne Nivea LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Sequoras, Marreosa GROVE (page 134) . Frontispiece Forrest RESERVES AND NATIONAL PARKS IN WESTERN UNITED STATES .. pees i 2 From a map furnished iy the obnctony of ‘he United States Geological Survey. PAVEMENT OF BASALTIC COLUMNS WORN BY GLACIAL AcTIoN, YOSEMITE NATIONAL PaRK ..... . 86 TmeeR LINE At THOUSAND IstET LAKE, NEAR MrT. Ritter, YOSEMITE NATIONAL Park .... . . 100 AZALEA THICKET, YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK .. . . 146 ONE oF THE Kings RIVER ee SIERRA FOREST RESERVE... A : . 210 View FROM GLACIER Powe Veuve aes iee 228 Yosemite Woops IN WINTER. ....... - ~ 250 TUOLUMNE CASCADE, YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK . . . 258 Youne Big TREE FELLED FOR SHINGLES. ... . . 298 A LocHovusEt or One Loc, Giant Forest oF THE Ka- WUARUAVER Ig) cle ste : Seite Mephorae eamncaniantoUG RoaD THROUGH THE Srquoras, Manpooa GROVE. . . 350 OUR NATIONAL PARKS CHAPTER I THE WILD PARKS AND FOREST RESERVATIONS OF THE WEST “Keep not standing fix’d and rooted, Briskly venture, briskly roam ; Head and hand, where’er thou foot it, And stout heart are still at home. In each land the sun does visit We are gay, whate’er betide: To give room for wandering is it That the world was made so wide.” THE tendency nowadays to wander in wilder- nesses is delightful to see. ‘Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that gomg to the mountains 1s going home; that wildness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life. Awakening from the stupefying effects of the vice of over-industry and the deadly apathy of luxury, they are trying as best they can to mix and enrich their own little ongoings with those of Nature, and to get rid of rust and disease. Briskly venturing and 2 OUR NATIONAL PARKS roaming, some are washing off sins and cobweb cares of the devil’s spinning in all-day storms on mountains ; sauntering in rosiny pinewoods or in gentian meadows, brushing through chaparral, bending down and parting sweet, flowery sprays ; tracing rivers to their sources, getting in touch with the nerves of Mother Earth ; jumping from rock to rock, feeling the life of them, learning the songs of them, panting in whole-souled exer- cise, and rejoicing in deep, long-drawn breaths of pure wildness. This is fine and natural and full of promise. So also is the growimg in- terest in the care and preservation of forests and wild places in general, and in the half wild parks and gardens of towns. Even the scenery habit in its most artificial forms, mixed with spectacles, silliness, and kodaks; its devotees arrayed more gorgeously than scarlet tanagers, frightening the wild game with red umbrellas, —even this is encouraging, and may well be regarded as a hopeful sign of the times. All the Western mountains are still rich in wildness, and by means of good roads are being brought nearer civilization every year. To the sane and free it will hardly seem necessary to cross the continent in search of wild beauty, however easy the way, for they find it m abun- dance wherever they chance to be. Like Tho- reau they see forests in orchards and patches of huckleberry brush, and oceans in ponds and BIGHORN BLACK HILLS S ie AN FRANCISco MOUNTAaIn's ! MAp SHOWING at LOCATION AND EXTENT FOREST RESERVES & NATIONAL PARKS WESTERN UNITED STATES To 8rd, August, 1901. Seale of Miles === 0 50 =-100 200 300 400 [===] FOREST RESERVES GEREN NATIONAL PARKS 107 C.J PETERS & SON ENCRS, BOSTON WILD PARKS OF THE WEST 3 drops of dew. Few in these hot, dim, strenuous times are quite sane or free; choked with care like clocks full of dust, laboriously doing so much good and making so much money, — or so little, — they are no longer good for themselves. When, like a merchant taking a list of his goods, we take stock of our wildness, we are glad to see how much of even the most destruc- tible kind is still unspoiled. Looking at our continent as scenery when it was all wild, lying between beautiful seas, the starry sky above it, the starry rocks beneath it, to compare its sides, the East and the West, would be like comparing the sides of a rainbow. But it is no longer equally beautiful. The rainbows of to-day are, I suppose, as bright as those that first spanned the sky; and some of our landscapes are grow- ing more beautiful from year to year, notwith- standing the clearing, trampling work of civili- zation. New plants and animals are enriching woods and gardens, and many landscapes wholly new, with divine sculpture and architecture, are just now coming to the light of day as the man- tling folds of creative glaciers are being with- drawn, and life in a thousand cheerful, beautiful forms is pushing into them, and new-born rivers are beginning to sing and shine in them. The old rivers, too, are growing longer, like healthy trees, gaining new branches and lakes as the residual glaciers at their highest sources on the 4 OUR NATIONAL PARKS mountains recede, while the rootlike branches in their flat deltas are at the same time spreading farther and wider into the seas and making new lands. Under the control of the vast mysterious forces of the interior of the earth all the conti- nents and islands are slowly rismg or sinking. Most of the mountains are diminishing in size under the wearing action of the weather, though a few are increasing in height and girth, espe- cially the volcanic ones, as fresh floods of molten rocks are piled on their summits and spread in successive layers, like the wood-rings of trees, on their sides. New mountains, also, are being cre- ated from time to time as islands in lakes and seas, or as subordinate cones on the slopes of old ones, thus in some measure balancing the waste of old beauty with new. Man, too, is making many far-reaching changes. This most influ- ential half animal, half angel is rapidly multiply- ing and spreading, covering the seas and lakes with ships, the land with huts, hotels, cathedrals, and clustered city shops and homes, so that soon, it would seem, we may have to go farther than Nansen to find a good sound solitude. None of Nature’s landscapes are ugly so long as they are wild; and much, we can say comfortingly, must always be in great part wild, particularly the sea and the sky, the floods of light from the stars, and the warm, unspoilable heart of the earth, WILD PARKS OF THE WEST 5 infinitely beautiful, though only dimly visible to the eye of imagination. The geysers, too, spouting from the hot underworld ; the steady, long-lasting glaciers on the mountains, obedient only to the sun; Yosemite domes and the tre- mendous grandeur of rocky cafions and moun- tains in general,— these must always be wild, for man can change them and mar them hardly more than can the butterflies that hover above them. But the continent’s outer beauty is fast passing’ away, especially the plant part of it, the most destructible and most universally charming of all. Only thirty years ago, the great Central Val- ley of California, five hundred miles long and fifty miles wide, was one bed of golden and pur- ple flowers. Now it is ploughed and pastured out of existence, gone forever, — scarce a mem- ory of it left in fence corners and along the bluffs of the streams. The gardens of the Si- erra, also, and the noble forests in both the re- served and unreserved portions are sadly hacked and trampled, notwithstanding the ruggedness of the topography, — all excepting those of the parks guarded by a few soldiers. In the noblest forests of the world, the ground, once divinely beautiful, is desolate and repulsive, like a face ravaged by disease. This is true also of many other Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountain valleys and forests. The same fate, sooner or later, is 6 OUR NATIONAL PARKS awaiting them all, unless awakening public opin- ion comes forward to stop it. Even the great deserts in Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and New Mex- ico, which offer so little to attract settlers, and which a few years ago pioneers were afraid of, as places of desolation and death, are now taken as pastures at the rate of one or two square miles per cow, and of course their plant treasures are passing away, — the delicate abronias, phloxes, gilias, etc. Only a few of the bitter, thorny, unbitable shrubs are left, and the sturdy cactuses that defend themselves with bayonets and spears. Most of the wild plant wealth of the Hast also has vanished, — gone into dusty history. Only vestiges of its glorious prairie and woodland wealth remain to bless humanity in boggy, rocky, unploughable places. Fortunately, some of these are purely wild, and go far to keep Nature’s love visible. White water-liles, with rootstocks deep and safe in mud, still send up every summer a Milky Way of starry, fragrant flowers around a thousand lakes, and many a tuft of wild grass waves its panicles on mossy rocks, beyond reach of trampling feet, in company with saxifrages, bluebells, and ferns. Even in the midst of farm- ers’ fields, precious sphagnum bogs, too soft for the feet of cattle, are preserved with their charming plants unchanged, — chiogenes, An- dromeda, Kalmia, Linnea, Arethusa, etc. Ca- WILD PARKS OF THE WEST 7 lypso borealis still hides in the arbor vitee swamps of Canada, and away to the southward there are a few unspoiled swamps, big’ ones, where miasma, snakes, and alligators, ike guardian angels, de- fend their treasures and keep them as pure as paradise. And beside a’ that and a’ that, the Kast is blessed with good winters and blossoming clouds that shed white flowers over all the land, covering every scar and making the saddest land- scape divine at least once a year. The most extensive, least spoiled, and most unspoilable of the gardens of the continent are the vast tundras of Alaska. In summer they extend smooth, even, undulating, continuous beds of flowers and leaves from about lat. 62° to the shores of the Arctic Ocean; and in winter sheets of snowflowers make all the country shine, one mass of white radiance like a star. Nor are these Arctic plant people the pitiful frost-pinched unfortunates they are guessed to be by those who have never seen them. Though lowly in stature, keeping near the frozen ground as ‘if loving it, they are bright and cheery, and speak Nature’s love as plainly as their big relatives of the South. Tenderly happed and tucked im beneath downy snow to sleep through the long, white winter, they make haste to bloom in the spring without trying to grow tall, though some rise high enough to ripple and wave in the wind, and display masses of color, — yellow, purple, and blue, — so 8 OUR NATIONAL PARKS rich that they look like beds of rainbows, and are visible miles and miles away. As early as June one may find the showy Geum glaciale in flower, and the dwarf willows putting forth myriads of fuzzy catkins, to be followed quickly, especially on the dryer ground, by mer- tensia, eritrichium, polemonium, oxytropis, astra- galus, lathyrus, lupinus, myosotis, dodecatheon, -arnica, chrysanthemum, nardosmia, saussurea, senecio, erigeron, matrecaria, caltha, valeriana, stellaria, Tofieldia, polygonum, papaver, phlox, lychnis, cheiranthus, Linnza, and a host of dra- bas, saxifrages, and heathworts, with bright stars and bells in glorious profusion, particularly Cassi- ope, Andromeda, ledum, pyrola, and vaccinium, —Cassiope the most abundant and beautiful of them all. Many grasses also grow here, and wave fine purple spikes and panicles over the other flowers, — poa, aira, calamagrostis, alope- curus, trisetum, elymus, festuca, glyceria, etc. Even ferns are found thus far north, carefully and comfortably unrolling their precious fronds, —aspidium, cystopteris, and woodsia, all grow- - ing on a sumptuous bed of mosses and lichens ; not the scaly lichens seen on rails and trees and fallen logs to the southward, but massive, round- headed, finely colored plants like corals, wonder- fully beautiful, worth going round the world to see. I should like to mention all the plant _ friends I found in a summer’s wanderings in WILD PARKS OF THE WEST 9 this cool reserve, but I fear few would care to read their names, although everybody, I am sure, would love them could they see them blooming and rejoicing at home. On my last visit to the region about Kotzebue Sound, near the middle of September, 1881, the weather was so fine and mellow that it suggested the Indian summer of the Hastern States. The winds were hushed, the tundra glowed in creamy golden sunshine, and the colors of the ripe foli- age of the heathworts, willows, and birch — red, purple, and yellow, in pure bright tones — were enriched with those of berries which were scat- tered everywhere, as if they had been showered from the clouds like hail. When I was back a mile or two from the shore, reveling in this color- glory, and thinking how fine it would be could I cut a square of the tundra sod of conventional picture size, frame it, and hang it among the paintings on my study walls at home, saying to myself, “Such a Nature painting taken at ran- dom from any part of the thousand-mile bog would make the other pictures look dim and coarse,” I heard merry shouting, and, looking round, saw a band of Eskimos— men, women, and children, loose and hairy lke wild animals —running towards me. I could not guess at first what they were seeking, for they seldom leave the shore; but soon they told me, as they threw themselves down, sprawling and laughing, ~ 10 OUR NATIONAL PARKS on the mellow bog, and began to feast on the berries. A lively picture they made, and a pleas- ant one, as they frightened the whirring ptarmi- gans, and surprised their oily stomachs with the beautiful acid berries of many kinds, and filled sealskin bags with them to carry away for festive days in winter. Nowhere else on my travels have I seen so much warm-blooded, rejoicing life as in this grand Arctic reservation, by so many regarded as desolate. Not only are there whales in abun- dance along the shores, and innumerable seals, walruses, and white bears, but on the tundras great herds of fat reindeer and wild sheep, foxes, hares, mice, piping marmots, and birds. Perhaps more birds are born here than in any other re- gion of equal extent on the continent. Not only do strong-winged hawks, eagles, and water-fowl, to whom the length of the continent is merely a pleasant excursion, come up here every summer in great numbers, but also many short-winged warblers, thrushes, and finches, repairing hither to rear their young in safety, reinforce the plant bloom with their plumage, and sweeten the wil- derness with song; flying all the way, some of them, from Florida, Mexico, and Central Amer- ica. In coming north they are coming home, for they were born here, and they go south only to spend the winter months, as New Englanders go to Florida. Sweet-voiced troubadours, they WILD PARKS OF THE WEST 11 sing’ in orange groves and vine-clad magnolia woods in winter, in thickets of dwarf birch and alder in summer, and sing and chatter more or less all the way back and forth, keeping the whole country glad. Oftentimes, in New Eng- land, just as the last snow-patches are melting and the sap in the maples begins to flow, the blessed wanderers may be heard about orchards and the edges of fields where they have stopped to glean a scanty meal, not tarrying long, know- ing they have far to go. Tracing the footsteps of spring, they arrive in their tundra homes in June or July, and set out on their return journey in September, or as soon as their families are able to fly well. This is Nature’s own reservation, and every lover of wildness will rejoice with me that by kindly frost it is so well defended. The discov- ery lately made that it is sprinkled with gold may cause some alarm; for the strangely excit- ing stuff makes the timid: bold enough for any- thing, and the lazy destructively industrious. Thousands at least half insane are now pushing their way into it, some by the southern passes over the mountains, perchance the first moun- tains they have ever seen,— sprawling, strug- gling, gasping for breath, as, laden with awkward, merciless burdens of provisions and tools, they climb over rough-angled boulders and cross thin miry bogs. Some are going by the mountains 12 OUR NATIONAL PARKS and rivers to the eastward through Canada, tracing the old romantic ways of the Hudson Bay traders; others by Bering Sea and the Yu- kon, sailing all the way, getting glimpses per- haps of the famous fur-seals, the ice-floes, and the mnumerable islands and bars of the great Alaska river. In spite of frowning hardships and the frozen ground, the Klondike gold will increase the crusading crowds for years to come, but comparatively little harm will be done. Holes will be burned and dug into the hard ground here and there, and into the quartz-ribbed mountains and hills; ragged towns like beaver and muskrat villages will be built, and mills and locomotives will make rumbling, screeching, dis- enchanting noises ; but the miner’s pick will not be followed far by the plough, at least not until Nature is ready to unlock the frozen soil-beds with her slow-turning climate key. On the other hand, the roads of the pioneer miners will lead many a lover of wildness into the heart of the reserve, who without them would never see it. In the meantime, the wildest health and plea- sure grounds accessible and available to tourists seeking escape from care and dust and early death are the parks and reservations of the West. There are four national parks,,— the Yellow- stone, Yosemite, General Grant, and Sequoia, — all within easy reach, and thirty forest reserva- 1 There are now five parks and thirty-eight reservations. WILD PARKS OF THE WEST 13 tions, a magnificent realm of woods, most of which, by railroads and trails and open ridges, is also fairly accessible, not only to the determined traveler rejoicing in difficulties, but to those (may their tribe increase) who, not tired, not sick, just naturally take wing every summer in search of wildness. The forty million acres of these re- serves are in the main unspoiled as yet, though sadly wasted and threatened on their more open margins by the axe and fire of the lumberman and prospector, and by hoofed locusts, which, like the winged ones, devour every leaf within reach, while the shepherds and owners set fires with the intention of making a blade of grass grow in the place of every tree, but with the re- sult of killing both the grass and the trees. In the million acre Black Hills Reserve of South Dakota, the easternmost of the great forest reserves, made for the sake of the farmers and miners, there are delightful, reviving sauntering- grounds in open parks of yellow pine, planted well apart, allowing plenty of sunshine to warm the ground. This tree is one of the most variable and most widely distributed of American pines. It grows sturdily on all kinds of soil and rocks, and, protected by a mail of thick bark, defies frost and fire and disease alike, daring every dan- ger in firm, calm beauty and strength. It occurs here mostly on the outer hills and slopes where no other tree can grow. The ground beneath it 14 OUR NATIONAL PARKS is yellow most of the summer with showy Wythia, arnica, applopappus, solidago, and other sun-lov- ing plants, which, though they form no heavy entangling growth, yet give abundance of color and make all the woods a garden. Beyond the yellow pine woods there hes a world of rocks of wildest architecture, broken, splintery, and spiky, not very high, but the strangest in form and style of grouping imaginable. Countless towers and spires, pinnacles and slender domed columns, are crowded together, and feathered with sharp-pointed Engelmann spruces, making curiously mixed forests, — half trees, half rocks. Level gardens here and there in the midst of them offer charming surprises, and so do the many small lakes with lilies on their meadowy borders, and bluebells, anemones, daises, castil- leias, comandras, etc., together forming land- scapes delightfully novel, and made still wilder by many interesting animals, — elk, deer, beavers, wolves, squirrels, and birds. Not very long ago this was the richest of all the red man’s hunting- grounds hereabout. After the season’s buffalo hunts were over,—as described by Parkman, who, with a picturesque cavalcade of Sioux sav- ages, passed through these famous hills in 1846, — every winter deficiency was here made good, and hunger was unknown until, in spite of most determined, fighting, killing opposition, the white gold-hunters entered the fat game reserve WILD PARKS OF THE WEST | 15 and spoiled it. The Indians are dead now, and so are most of the hardly less striking free trap- pers of the early romantic Rocky Mountain times. Arrows, bullets, scalping-knives, need no longer be feared ; and all the wilderness is peace- fully open. The Rocky Mountain reserves are the Teton, Yellowstone, Lewis and Clark, Bitter Root, Priest River and Flathead, comprehending more than twelve million acres of mostly unclaimed, rough, forest-covered mountains in which the great rivers of the country take their rise. The commonest tree in most of them is the brave, indomitable, and altogether admirable Pinus contorta, widely distri- buted in all kinds of climate and soil, growing cheerily in frosty Alaska, breathing the damp salt air of the sea as well as the dry biting blasts of the Arctic interior, and making itself at home on the most dangerous flame-swept slopes and ridges of the Rocky Mountains in immeasurable abundance and variety of forms. Thousands of acres of this species are destroyed by running fires nearly every summer, but a new growth springs quickly from the ashes. It is generally small, and yields few sawlogs of commercial value, but is of incalculable importance to the farmer and miner; supplying fencing, mine timbers, and firewood, holding the porous soil on steep slopes, preventing landslips and ava- lanches, and giving kindly, nourishing shelter to 16 OUR NATIONAL PARKS animals and the widely outspread sources of the life-giving rivers. The other trees are mostly spruce, mountain pine, cedar, juniper, larch, and balsam fir; some of them, especially on the western slopes of the mountains, attaming grand ‘size and furnishing abundance of fine timber. Perhaps the least known of all this grand group of reserves is the Bittér Root, of more than four million acres. It is the wildest, shag- giest block of forest wildness in the Rocky Mountains, full of happy, healthy, storm-loving trees, full of streams that dance and sing in glorious array, and full of Nature’s animals, — elk, deer, wild sheep, bears, cats, and mnumer- able smaller people. In calm Indian summer, when the heavy winds are hushed, the vast forests covering hill and dale, rising and falling over the rough topo- graphy and vanishing in the distance, seem lifeless. No moving thing is seen as we climb the peaks, and only the low, mellow murmur of falling water is heard, which seems to thicken the silence. Nevertheless, how many hearts with warm red blood in them are beating under cover of the woods, and how many teeth and eyes are shinmg! A multitude of animal people, inti- mately related to us, but of whose lives we know almost nothing, are as busy about their own affairs as we are about ours: beavers are build- ing and mending dams and huts for winter, and WILD PARKS OF THE WEST 17 stormg them with food; bears are studying winter quarters as they stand thoughtful in open spaces, while the gentle breeze ruffles the long hair on their backs; elk and deer, assembling on the heights, are considering cold pastures where they will be farthest away from the wolves ; squirrels and marmots are busily laying up provisions and lining their nests against com- ing frost and snow foreseen; and countless thousands of birds are forming parties and gath- ering their young about them for flight to the southlands; while butterflies and bees, appar- ently with no thought of hard times to come, are hovering above the late-blooming goldenrods, and, with countless other insect folk, are danc- ing and humming right merrily in the sunbeams and shaking all the air into music. Wander here a whole summer, if you can. Thousands of God’s wild blessings will search you and soak you as if you were a sponge, and the big days will go by uncounted. If you are business-tangled, and so burdened with duty that only weeks can be got out of the heavy- laden year, then go to the Flathead Reserve ; for it is easily and quickly reached by the Great Northern Railroad. Get off the track at Belton Station, and in a few minutes you will find your- self in the midst of what you are sure to say is the best care-killing scenery on the continent, — beautiful lakes derived straight from glaciers, 18 OUR NATIONAL PARKS lofty mountains steeped in lovely nemophila-blue skies and clad with forests and glaciers, mossy, ferny waterfalls in their hollows, nameless and numberless, and meadowy gardens abounding in the best of everything. When you are calm enough for discriminating observation, you will find the king of the larches, one of the best of the Western giants, beautiful, picturesque, and regal in port, easily the grandest of all the larches in the world. It grows toa height of one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet, with a diameter at the ground of five to eight feet, throwing out its branches into the light as no other tree does. To those who before have seen only the European larch or the Lyall species of the eastern Rocky Mountains, or the little tama- rack or hackmatack of the Eastern States and Canada, this Western king must be a revelation. Associated with this grand tree in the making of the Flathead forests is the large and beautiful mountain pine, or Western white pine (Pinus monticola), the invincible contorta or lodge-pole pine, and spruce and cedar. The forest floor is covered with the richest beds of Linnza borealis I ever saw, thick fragrant carpets, enriched with shining mosses here and there, and with Clin- tonia, pyrola, moneses, and vaccinium, weaving hundred-mile beds of bloom that would have made blessed old Linnzus weep for joy. Lake McDonald, full of brisk trout, is in the WILD PARKS OF THE WEST 19 heart of this forest, and Avalanche Lake is ten miles above McDonald, at the feet of a group of glacier-laden mountains. Give a month at least to this precious reserve. The time will not be taken from the sum of your life. Instead of shortening, it will mdefinitely lengthen it and make you truly immortal. Nevermore will time seem short or long, and cares will never again fall heavily on you, but gently and kindly as gifts from heaven. The vast Pacific Coast reserves in Washington and Oregon — the Cascade, Washington, Mount Rainier, Olympic, Bull Run, and Ashland, named in order of size —include more than 12,500,000 acres of magnificent forests of beautiful and gigantic trees. They extend over the wild, un- explored Olympic Mountains and both flanks of the Cascade Range, the wet and the dry. On the east side of the Cascades the woods are sunny and open, and contain principally yellow pine, of moderate size, but of great value as a cover for the irrigating streams that flow into the dry in- terior, where agriculture on a grand scale is being carried on. Along the moist, balmy, foggy, west flank of the mountains, facing the sea, the woods reach their highest development, and, ex- cepting the California redwoods, are the heaviest on the continent. They are made up mostly of the Douglas spruce (Pseudotsuga taxifolia), with the giant arbor vite, or cedar, and several species 20 OUR NATIONAL PARKS of fir and hemlock in varying abundance, form- ing a forest kingdom unlike any other, in which limb meets limb, touching and overlapping in bright, lively, triumphant exuberance, two hun- dred and fifty, three hundred, and even four hundred feet above the shady, mossy ground. Over all the other species the Douglas spruce reigns supreme. It is not only a large tree, the tallest in America next to the redwood, but a very beautiful one, with bright green drooping foliage, handsome pendent cones, and a shaft exquisitely straight and round and reg- ular. Forming extensive forests by itself in many places, it lifts its spiry tops ito the sky close together with as even a growth as a well- tilled field of grain. No ground has been bet- ter tilled for wheat than these Cascade Moun- tains for trees: they were ploughed by mighty glaciers, and harrowed and mellowed and out- spread by the broad streams that flowed from the ice-ploughs as they were withdrawn at the close of the glacial period. In proportion to its weight when dry, Douglas spruce timber is perhaps stronger than that of any other large conifer in the country, and being tough, durable, and elastic, it is admirably suited for ship-building, piles, and heavy timbers in general; but its hardness and liability to warp when it is cut into boards render it unfit for fine work. In the lumber markets of California it is WILD PARKS OF THE WEST 21 called “ Oregon pine.’ When lumbering is going on in the best Douglas woods, especially about Puget Sound, many of the long, slender boles are saved for spars; and so superior is their quality that they are called for in almost every shipyard in the world, and it is interesting to follow their fortunes. Felled and peeled and dragged to tide-water, they are raised again as yards and masts for ships, given iron roots and canvas foliage, decorated with flags, and sent to sea, where in glad motion they go cheerily over the ocean prairie in every latitude and longitude, singing and bowing responsive to the same winds that waved them when they were in the woods. After standing in one place for centuries they thus go round the world like tourists, meeting many a friend from the old home forest ; some traveling like themselves, some standing head downward in muddy harbors, holding up the platforms of wharves, and others doing all kinds of hard timber work, showy or hidden. This wonderful tree also grows far northward in British Columbia, and southward along the coast and middle regions of Oregon and Califor- nia; flourishing with the redwood wherever it can find an opening, and with the sugar pine, yellow pine, and libocedrus in the Sierra. It ex- tends into the San Gabriel, San Bernardino, and San Jacinto Mountains of southern California. It also grows well on the Wasatch Mountains, 22 OUR NATIONAL PARKS where it is called “ red pine,” and on many parts of the Rocky Mountains and short interior ranges of the Great Basin. But though thus widely distributed, only in Oregon, Washington, and some parts of British Columbia does it reach per- fect development. To one who looks from some high standpoint over its vast breadth, the forest on the west side of the Cascades seems all one dim, dark, monoto- nous field, broken only by the white volcanic cones along the summit of the range. Back in the untrodden wilderness a deep furred carpet of brown and yellow mosses covers the ground like a garment, pressing about the feet of the trees, and rising in rich bosses softly and kindly over every rock and mouldering trunk, leaving no spot uncared for; and dotting small prairies, and fringing the meadows and the banks of streams not seen in general views, we find, besides the great conifers, a considerable number of hard- wood trees, — oak, ash, maple, alder, wild apple, cherry, arbutus, Nuttall’s flowermg dogwood, and in some places chestnut. In a few favored spots the broad-leaved maple grows to a height of a hundred feet in forests by itself, sending out large imbs in magnificent interlacing arches cov- ered with mosses and ferns, thus forming lofty sky-gardens, and rendering the underwoods de- lightfully cool. No finer forest ceiling is to be found than these maple arches, while the floor, WILD PARKS OF THE WEST 23 ornamented with tall ferns and rubus vines, and east into hillocks by the bulging, moss-covered roots of the trees, matches it well. Passing from beneath the heavy shadows of the woods, almost anywhere one steps into lovely gardens of lilies, orchids, heathworts, and wild roses. Along the lower slopes, especially in Ore- gon, where the woods are less dense, there are miles of rhododendron, making glorious masses of purple in the spring, while all about the streams and the lakes and the beaver meadows there is a rich tangle of hazel, plum, cherry, erab-apple, cornel, gaultheria, and rubus, with myriads of flowers and abundance of other more delicate bloomers, such as erythronium, brodiza, fritillaria, calochortus, Clintonia, and the lovely hider of the north, Calypso. Beside all these bloomers there are wonderful ferneries about the many misty waterfalls, some of the fronds ten feet high, others the most delicate of their tribe, the maidenhair fringing the rocks within reach of the lightest dust of the spray, while the shading trees on the cliffs above them, leaning: over, look like eager listeners anxious to catch every tone of the restless waters. In the autumn berries of every color and flavor abound, enough for birds, bears, and everybody, particularly about the stream-sides and meadows where sunshine reaches the ground : huckleberries, red, blue, and black, some growing close to the ground others on 24 OUR NATIONAL PARKS bushes ten feet high; gaultheria berries, called “ sal-al”’ by the Indians ; salmon berries, an inch in diameter, growing in dense prickly tangles, the flowers, like wild roses, still more beautiful than the fruit; raspberries, gooseberries, currants, blackberries, and strawberries. The underbrush and meadow fringes are in great part made up of these berry bushes and vines; but in the depths of the woods there is not much underbrush of any kind, — only a thin growth of rubus, huckle- berry, and vine-maple. Notwithstanding the outcry against the reser- vations last winter in Washington, that un- counted farms, towns, and villages were included in them, and that all business was threatened or blocked, nearly all the mountains in which the reserves lie are still covered with virgin forests. Though lumbering has long been carried on with tremendous energy along their boundaries, and home-seekers have explored the woods for open- ings available for farms, however small, one may wander in the heart of the reserves for weeks without meeting a human being, Indian or white man, or any conspicuous trace of one. Indians used to ascend the main streams on their way to the mountains for wild goats, whose wool fur- nished them clothing. But with food im abun- dance on the coast there was little to draw them into the woods, and the monuments they have left there are scarcely more conspicuous than WILD PARKS OF THE WEST 25 those of birds and squirrels; far less so than those of the beavers, which have dammed streams and made clearings that will endure for centu- ries. Nor is there much in these woods to at- tract cattle-keepers. Some of the first settlers made farms on the small bits of prairie and in the comparatively open Cowlitz and Chehalis valleys of Washington; but before the gold period most of the immigrants from the Eastern States settled in the fertile and open Willamette Valley of Oregon. Even now, when the search for tillable land is so keen, excepting the bottom- lands of the rivers around Puget Sound, there are few cleared spots in all western Washington. On every meadow or opening of any sort some one will be found keeping cattle, raising hops, or cultivating patches of grain, but these spots are few and far between. All the larger spaces were taken long ago; therefore most of the newcomers build their cabins where the beavers built thers. They keep a few cows, laboriously widen their little meadow openings by hacking, girdling, and burning the rim of the close-press- ing’ forest, and scratch and plant among the huge blackened logs and stumps, girdlng and killing themselves in killing the trees. Most of the farm lands of Washington and Oregon, excepting the valleys of the Willamette and Rogue rivers, lie on the east side of the mountains. The forests on the eastern slopes 26 OUR NATIONAL PARKS of the Cascades fail altogether ere the foot of the range is reached, stayed by drought as sud- denly as on the west side they are stopped by the sea; showing strikingly how dependent are these forest giants on the generous rains and fogs so often complained of in the coast climate. The lower portions of the reserves are solemnly soaked and poulticed in rain and fog during the winter months, and there is a sad dearth of sun- shine, but with a little knowledge of woodcraft any one may enjoy an excursion into these woods — even in the rainy season. ‘The big, gray days are exhilarating, and the colors of leaf and branch and mossy bole are then at their best. The mighty trees getting their food are seen to be wide-awake, every needle thrilling in the wel- come nourishing storms, chanting and bowing low in glorious harmony, while every raindrop and snowflake is seen as a beneficent messenger from the sky. The snow that falls on the lower woods is mostly soft, coming through the trees in downy tufts, loading their branches, and bend- ing them down against the trunks until they look like arrows, while a strange muffled silence prevails, making everything impressively solemn. But these lowland snowstorms and their effects quickly vanish. The snow melts in a day or two, sometimes in a few hours, the bent branches spring up again, and all the forest work is left to the fog and the rain. At the same time, dry WILD PARKS OF THE WEST 27 snow 1s falling on the upper forests and moun- tain tops. Day after day, often for weeks, the big clouds give their flowers without ceasing, as if knowing how important is the work they have todo. The glinting, swirlmg swarms thicken the blast, and the trees and rocks are covered to a depth of ten to twenty feet. Then the mountaineer, snug in a grove with bread and fire, has nothing to do but gaze and listen and enjoy. ver and anon the deep, low roar of the storm is broken by the booming of avalanches, as the snow slips from the overladen heights and rushes down the long white slopes to fill the fountain hollows. All the smaller streams are hushed and buried, and the young groves of spruce and fir near the edge of the timber-line are gently bowed to the ground and put to sleep, not again to see the light of day or stir branch or leaf until the spring. These grand reservations should draw thou- sands of admiring visitors at least in summer, yet they are neglected as if of no account, and spoil- ers are allowed to ruin them as fast as they like.’ A few peeled spars cut here were set up in Lon- don, Philadelphia, and Chicago, where they 1 The outlook over forest affairs is now encouraging. Popular in- terest, more practical than sentimental in whatever touches the welfare of the country’s forests, is growing rapidly, and a hopeful begin- ning has been made by the Government in real protection for the res- ervations as well as for the parks. From July 1, 1900, there have been 9 superintendents, 39 supervisors, and from 330 to 445 rangers of reservations. 28 OUR NATIONAL PARKS excited wondering attention; but the countless hosts of living trees rejoicing at home on the mountains are scarce considered at all. Most travelers here are content with what they can see from car windows or the verandas of hotels, and in going from place to place cling to their pre- cious trains and stages like wrecked sailors to rafts. When an excursion into the woods is proposed, all sorts of dangers are imagined, — snakes, bears, Indians. Yet it is far safer to wander in God’s woods than to travel on black highways or to stayat home. The snake danger is so slight it is hardly worth mentioning. Bears are a peaceable people, and mind their own busi- ness, instead of going about like the devil seeking whom they may devour. Poor fellows, they have been poisoned, trapped, and shot at until they have lost confidence in brother man, and it is not now easy to make their acquaintance. As to Indians, most of them are dead or civilized into useless innocence. No American wilderness that I know of is so dangerous as a city home “ with all the modern improvements.’ One should go to the woods for safety, if for nothing else. Lewis and Clark, in their famous trip across the conti- nent in 1804-1805, did not lose a single man by Indians or animals, though all the West was then wild. Captain Clark was bitten on the hand as he lay asleep. That was one bite among more than a hundred men while traveling nine thou- WILD PARKS OF THE WEST 29 sand miles. Loggers are far more likely to be met than Indians or bears in the reserves or about their boundaries, brown weather-tanned men with faces furrowed like bark, tired-looking, moving slowly, swaying like the trees they chop. A little of everything in the woods is fastened to their clothing, rosiny and smeared with balsam, and rubbed into it, so that their scanty outer gar- ments grow thicker with use and never wear out. Many a forest giant have these old woodmen felled, but, round-shouldered and stooping, they too are leaning over and tottering to their fall. Others, however, stand ready to take their places, stout young fellows, erect as saplings; and always the foes of trees outnumber their friends. Far up the white peaks one can hardly fail to meet the wild goat, or American chamois, —an admirable mountaineer, familiar with woods and glaciers as well as rocks, — and in leafy thickets deer will be found; while gliding about unseen there are many sleek furred animals enjoying their beautiful lives, and birds also, notwithstand- ing few are noticed in hasty walks. The ousel sweetens the glens and gorges where the streams flow fastest, and every grove has its singers, how- ever silent it seems, — thrushes, linnets, warblers ; humming-birds glint about the frmging bloom of the meadows and peaks, and the lakes are stirred into lively pictures by water-fowl. The Mount Rainier Forest Reserve should be 30 OUR NATIONAL PARKS made a national park and guarded while yet its bloom is on;' for if in the making of the West Nature had what we call parks in mind, — places for rest, inspiration, and prayers, — this Rainier region must surely be one of them. In the centre of it there is a lonely mountain capped with ice; from the ice-cap glaciers radiate in every direction, and young rivers from the gla- ciers; while its flanks, sweeping down in beauti- ful curves, are clad with forests and gardens, and filled with birds and animals. Specimens of the best of Nature’s treasures have been lovingly gathered here and arranged in simple symmetrical beauty within regular bounds. Of all the fire-mountains which, like beacons, once blazed along the Pacific Coast, Mount Rainier is the noblest in form, has the most in- teresting forest cover, and, with perhaps the ex- ception of Shasta, is the highest and most flowery. Its massive white dome rises out of its forests, like a world by itself, to a height of four- teen thousand to fifteen thousand feet. The for- ests reach to a height of a little over six thousand feet, and above the forests there is a zone of the loveliest flowers, fifty miles in circuit and nearly 1 This was done shortly after the above was written. “One of the most important measures taken during the past year in connection with forest reservations was the action of Congress in withdrawing from the Mount Rainier Forest Reserve a portion of the region imme- diately surrounding Mount Rainier and setting it apart as a national park.” (Report of Commissioner of General Land Office, for the year ended June, 1899.) But the park as it now stands is far too small. WILD PARKS OF THE WEST 31 two miles wide, so closely planted and luxuriant that it seems as if Nature, glad to make an open space between woods so dense and ice so deep, were economizing the precious ground, and try- ing to see how many of her darlings she can get together in one mountain wreath, — daisies, anemones, geraniums, columbines, erythroniums, larkspurs, etc., among which we wade knee-deep and waist-deep, the bright corollas in myriads touching petal to petal. Picturesque detached groups of the spiry Abies lasiocarpa stand like islands along the lower margin of the garden zone, while on the upper margin there are exten- sive beds of bryanthus, Cassiope, Kalmia, and other heathworts, and higher still saxifrages and drabas, more and more lowly, reach up to the edge of the ice. Altogether this is the richest subalpine garden I ever found, a perfect floral elysium. The icy dome needs none of man’s care, but un- less the reserve is guarded the flower bloom will soon be killed, and nothing of the forests will be left but black stump monuments. The Sierra of California is the most openly beautiful and useful of all the forest reserves, and the largest excepting the Cascade Reserve of Oregon and the Bitter Root of Montana and Idaho. It embraces over four million acres of the grandest scenery and grandest trees on the continent, and its forests are planted just where they do the most good, not only for beauty, but 32 OUR NATIONAL PARKS for farming in the great San Joaquin Valley be- neath them. It extends southward from the Yosemite National Park to the end of the range, a distance of nearly two hundred miles. No other coniferous forest in the world contains so many species or so many large and beautiful trees, — Sequoia gigantea, king of conifers, “the noblest of a noble race,” as Sir Joseph Hooker well says; the sugar pine, king of all the world’s pines, living or extinct; the yellow pine, next in rank, which here reaches most perfect development, forming noble towers of verdure two hundred feet high; the mountain pine, which braves the coldest blasts far up the moun- tains on grim, rocky slopes; and five others, flourishing each in its place, making eight species of pine in one forest, which is still further en- riched by the great Douglas spruce, libocedrus, two species of silver fir, large trees and exquisitely beautiful, the Paton hemlock, the most graceful of evergreens, the curious tumion, oaks of many species, maples, alders, poplars, and flowering dogwood, all fringed with flowery underbrush, manzanita, ceanothus, wild rose, cherry, chestnut, and rhododendron. Wandering at random through these friendly, approachable woods, one comes here and there to the loveliest lily gardens, some of the lilies ten feet high, and the smooth- est gentian meadows, and Yosemite valleys known only to mountaineers. Once I spent a night by WILD PARKS OF THE WEST 33 a camp-fire on Mount Shasta with Asa Gray and Sir Joseph Hooker, and, knowing that they were acquainted with all the great forests of the world, I asked whether they knew any conifer- ous forest that rivaled that of the Sierra. They unhesitatingly said: “No. In the beauty and grandeur of individual trees, and in number and variety of species, the Sierra forests surpass all others.” This Sierra Reserve, proclaimed by the Presi- dent of the United States in September, 1893, is worth the most thoughtful care of the govern- ment for its own sake, without considering its value as the fountain of the rivers on which the fertility of the great San Joaquin Valley de- pends. Yet it gets no care at all. In the fog of tariff, silver, and annexation politics it is left wholly unguarded, though the management of the adjacent national parks by a few soldiers shows how well and how easily it can be pre- served. In the meantime, lumbermen are al- lowed to spoil it at their will, and sheep in uncountable ravenous hordes to trample it and devour every green leaf within reach ; while the shepherds, like destroying angels, set innumer- able fires, which burn not only the undergrowth of seedlings on which the permanence of the forest depends, but countless thousands of the venerable giants. If every citizen could take one walk through this reserve, there would be 34 OUR NATIONAL PARKS no more trouble about its care; for only in darkness does vandalism flourish.’ The reserves of southern California, — the San Gabriel, San Bernardino, San Jacinto, and Trabuco, — though not large, only about two million acres together, are perhaps the best ap- preciated. Their slopes are covered with a close, almost impenetrable growth of flowery bushes, beginning on the sides of the fertile coast valleys and the dry interior plains. Their higher ridges, however, and mountains are open, and fairly well forested with sugar pine, yellow pine, Douglas spruce, libocedrus, and white fir. As timber fountains they amount to little, but as bird and bee pastures, cover for the precious streams that irrigate the lowlands, and quickly available retreats from dust and heat and care, their value is incalculable. Good roads have been graded into them, by which in a few hours lowlanders can get well up into the sky and find refuge in hospitable camps and club-houses, where, while breathing reviving ozone, they may absorb the beauty about them, and look comfort- ably down on the busy towns and the most beautiful orange groves ever planted since gar- dening began. The Grand Canon Reserve of Arizona, of nearly two million acres, or the most interesting part of it, as well as the Rainier region, should 1 See note, p. 27. WILD PARKS OF THE WEST 35 be made into a national park, on account of their supreme grandeur and beauty. Setting out from Flagstaff, a station on the Atchison, To- peka, and Santa Fé Railroad, on the way to the canon you pass through beautiful forests of yellow pine, — like those of the Black Hills, but more extensive,—and curious dwarf forests of nut pine and juniper, the spaces between the miniature trees planted with many interesting species of erlogonum, yucca, and cactus. After riding or walking seventy-five miles through these pleasure-grounds, the San Francisco and other mountains, abounding in flowery parklke openings and smooth shallow valleys with long vistas which in fineness of finish and arrange- ment suggest the work of a consummate land- scape artist, watching you all the way, you come to the most tremendous canon in the world. It is abruptly countersunk in the forest plateau, so that you see nothing of it until you are suddenly stopped on its brink, with its immeasurable wealth of divinely colored and sculptured build- ings before you and beneath you. No matter how far you have wandered hitherto, or how many famous gorges and valleys you have seen, this one, the Grand Canon of the Colorado, will seem as novel to you, as unearthly in the color and grandeur and quantity of its architecture, as if you had found it after death, on some other star; so incomparably lovely and grand and 36 OUR NATIONAL PARKS supreme is it above all the other canons im our fire-emoulded, earthquake-shaken, rain-washed, wave-washed, river and glacier sculptured world. It is about six thousand feet deep where you first see it, and from rim to rim ten to fifteen miles wide. Instead of being dependent for interest upon waterfalls, depth, wall sculpture, and beauty of parklike floor, like most other great canons, it has no waterfalls in sight, and no appreciable floor spaces. The big river has just room enough to flow and roar obscurely, here and there groping its way as best it can, like a weary, murmuring, overladen traveler try- ing to escape from the tremendous, bewildering labyrinthie abyss, while its roar serves only to deepen the silence. Instead of being filled with air, the vast space between the walls is crowded with Nature’s grandest buildings, —a sublime city of them, painted in every color, and adorned with richly fretted cornice and battlement spire and tower in endless variety of style and archi- tecture. Every architectural invention of man has been anticipated, and far more, in this grandest of God’s terrestrial cities. CHAPTER II THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK Or the four national parks of the West, the Yellowstone is far the largest. It is a big, wholesome wilderness on the broad summit of the Rocky Mountains, favored with abundance of rain and snow, —a place of fountains where the greatest of the American rivers take their rise. The central portion is a densely forested and comparatively level volcanic plateau with an aver- age elevation of about eight thousand feet above the sea, surrounded by an imposing host of moun- tains belonging to the subordinate Gallatin, Wind River, Teton, Absaroka, and snowy ranges. Un- numbered lakes shine in it, united by a famous band of streams that rush up out of hot lava beds, or fall from the frosty peaks in channels rocky and bare, mossy and bosky, to the main rivers, singing cheerily on through every difficulty, cun- ningly dividing and finding their way east and west to the two far-off seas. Glacier meadows and beaver meadows are out- spread with charming effect along the banks of the streams, parklike expanses in the woods, and 38 OUR NATIONAL PARKS innumerable small gardens in rocky recesses of the mountains, some of them containing more petals than leaves, while the whole wilderness is enlivened with happy animals. Beside the treasures common to most mountain regions that are wild and blessed with a kind climate, the park is full of exciting wonders. The wildest geysers in the world, in bright, tri- umphant bands, are dancing and singing in it amid thousands of boiling springs, beautiful and awful, their basins arrayed in gorgeous colors like gigantic flowers ; and hot paint-pots, mud springs, mud volcanoes, mush and broth caldrons whose contents are of every color and consistency, plash and heave and roar in bewildering abun- dance. In the adjacent mountains, beneath the living trees the edges of petrified forests are ex- posed to view, like specimens on the shelves of a museum, standing on ledges tier above tier where they grew, solemnly silent in rigid crystalline beauty after swaying in the winds thousands of centuries ago, opening marvelous views back into the years and climates and life of the past. Here, too, are hills of sparkling erystals, hills of sulphur, hills of glass, hills of cinders and ashes, mountains of every style of architecture, icy or forested, mountains covered with honey-bloom sweet as Hymettus, mountains boiled soft like potatoes and colored like a sunset sky. A’ that and a’ that, and twice as muckle’s a’ that, THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 39 Nature has on show in the Yellowstone Park. Therefore it is called Wonderland, and thousands of tourists and travelers stream into it every sum- mer, and wander about in it enchanted. Fortunately, almost as soon as it was discov- ered it was dedicated and set apart for the bene- fit of the people, a piece of legislation that shines benignly amid the common dust-and-ashes history of the public domain, for which the world must thank Professor Hayden above all others; for he led the first scientific exploring party into it, de- scribed it, and with admirable enthusiasm urged Congress to preserve it. As delineated in the year 1872, the park contained about 3344 square miles. On March 30, 1891 it was to all intents and purposes enlarged by the Yellowstone Na- tional Park Timber Reserve, and in December, 1897, by the Teton Forest Reserve; thus nearly doubling its original area, and extending the southern boundary far enough to take in the sublime Teton range and the famous pasture-lands of the big Rocky Mountain game animals. The withdrawal of this large tract from the public domain did no harm to any one; for its height, 6000 to over 13,000 feet above the sea, and its thick mantle of volcanic rocks, prevent its ever being available for agriculture or mining, while on the other hand its geographical position, re- viving climate, and wonderful scenery combine to make it a grand health, pleasure, and study 40 OUR NATIONAL PARKS resort, —a gathering-place for travelers from all the world. The national parks are not only withdrawn from sale and entry like the forest reservations, but are efficiently managed and guarded by small troops of United States cavalry, directed by the Secretary of the Interior. Under this care the forests are flourishing, protected from both axe and fire; and so, of course, are the shaggy beds of underbrush and the herbaceous vegetation. The so-called curiosities, also, are preserved, and the furred and feathered tribes, many of which, in danger of extinction a short time ago, are now increasing in numbers, — a refreshing thing to see amid the blind, ruthless destruction that is going on in the adjacent regions. In pleasing contrast to the noisy, ever changing manage- ment, or mismanagement, of blundering, plun- dering, money-making vote-sellers who receive their places from boss politicians as purchased goods, the soldiers do their duty so quietly that the traveler is scarce aware of their presence. This is the coolest and highest of the parks. Frosts occur every month of the year. Neverthe- less, the tenderest tourist finds it warm enough in summer. The air iselectric and full of ozone, healing, reviving, exhilarating, kept pure by frost and fire, while the scenery is wild enough to awaken the dead. It is a glorious place to grow in and rest in; camping on the shores of the THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 41 lakes, in the warm openings of the woods golden with sunflowers, on the banks of the streams, by the snowy waterfalls, beside the exciting wonders or away from them in the scallops of the moun- tain walls sheltered from every wind, on smooth silky lawns enameled with gentians, up in the fountain hollows of the ancient glaciers between the peaks, where cool pools and brooks and gar- dens of precious plants charmingly embowered are never wanting, and good rough rocks with every variety of cliff and scaur are invitingly near for outlooks and exercise. From these lovely dens you may make excur- sions whenever you like into the middle of the park, where the geysers and hot springs are reek- ing and spouting in their beautiful basins, dis- playing an exuberance of color and strange mo- tion and energy admirably calculated to surprise and frighten, charm and shake up the least sensi- tive out of apathy into newness of life. However orderly your excursions or aimless, again and again amid the calmest, stillest scenery you will be brought to a standstill hushed and awe-stricken before phenomena wholly new to you. Boiling springs and huge deep pools of purest green and azure water, thousands of them, are plashing and heaving in these high, cool mountains as if a fierce ee fire were burning beneath each one of them; and a hundred gey- sers, white torrents of alae water and steam, 42 OUR NATIONAL PARKS like inverted waterfalls, are ever and anon rush- ing up out of the hot, black underworld. Some of these ponderous geyser columns are as large as sequoias, — five to sixty feet i diameter, one hundred and fifty to three hundred feet high, —and are sustained at this great height with tremendous energy for a few minutes, or per- haps nearly an hour, standing rigid and erect, hissing, throbbing, booming, as if thunderstorms were raging beneath their roots, their sides roughened or fluted like the furrowed boles of trees, their tops dissolving in feathery branches, while the irised spray, like misty bloom is at times blown aside, revealing the massive shafts shining against a background of pine-covered hills. Some of them lean more or less, as if storm-bent, and instead of being round are flat or fan-shaped, issuing from irregular slits in silex pavements with radiate structure, the sunbeams sifting through them in ravishing splendor. Some are broad and round-headed like oaks; others are low and bunchy, branching near the ground like bushes; and a few are hollow in the centre like big daisies or water-lilies. No frost cools them, snow never covers them nor lodges in their branches ; winter and summer they welcome alike ; all of them, of whatever form or size, faithfully rising and sinking in fairy rhythmic dance night and day, in all sorts of weather, at varying periods of minutes, hours, or weeks, growing up rapidly, THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 43 uncontrollable as fate, tossing their pearly branches in the wind, bursting into bloom and vanishing like the frailest flowers, — plants of which Nature raises hundreds or thousands of crops a year with no apparent exhaustion of the fiery soil. The so-called geyser basins, in which this rare sort of vegetation is growing, are mostly open valleys on the central plateau that were eroded by glaciers after the greater volcanic fires had ceased to burn. Looking down over the forests as you approach them from the surrounding heights, you see a multitude of white columns, broad, reeking masses, and irregular jets and puffs of misty vapor ascending from the bottom of the valley, or entangled like smoke among the neighboring trees, suggesting the factories of some busy town or the camp-fires of an army. These mark the position of each mush-pot, paint- pot, hot spring, and geyser, or gusher, as the Icelandic words mean. And when you saunter into the midst of them over the bright sinter pavements, and see how pure and white and pearly gray they are in the shade of the moun- tains, and how radiant in the sunshine, you are fairly enchanted. So numerous they are and varied, Nature seems to have gathered them from all the world as specimens of her rarest fountains, to show in one place what she can do. Over four thousand hot springs have been counted 44 OUR NATIONAL PARKS in the park, and a hundred geysers; how many more there are nobody knows. These valleys at the heads of the great rivers may be regarded as laboratories and kitchens, in which, amid a thousand retorts and pots, we may see Nature at work as chemist or cook, cun- ningly compounding an infinite variety of mineral messes ; cooking whole mountains; boiling and steaming flinty rocks to smooth paste and mush, — yellow, brown, red, pink, lavender, gray, and creamy white, — making the most beautiful mud in the world; and distilling the most ethereal essences. Many of these pots and caldrons have been boiling thousands of years. Pots of sul- phurous mush, stringy and lumpy, and pots of broth as black as ink, are tossed and stirred with constant care, and thin transparent essences, too pure and fine to be called water, are kept simmer- ing gently in beautiful sinter cups and bowls that grow ever more beautiful the longer they are used. In some of the spring basins, the waters, though still warm, are perfectly calm, and shine blandly in a sod of overleaning grass and flowers, as if they were thoroughly cooked at last, and set aside to settle and cool. Others are wildly boiling over as if running to waste, thou- sands of tons of the precious liquids being thrown into the air to fall in scalding floods on the clean coral floor of the establishment, keeping onlook- ers ata distance. Instead of holding limpid pale THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK = 45 green or azure water, other pots and craters are filled with scalding mud, which is tossed up from three or four feet to thirty feet, in sticky, rank- smelling masses, with gasping, belching, thud- ding sounds, plastering the branches of neigh- boring trees; every flask, retort, hot spring, and geyser has something special in it, no two being the same in temperature, color, or composition. In these natural laboratories one needs stout faith to feel atease. The ground sounds hollow underfoot, and the awful subterranean thunder shakes one’s mind as the ground is shaken, es- pecially at night in the pale moonlight, or when the sky is overcast with storm-clouds. In the solemn gloom, the geysers, dimly visible, look like monstrous dancing ghosts, and their wild songs and the earthquake thunder replying to the storms overhead seem doubly terrible, as if divine government were at an end. But the trembling hills keep their places. The sky clears, the rosy dawn is reassuring, and up comes the sun like a god, pouring his faithful beams across the mountains and forest, lighting each peak and tree and ghastly geyser alike, and shining into the eyes of the reeking springs, clothing them with rainbow light, and dissolving the seeming chaos of darkness into varied forms of harmony. The ordinary work of the world goes on. Gladly we see the flies dancing in the sun- beams, birds feeding their young, squirrels gath- 46 OUR NATIONAL PARKS ering nuts, and hear the blessed ouzel singing confidingly in the shallows of the river, — most faithful evangel, calming every fear, reducing everything to love. The variously tinted sinter and travertine formations, outspread like pavements over large areas of the geyser valleys, lining the spring basins and throats of the craters, and forming beautiful coral-like rims and curbs about them, always excite admiring attention; so also does the play of the waters from which they are de- posited. The various minerals in them are rich in colors, and these are greatly heightened by a smooth, silky growth of brilliantly colored con- ferve which lines many of the pools and chan- nels and terraces. No bed of flower-bloom is more exquisite than these myriads of minute plants, visible only in mass, growing in the hot waters. Most of the spring borders are low and daintily scalloped, crenelated, and beaded with sinter pearls. Some of the geyser craters are massive and picturesque, like ruined castles or old burned-out sequoia stumps, and are adorned on a grand scale with outbulging, cauliflower- like formations. From these as centres the silex pavements slope gently away in thin, crusty, overlapping: layers, slightly interrupted in some places by low terraces. Or, as in the case of the Mammoth Hot Springs, at the north end of the park, where the buildmg waters issue from the THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 47 side of a steep hill, the deposits form a succession of higher and broader terraces of white traver- tine tinged with purple, like the famous Pink Terrace at Rotomahana, New Zealand, draped in front with clustering stalactites, each terrace having a pool of indescribably beautiful water upon it in a basin with a raised rim that glistens with conferve,—the whole, when viewed at a distance of a mile or two, looking like a broad, massive cascade pouring over shelving rocks in snowy purpled foam. The stones of this divine masonry, invisible particles of lime or silex, mined in quarries no eye has seen, go to their appointed places in gentle, tankling, transparent currents or through the dashing turmoil of floods, as surely guided as the sap of plants streaming into bole and branch, leaf and flower. And thus from cen- tury to century this beauty-work has gone on and is going on. Passing though many a mile of pine and spruce woods, toward the centre of the park you come to the famous Yellowstone Lake. It is about twenty miles long and fifteen wide, and lies at a height of nearly 8000 feet above the level of the sea, amid dense black forests and snowy mountains. Around its winding, waver- ing shores, closely forested and picturesquely varied with promontories and bays, the distance is more than 100 miles. It is not very deep, 48 OUR NATIONAL PARKS only from 200 to 300 feet, and contains less water than the celebrated Lake Tahoe of the California Sierra, which is nearly the same size, lies at a height of 6400 feet, and is over 1600 feet deep. But no other lake in North America of equal area hes so high as the Yellowstone, or gives birth to so noble a river. The terraces around its shores show that at the close of the glacial period its surface was about 160 feet higher than itis now, and its area nearly twice as great. It is full of trout, and a vast multitude of birds — swans, pelicans, geese, ducks, cranes, herons, curlews, plovers, snipe — feed in it and upon its shores; and many forest animals come out of the woods, and wade a little way in shal- low, sandy places to drink and look about them, and cool themselves in the free flowing breezes. In calm weather it is a magnificent mirror for the woods and mountains and sky, now pattered with hail and rain, now roughened with sudden storms that send waves to fringe the shores and wash its border of gravel and sand. The Absa- roka Mountains and the Wind River Plateau on the east and south pour their gathered waters into 1t, and the river issues from the north side in a broad, smooth, stately current, silently glid- ing with such serene majesty that one fancies it knows the vast journey of four thousand miles that les before it, and the work it has to do. THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 49 For the first twenty miles its course is in a level, sunny valley lightly frmged with trees, through which it flows in silvery reaches stirred into spangles here and there by ducks and leaping trout, making no sound save a low whispering among the pebbles and the dipping willows and sedges of its banks. Then suddenly, as if pre- paring for hard work, it rushes eagerly, impetu- ously forward rejoicing in its strength, breaks into foam-bloom, and goes thundering down into the Grand Canon in two magnificent falls, one hundred and three hundred feet high. - The canon is so tremendously wild and im- pressive that even these great falls cannot hold your attention. It is about twenty miles long and a thousand feet deep, — a weird, unearthly- looking gorge of jagged, fantastic architecture, and most brilliantly colored. Here the Wash- burn range, forming the northern rim of the Yellowstone basin, made up mostly of beds of rhyolite decomposed by the action of thermal waters, has been cut through and laid open to view by the river; and a famous section it has made. It is not the depth or the shape of the canon, nor the waterfall, nor the green and gray river chanting its brave song as it goes foaming on its way, that most impresses the observer, but the colors of the decomposed volcanic rocks. With few exceptions, the traveler in strange lands finds that, however much the scenery and 50 OUR NATIONAL PARKS vegetation in different countries may change, Mother Earth is ever familiar and the same. But here the very ground is changed, as if be- longing to some other world. The walls of the canon from top to bottom burn in a perfect glory of color, confounding and dazzling when the sun is shining, — white, yellow, green, blue, vermilion, and various other shades of red indefi- nitely blending. All the earth hereabouts seems to be paint. Millions of tons of it lie in sight, exposed to wind and weather as if of no account, yet marvelously fresh and bright, fast colors not to be washed out or bleached out by either sunshine or storms. The effect is so novel and awful, we imagine that even a river might be afraid to enter such a place. But the rich and gentle beauty of the vegetation is reassur- ing. The lovely Linnea borealis hangs her twin bells over the brink of the cliffs, forests and gardens extend thew treasures in smiling confidence on either side, nuts and berries ripen well whatever may be going on below; blind fears vanish, and the grand gorge seemsa kindly, beautiful part of the general harmony, full of peace and joy and good will. The park is easy of access. Locomotives drag you to its northern boundary at Cinnabar, and horses and guides do the rest. From Cinnabar you will be whirled in coaches along the foam- ing Gardiner River to Mammoth Hot Springs; THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 651 thence through woods and meadows, gulches and ravines along branches of the Upper Gallatin, Madison, and Firehole rivers to the main geyser basins ; thence over the Continental Divide and back again, up and down through dense pine, spruce, and fir woods to the magnificent Yellow- stone Lake, along its northern shore to the out- let, down the river to the falls and Grand Canon, and thence back through the woods to Mammoth Hot Springs and Cinnabar ; stopping here and there at the so-called points of interest among the geysers, spring's, paint-pots, mud volcanoes, etc., where you will be allowed a few minutes or hours to saunter over the sinter pavements, watch the play of a few of the geysers, and peer into some of the most beautiful and terrible of the craters and pools. These wonders you will enjoy, and also the views of the mountains, espe- cially the Gallatin and Absaroka ranges, the long, willowy glacier and beaver meadows, the beds of violets, gentians, phloxes, asters, phace- lias, goldenrods, erlogonums, and many other flowers, some species giving color to whole meadows and hillsides. And you will enjoy your short views of the great lake and river and canon. No scalping Indians will you see. The Blackfeet and Bannocks that once roamed here are gone; so are the old beaver-catchers, the Coulters and Bridgers, with all their attractive buckskin and romance. There are several bands 52 OUR NATIONAL PARKS of buffaloes in the park, but you will not thus cheaply in tourist fashion see them nor many of the other large animals hidden in the wilderness. The song-birds, too, keep mostly out of sight of the rushing tourist, though off the roads thrushes, warblers, orioles, grosbeaks, etc., keep the air sweet and merry. Perhaps in passing rapids and falls you may catch glimpses of the water-ouzel, but in the whirling noise you will not hear his song. Fortunately, no road noise frightens the Douglas squirrel, and his merry play and gossip will amuse you all through the woods. Here and there a deer may be seen crossing the road, ora bear. Most likely, however, the only bears you will see are the half tame ones that go to the hotels every night for dinner-table scraps, — yeast-powder biscuit, Chicago canned stuff, mixed pickles, and beefsteaks that have proved too tough for the tourists. Among the gains of a coach trip are the ac- quaintances made and the fresh views into hu- man nature; for the wilderness is a shrewd touchstone, even thus lightly approached, and brings many a curious trait to view. Setting out, the driver cracks his whip, and the four horses go off at half gallop, half trot, in trained, showy style, until out of sight of the hotel. The coach is crowded, old and young side by side, blooming and fading, full of hope and fun and care. Some look at the scenery or the horses, THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 53 and all ask questions, an odd mixed lot of them: “Where is the umbrella? What is the name of that blue flower over there? Are you sure the little bag is aboard? Is that hollow yonder a crater? How is your throat this morning ? How high did you say the geysers spout ? How does the elevation affect your head? Is that a geyser reeking over there in the rocks, or only a hot spring?” A long ascent is made, the solemn mountains come to view, small cares are quenched, and all become natural and silent, save perhaps some unfortunate expounder who has been read- ing guidebook geology, and rumbles forth foggy subsidences and upheavals until he is in danger of being heaved overboard. The driver will give you the names of the peaks and meadows and streams as you come to them, call attention to the glass road, tell how hard it was to build, — how the obsidian cliffs naturally pushed the surveyor’s lines to the right, and the industrious beavers, by flooding the valley in front of the cliff, pushed them to the left. Geysers, however, are the main objects, and as soon as they come in sight other wonders are for- gotten. All gather around the crater of the one that is expected to play first. During the erup- tions of the smaller geysers, such as the Beehive and Old Faithful, though a little frightened at first, all weleome the glorious show with enthu- siasm, and shout, “‘ Oh, how wonderful, beautiful, 54 OUR NATIONAL PARKS splendid, majestic!” Some venture near enough to stroke the column with a stick, as if it were a stone pillar or a tree, so firm and substantial and permanent it seems. While tourists wait around a large geyser, such as the Castle or the Giant, there is a chatter of small talk in anything but solemn mood; and during the intervals between the preliminary splashes and upheavals some adventurer occasionally looks down the throat of the crater, admiring the silex forma- tions and wondering whether Hades is as beauti- ful. But when, with awful uproar as if ava- lanches were falling and storms thundering in the depths, the tremendous outburst begins, all run away to a safe distance, and look on, awe-stricken and silent, in devout, worshipmg wonder. The largest and one of the most wonderfully beautiful of the springs is the Prismatic, which the guide will be sure to show you. With a e1r- cumference of 300 yards, it is more like a lake than a spring. The water is pure deep blue in the centre, fading to green on the edges, and its basin and the slightly terraced pavement about it are astonishingly bright and varied in color. This one of the multitude of Yellowstone foun- tains is of itself object enough for a trip across the continent. No wonder that so many fine myths have originated in springs; that so many fountains were held sacred in the youth of the THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 55 world, and had miraculous virtues ascribed to them. Even in these cold, doubting, question- ing, scientific times many of the Yellowstone fountains seem able to work miracles. Near the Prismatic Spring is the great Excelsior Geyser, which is said to throw a column of boiling: water 60 to 70 feet in diameter to a height of from 50 to 300 feet, at irregular periods. This is the greatest of all the geysers yet discovered anywhere. The Firehole River, which sweeps past it, is, at ordinary stages, a stream about 100 yards wide and 3 feet deep; but when the geyser is in eruption, so great is the quantity of water dis- charged that the volume of the river is doubled, and it is rendered too hot and rapid to be forded. Geysers are found in many other volcanic re- gions, —in Iceland, New Zealand, Japan, the Himalayas, the Eastern Archipelago, South America, the Azores, and elsewhere; but only in Iceland, New Zealand, and this Rocky Mountain park do they display their grandest forms, and of these three famous regions the Yellowstone is easily first, both in the number and in the size of its geysers. The greatest height of the column of the Great Geyser of Iceland actually measured was 212 feet, and of the Strokhr 162 feet. In New Zealand, the Te Pueia at Lake Taupo, the Waikite at Rotorna, and two others are said to lift their waters occasionally to a height of 100 feet, while the celebrated Te Tarata at Rotomahana 56 OUR NATIONAL PARKS sometimes lifts a boiling column 20 feet in diame- ter to a height of 60 feet. But all these are far surpassed by the Excelsior. Few tourists, how- ever, will see the Excelsior in action, or a thou- sand other interesting features of the park that lie beyond the wagon-roads and the hotels. The regular trips — from three to five days — are too short. Nothing can be done well at a speed of forty miles a day. The multitude of mixed, novel impressions rapidly piled on one another make only a dreamy, bewildering, swirling blur, most of which is unrememberable. Far more time should be taken. Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the moun- taineer. Camp out among the grass and gentians of glacier meadows, in craggy garden nooks full of Nature’s darlings. Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. As age comes on, one source of enjoyment after another is closed, but Nature’s sources never fail. Like a generous host, she offers here brimming cups in endless variety, served in a grand hall, the sky its ceiling, the mountains its walls, decorated with glorious paint- ings and enlivened with bands of music ever play- ing. The petty discomforts that beset the awkward guest, the unskilled camper, are quickly THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 57 forgotten, while all that is precious remains. Fears vanish as soon as one is fairly free in the wilderness. Most of the dangers that haunt the unseasoned citizen are imaginary ; the real ones are perhaps too few rather than too many for his good. The bears that always seem to spring up thick as trees, in fighting, devouring attitudes before the frightened tourist whenever a camp- ing trip is proposed, are gentle now, finding they are no longer likely to be shot; and rattlesnakes, the other big irrational dread of over-civilized people, are scarce here, for most of the park lies above the snake-line. Poor creatures, loved only by their Maker, they are timid and bashful, as mountaineers know; and though perhaps not possessed of much of that charity that suffers long and is kind, seldom, either by mistake or by mishap, do harm to any one. Certainly they cause not the hundredth part of the pain and death that follow the footsteps of the admired Rocky Mountain trapper. Nevertheless, again and again, in season and out of season, the ques- tion comes up, “ What are rattlesnakes good for?” As if nothing that does not obviously make for the benefit of man had any right to exist; as if our ways were God’s ways. Long ago, an Indian to whom a French traveler put this old question replied that their tails were good for toothache, and their heads for fever. 58 OUR NATIONAL PARKS Anyhow, they are all, head and tail, good for themselves, and we need not begrudge them their share of life. Fear nothmg. No town park you have been accustomed to saunter in is so free from danger as the Yellowstone. It is a hard place to leave. Even its names in your guidebook are attractive, and should draw you far from wagon-roads, — all save the early ones, derived from the infernal re- gions: Hell Roaring River, Hell Broth Springs, The Devil’s Caldron, ete. Indeed, the whole re- gion was at first called Coulter’s Hell, from the fiery brimstone stories told by trapper Coulter, who left the Lewis and Clark expedition and wandered through the park, in the year 1807, with a band of Bannock Indians. The later names, many of which we owe to Mr. Arnold Hague of the U. 8S. Geological Survey, are so telling and exhilarating that they set our pulses dancing and make us begin to enjoy the pleas- ures of excursions ere they are commenced. Three River Peak, Two Ocean Pass, Continental Divide, are capital geographical descriptions, sug- gesting thousands of miles of rejoicing streams and all that belongs to them. Big Horn Pass, Bison Peak, Big Game Ridge, bring brave moun- tain animals to mind. Birch Hills, Garnet Hills, Amethyst Mountain, Storm Peak, Electric Peak, Roaring Mountain, are bright, bracing names. Wapiti, Beaver, Tern, and Swan lakes, conjure THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 59 up fine pictures, and so also do Osprey and Ouzel falls. Antelope Creek, Otter, Mink, and Gray- ling creeks, Geode, Jasper, Opal, Carnelian, and Chalcedony creeks, are lively and sparkling names that help the streams to shine; and Azalea, Stellaria, Arnica, Aster, and Phlox creeks, what pictures these bring up! Violet, Morning Mist, Hygeia, Beryl, Vermilion, and Indigo springs, and many beside, give us visions of fountains more beautifully arrayed than Solomon in all his purple and golden glory. All these and a host of others call you to camp. You may be a little cold some nights, on moun- tain tops above the timber-line, but you will see the stars, and by and by you can sleep enough in your town bed, or at least in your grave. Keep awake while you may in mountain mansions so rare. If you are not very strong, try to climb Hlec- tric Peak when a big bossy, well-charged thun- der-cloud is on it, to breathe the ozone set free, and get yourself kindly shaken and shocked. You are sure to be lost in wonder and praise, and every hair of your head will stand up and hum and sing like an enthusiastic congregation. After this reviving experience, you should take a look into a few of the tertiary volumes of the grand geological library of the park, and see how God writes history. No technical knowledge is re- quired ; only a calm day and a calm mind. Per- haps nowhere else in the Rocky Mountains have 60 OUR NATIONAL PARKS the volcanic forces been so busy. More than ten thousand square miles hereabouts have been covered to a depth of at least five thousand feet with material spouted from chasms and craters during the tertiary period, forming broad sheets of basalt, andesite, rhyolite, etc., and marvelous masses of ashes, sand, cinders, and stones now consolidated into conglomerates, charged with the remains of plants and animals that lived in the calm, genial periods that separated the volcanic outbursts. Perhaps the most interesting and telling of these rocks, to the hasty tourist, are those that make up the mass of Amethyst Mountain. On its north side it presents a section two thousand feet high of roughly stratified beds of sand, ashes, aud _ conglomerates coarse and fine, forming the un- trimmed edges of a wonderful set of volumes ly- ing on their sides, — books a million years old, well bound, miles in size, with full-page illustra- tions. On the ledges of this one section we see trunks and stumps of fifteen or twenty ancient forests ranged one above another, standing where they grew, or prostrate and broken like the pil- lars of ruined temples in desert sands, —a forest fifteen or twenty stories high, the roots of each spread above the tops of the next beneath it, tell- ing wonderful tales of the bygone centuries, with ee winters and summers, growth and death, fire, ice, and flood. THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 61 There were giants in those days. The largest of the standing opal and agate stumps and pros- trate sections of the trunks are from two or three to fifty feet in height or length, and from five to ten feet in diameter ; and so perfect is the pet- rifaction that the annual rings and ducts are clearer and more easily counted than those of living trees, centuries of burial having brightened the records instead of blurring them. They show that the winters of the tertiary period gave as decided a check to vegetable growth as do those of the present time. Some trees favorably lo- cated grew rapidly, increasing twenty inches in diameter in as many years, while others of the same species, on poorer soil or overshadowed, in- creased only two or three inches in the same time. Among the roots and stumps on the old forest floors we find the remains of ferns and bushes, and the seeds and leaves of trees like those now growing on the southern Alleghanies, — such as magnolia, sassafras, laurel, linden, persimmon, ash, alder, dogwood. Studying the lowest of these forests, the soil it grew on and the deposits it is buried in, we see that it was rich in species, and flourished ina genial, sunny climate. When its stately trees were in their glory, volcanic fires broke forth from chasms and craters, like larger geysers, spouting ashes, cinders, stones, and mud, which fell on the doomed forest like hail and 62 OUR NATIONAL PARKS snow ; sifting, hurtling through the leaves and branches, choking the streams, covering the ground, crushing bushes and ferns, rapidly deep- ening, packing around the trees and breaking them, rising higher until the topmost boughs of the giants were buried, leaving not a leaf or twig in sight, so complete was the desolation. At last the voleanic storm began to abate, the fiery soil settled; mud floods and boulder floods passed over it, enriching it, cooling it; rains fell and mellow sunshine, and it became fertile and ready for another crop. Birds, and the winds, and roaming animals brought seeds from more fortu- nate woods, and a new forest grew up on the top of the buried one. Centuries of genial growmg seasons passed. The seedling trees became giants, — and with strong outreaching branches spread a leafy canopy over the gray land. The sleeping subterranean fires again awake and shake the mountains, and every leaf trem- bles. The old craters, with perhaps new ones, are opened, and immense quantities of ashes, pumice, and cinders are again thrown into the sky. The sun, shorn of his beams, glows like a dull red ball, until hidden in sulphurous clouds. Voleanie snow, hail, and floods fall on the new forest, burying it alive, like the one beneath its roots. Then come another noisy band of mud floods and boulder floods, mixing, settling, enriching the new ground, more seeds, quickening sun- THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 63 shine and showers; and a third noble magnolia forest is carefully raised on the top of the second. And so on. Forest was planted above forest and destroyed, as if Nature were ever repenting, undoing the work she had so industriously done, and burying it. Of course this destruction was creation, pro- gress in the march of beauty through death. How quickly these old monuments excite and hold the imagination! We see the old stone stumps budding and blossoming and waving in the wind as magnificent trees, standing shoulder to shoulder, branches interlacing in grand varied round-headed forests ; see the sunshine of morn- ing and evening gilding their mossy trunks, and at high noon spangling on the thick glossy leaves of the magnolia, filtermg through translu- cent canopies of linden and ash, and falling in mellow patches on the ferny floor; see the shin- ing after rain, breathe the exhaling fragrance, and hear the winds and birds and the murmur of brooks and insects. We watch them from sea- son to season; see the swelling buds when the sap begins to flow in the spring, the opening leaves and blossoms, the ripening of summer fruits, the colors of autumn, and the maze of leafless branches and sprays in winter; and we see the sudden oncome of the storms that over- whelmed them. One calm morning at sunrise I saw the oaks 64 OUR NATIONAL PARKS and pines in Yosemite Valley shaken by an earth- quake, their tops swishing back and forth, and every branch and needle shuddering as if in dis- tress like the frightened screaming birds. One may imagine the trembling, rocking, tumultuous waving of those ancient Yellowstone woods, and the terror of their inhabitants when the first foreboding shocks were felt, the sky grew dark, and rock-laden floods began toroar. But though they were close pressed and buried, cut off from sun and wind, all their happy leaf-fluttering and waving done, other currents coursed through them, fondling and thrilling every fibre, and beautiful wood was replaced by beautiful stone. Now their rocky sepulchres are partly open, and show forth the natural beauty of death. After the forest times and fire times had passed away, and the volcanic furnaces were banked and held in abeyance, another great change occurred. The glacial winter came on. The sky was again darkened, not with dust and ashes, but with snow which fell in glorious abun- dance, piling deeper, deeper, slipping from the overladen heights in booming avalanches, com- pacting. into glaciers, that flowed over all the landscape, wiping off forests, grinding, sculptur- ing, fashioning the comparatively featureless lava beds into the beautiful rhythm of hill and dale and ranges of mountains we behold to-day ; forming basins for lakes, channels for streams, THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 65 new soils for forests, gardens, and meadows. While this ice-work was going on, the slumber- ing volcanic fires were boiling the subterranean waters, and with curious chemistry decomposing the rocks, making beauty in the darkness; these forces, seemingly antagonistic, working harmo- niously together. How wild their meetings on the surface were we may imagine. When the glacier period began, geysers and hot springs were playing in grander volume, it may be, than those of to-day. The glaciers flowed over them while they spouted and thundered, carrying away their fine sinter and travertine structures, and shortening their mysterious channels. The soils made in the down-grinding required to bring the present features of the landscape into relief are possibly no better than were some of the old volcanic soils that were carried away, and which, as we have seen, nourished magnifi- cent forests, but the glacial landscapes are incom- parably more beautiful than the old volcanic ones were. The glacial winter has passed away, like the ancient summers and fire periods, though in the chronolgy of the geologist all these times are recent. Only small residual glaciers on the cool northern slopes of the highest mountains are left of the vast all-embracing ice-mantle, as solfataras and geysers are all that are left of the ancient volcanoes. Now the post-glacial agents are at work on the 66 OUR NATIONAL PARKS grand old palimpsest of the park region, inscrib- ing new characters; but still in its main telling features it remains distinctly glacial. The moraine soils are being leveled, sorted, refined, re-formed, and covered with vegetation ; the pol- ished pavements and scoring and other superficial glacial inscriptions on the crumbling lavas are being rapidly obliterated ; gorges are being cut in the decomposed rhyolites and loose conglome- rates, and turrets and pinnacles seem to be springing up like growing trees; while the gey- sers are depositing miles of sinter and travertine. Nevertheless, the ice-work is scarce blurred as yet. These later effects are only spots and wrinkles on the grand glacial countenance of the park. Perhaps you have already said that you have seen enough for a lifetime. But before you go away you should spend at least one day and a night on a mountain top, for a last general, calming, settling view. Mount Washburn is a good one for the purpose, because it stands in the middle of the park, is unencumbered with other peaks, and is so easy of access that the climb to its summit is only a saunter. First your eye goes roving around the mountain rim amid the hundreds of peaks: some with plain flowing skirts, others abruptly precipitous and defended by sheer battlemented escarpments; flat-topped or round; heaving like sea-waves or spired and THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 67 turreted like Gothic cathedrals; streaked with snow in the ravines, and darkened with files of adventurous trees climbing the ridges. The nearer peaks are perchance clad in sapphire blue, others far off in creamy white. In the broad glare of noon they seem to shrink and crouch to less than half their real stature, and grow dull and uncommunicative,— mere dead, dragegled heaps of waste ashes and stone, giving no hint of the multitude of animals enjoying life in their fastnesses, or of the bright bloom- bordered streams and lakes. But when storms blow they awake and arise, wearing robes of cloud and mist in majestic speaking attitudes like gods. In the color glory of morning and evening they become still more impressive ; steeped in the divine light of the alpenglow their earthi- ness disappears, and, blending with the heavens, they seem neither high nor low. Over all the central plateau, which from here seems level, and over the foothills and lower slopes of the mountains, the forest extends like a black uniform bed of weeds, interrupted only by lakes and meadows and small burned spots called parks,— all of them, except the Yellow- stone Lake, being mere dots and spangles in gen- eral views, made conspicuous by their color and brightness. About eighty-five per cent of the entire area of the park is covered with trees, mostly the indomitable lodge-pole pine (Pinus 68 OUR NATIONAL PARKS contorta, var. Murrayana), with a few patches and sprinklings of Douglas spruce, Engelmann spruce, silver fir (Abies lasiocarpa), Pinus flexi- lis, and a few alders, aspens, and birches. The Douglas spruce is found only on the lowest por- tions, the silver fir on the highest, and the Engel- mann spruce on the dampest places, best defended from fire. Some fine specimens of the flexilis pine are growing on the margins of openings, — wide-branching, sturdy trees, as broad as high, with trunks five feet in diameter, leafy and shady, laden with purple cones and rose-colored flowers. The Engelmann spruce and sub-alpine silver fir are beautiful and notable trees, — tall, spiry, hardy, frost and snow defying, and widely distributed over the West, wherever there is a mountain to climb or a cold moraine slope to cover. But neither of these is a good fire- fighter. With rather thin bark, and scattering their seeds every year as soon as they are ripe, they are quickly driven out of fire-swept re- gions. When the glaciers were melting, these hardy mountaineering trees were probably among the first to arrive on the new moraine soil beds; but as the plateau became drier and fires began to run, they were driven up the mountains, and into the wet spots and islands where we now find them, leaving nearly all the park to the lodge- pole pine, which, though as thin-skinned as they and as easily killed by fire, takes pains to store THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 69 up its seeds in firmly closed cones, and holds them from three to nine years, so that, let the fire come when it may, it is ready to die and ready to live again in a new generation. For when the killing fires have devoured the leaves and thin resinous bark, many of the cones, only scorched, open as soon as the smoke clears away ; the hoarded store of seeds is sown broadcast on the cleared ground, and a new growth imme- diately springs up triumphant out of the ashes. Therefore, this tree not only holds its ground, but extends its conquests farther after every fire. Thus the evenness and closeness of its growth are accounted for. In one part of the forest that I examined, the growth was about as close as a cane- brake. The trees were from four to eight inches in diameter, one hundred feet high, and one hun- dred and seventy-five years old. The lower limbs die young and drop off for want of light. Life with these close-planted trees is a race for light, more light, and so they push straight for the sky. Mowing off ten feet from the top of the forest would make it look like a crowded mass of tele- graph-poles ; for only the sunny tops are leafy. A sapling ten years old, growing in the sunshine, has as many leaves as a crowded tree one or two hundred years old. As fires are multiplied and the mountains become drier, this wonderful lodge- pole pine bids fair to obtain possession of nearly all the forest ground in the West. 70 OUR NATIONAL PARKS How still the woods seem from here, yet how lively a stir the hidden animals are making; digging, gnawing, biting, eyes shining, at work and play, getting food, rearing young, roving through the underbrush, climbing the rocks, wading solitary marshes, tracing the banks of the lakes and streams! Insect swarms are dancing in the sunbeams, burrowing in the ground, diving, swimming,—a cloud of witnesses telling Nature’s joy. The plants are as busy as the animals, every — cell in a swirl of enjoyment, humming like a hive, singing the old new song of creation. A few columns and puffs of steam are seen rising above the treetops, some near, but most of them far off, indicating geysers and hot springs, gentle- looking and noiseless as downy clouds, softly hinting the reaction going on between the sur- face and the hot interior. From here you see them better than when you are standing be- side them, frightened and confused, regarding them as lawless cataclysms. The shocks and out- bursts of earthquakes, volcanoes, geysers, storms, the pounding of waves, the uprush of sap m plants, each and all tell the orderly love-beats of Nature’s heart. Turning to the eastward, you have the Grand Canon and reaches of the river in full view; and yonder to the southward lies the great lake, the largest and most important of all the high foun- tains of the Missouri-Mississippi, and the last to be discovered. THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 71 In the year 1541, when De Soto, with a ro- mantic band of adventurers, was seeking gold and glory and the fountain of youth, he found the Mississippi a few hundred miles above its mouth, and made his grave beneath its floods. La Salle, in 1682, after discovering the Ohio, one of the largest and most beautiful branches of the Mississippi, traced the latter to the sea from the mouth of the Illinois, through adventures and privations not easily realized now. About the same time Joliet and Father Marquette reached the “ Father of Waters ” by way of the Wiscon- sin, but more than a century passed ere its high- est sources in these mountains were seen. The advancing stream of civilization has ever followed its guidance toward the west, but none of the thousand tribes of Indians living on its banks could tell the explorer whence it came. From those romantic De Soto and La Salle days to these times of locomotives-and tourists, how much has the great river seen and done! Great as it now is, and still growing longer through the ground of its delta and the basins of receding gla- ciers at its head, it was immensely broader toward the close of the glacial period, when the ice-man- tle of the mountains was melting: then with its three hundred thousand miles of branches out- spread over the plains and valleys of the conti- nent, laden with fertile mud, it made the biggest and most generous bed of soil in the world. 72 OUR NATIONAL PARKS Think of this mighty stream springing in the first place in vapor from the sea, flying on the wind, alighting on the mountains in hail and snow and rain, lingering in many a fountain feeding the trees and grass; then gathering its scattered waters, gliding from its noble lake, and going back home to the sea, singing all the way ! On it sweeps, through the gates of the mountains, across the vast prairies and plains, through many a wild, gloomy forest, cane-brake, and sunny savanna ; from glaciers and snowbanks and pine woods to warm groves of magnolia and palm; geysers dancing at its head keeping time with the sea-waves at its mouth ; roaring and gray in rapids, booming in broad, bossy falls, murmuring, gleaming in long, silvery reaches, swaying now hither, now thither, whirlmg, bending in huge doubling, eddying folds, serene, majestic, ungov- ernable, overflowing all its metes and bounds, frightening the dwellers upon its banks; build- ing, wasting, uprooting, planting; engulfing old islands and making new ones, taking away fields and towns as if in sport, carrying canoes and ships of ;commerce in the midst of its spoils and drift, fertilizing the continent as one vast farm. Then, its work done, it gladly vanishes in its ocean home, welcomed by the waiting waves. Thus naturally, standing here in the midst of its fountains, we trace the fortunes of the great river. And how much more comes to mind as THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK 73 we overlook this wonderful wilderness! Foun- tains of the Columbia and Colorado he before us, interlaced with those of the Yellowstone and Missouri, and fine it would be to go with them to the Pacific; but the sun is already in the west, and soon our day will be done. Yonder is Amethyst Mountain, and other mountains hardly less rich in old forests, which now seem to spring up again in their glory ; and you see the storms that buried them, — the ashes and torrents laden with boulders and mud, the centuries of sunshine, and the dark, lurid nights. You see again the vast floods of lava, red-hot and white-hot, pourmg out from gigantic geysers, usurping the basins of lakes and streams, absorb- ing or driving away thew hissing, screaming waters, flowing around hills and ridges, submerg- ing every subordinate feature. Then you see the snow and glaciers taking possession of the land, making new landscapes. How admirable it is that, after passing through so many vicissi- tudes of frost and fire and flood, the physiog- nomy and even the complexion of the landscape should still be so divinely fine ! Thus reviewing the eventful past, we see Na- ture working with enthusiasm like a man, blowing her volcanic forges like a blacksmith blowing his smithy fires, shoving glaciers over the land- scapes like a carpenter shoving his planes, clear- ing, ploughing, harrowing, irrigating, planting, 74 OUR NATIONAL PARKS and sowing broadcast like a farmer and gardener, doing rough work and fine work, planting se- quoias and pines, rosebushes and daisies ; work- ing in gems, filling every crack and hollow with them; distilling fine essences; painting plants and shells, clouds, mountains, all the earth and heavens, like an artist, — ever working toward beauty higher and higher. Where may the mind find more stimulating, quickening pastur- age? A thousand Yellowstone wonders are call- ing, “ Look up and down and round about you !”’ And a multitude of still, small voices may be heard directing you to look through all this transient, shifting show of things called “ sub- stantial ’’ into the truly substantial, spiritual world whose forms flesh and wood, rock and water, air and sunshine, only veil and conceal, and to learn that here is heaven and the dwelling-place of the angels. The sun is settig; long, violet shadows are growing out over the woods from the mountains along the western rim of the park; the Absaroka range is baptized in the divine light of the alpen- glow, and its rocks and trees are transfigured. Next to the light of the dawn on high mountain tops, the alpenglow is the most impressive of all the terrestrial manifestations of God. Now comes the gloaming. The alpenglow is fading into earthy, murky gloom, but do not let your town habits draw you away to the hotel. THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK = 75 Stay on this good fire-mountain and spend the night among the stars. Watch their glorious bloom until the dawn, and get one more baptism of light. Then, with fresh heart, go down to your work, and whatever your fate, under what- ever ignorance or knowledge you may afterward chance to suffer, you will remember these fine, wild views, and look back with joy to your wan- derings in the blessed old Yellowstone W onder- land. CHAPTER IIT THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK Or all the mountain ranges I have climbed, I like the Sierra Nevada the best. Though ex- tremely rugged, with its main features on the grandest scale in height and depth, it is never- theless easy of access and hospitable; and its marvelous beauty, displayed in striking and al- luring forms, wooes the admiring wanderer on and on, higher and higher, charmed and en- chanted. Benevolent, solemn, fateful, pervaded with divine light, every landscape glows like a countenance hallowed in eternal repose; and every one of its living creatures, clad in flesh and leaves, and every crystal of its rocks, whether on the surface shining in the sun or buried miles deep in what we call darkness, is throbbing and pulsing with the heartbeats of God. All the world lies warm in one heart, yet the Sierra seems to get more light than other mountains. The weather is mostly sunshine embellished with magnificent storms, and nearly everything shines from base to summit, — the rocks, streams, lakes, glaciers, irised falls, and the forests of silver fir THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 77 and silver pine. And how bright is the shining after summer showers and dewy nights, and after frosty nights in spring and autumn, when the morning sunbeams are pouring through the crystals on the bushes and grass, and in winter through the snow-laden trees ! The average cloudiness for the whole year is perhaps less than ten hundredths. Scarcely a day of all the summer is dark, though there is no lack of magnificent thundering cumuli. They rise in the warm midday hours, mostly over the middle region, in June and July, like new moun- tain ranges, higher Sierras, mightily augmenting the grandeur of the scenery while giving rain to the forests and gardens and bringing forth their fragrance. The wonderful weather and beauty inspire everybody to be up and doing. Every summer day is a workday to be confidently counted on, the short dashes of rain forming, not interruptions, but rests. The big blessed storm days of winter, when the whole range stands white, are not a whit less inspiring and kind. Well may the Sierra be called the Range of Light, not the Snowy Range; for only in winter is it white, while all the year it is bright. Of this glorious range the Yosemite National Park is a central section, thirty-six miles in length and forty-eight miles in breadth. The famous Yosemite Valley lies in the heart of it, and it includes the head waters of the Tuolumne 78 . OUR NATIONAL PARKS and Merced rivers, two of the most songful streams in the world; innumerable lakes and waterfalls and smooth silky lawns; the noblest forests, the loftiest granite domes, the deepest ice-sculptured canons, the brightest crystalline pavements, and snowy mountains soaring into the sky twelve and thirteen thousand feet, ar- rayed in open ranks and spiry pinnacled groups partially separated by tremendous canons and amphitheatres; gardens on their sunny brows, avalanches thundering down their long white slopes, cataracts roaring gray and foaming in the crooked rugged gorges, and glaciers in their shadowy recesses working in silence, slowly com- pleting their sculpture ; new-born lakes at their feet, blue and green, free or encumbered with drifting icebergs like miniature Arctic Oceans, shining, sparkling, calm as stars. Nowhere will you see the majestic operations of nature more clearly revealed beside the frail- est, most gentle and peaceful things. Nearly all the park is a profound solitude. Yet it is full of charming company, full of God’s thoughts, a place of peace and safety amid the most exalted grandeur and eager enthusiastic action, a new song, a place of beginnings abounding in first lessons on life, mountain-building, eternal, invin- cible, unbreakable order ; with sermons in stones, storms, trees, flowers, and animals brimful of humanity. During the last glacial period, just THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 79 past, the former features of the range were rub- bed off as a chalk sketch from a blackboard, and a new beginning was made. Hence the wonder- ful clearness and freshness of the rocky pages. But to get all this into words is a hopeless task. The leanest sketch of each feature would need a whole chapter. Nor would any amount of space, however industriously scribbled, be of much avail. To defrauded town toilers, parks in magazine articles are like pictures of bread to the hungry. Ican write only hints to incite good wanderers to come to the feast. While this glorious park embraces big, gener- ous samples of the very best of the Sierra trea- sures, it is, fortunately, at the same time, the most accessible portion. It lies opposite San Francisco, at a distance of about one hundred and forty miles. Railroads connected with all the continent reach into the foothills, and three good carriage roads, from Big Oak Flat, Coulterville, and Raymond, run into Yosemite Valley. Another, called the Tioga road, runs from Crocker’s Station on the Yosemite Big Oak Flat road near the Tuolumne Big Tree Grove, right across the park to the summit of the range by way of Lake Tenaya, the Big Tuolumne Meadows, and Mount Dana. These roads, with many trails that radiate from Yosemite Valley, bring most of the park within reach of every- body, well or half well. 80 OUR NATIONAL PARKS The three main natural divisions of the park, the lower, middle, and alpine regions, are fairly well defined in altitude, topographical features, and vegetation. The lower, with an average elevation of about five thousand feet, is the region of the great forests, made up of sugar pine, the largest and most beautiful of all the pines in the world; the silvery yellow pine, the next in rank; Douglas spruce, libocedrus, the white and red silver firs, and the Sequoia g1- gantea, or “ big tree,” the king of conifers, the noblest of a noble race. On warm slopes next the foothills there are a few Sabine nut pines; oaks make beautiful groves in the canon valleys ; and poplar, alder, maple, laurel, and Nuttall’s flowering dogwood shade the banks of the streams. Many of the pines are more than two hundred feet high, but they are not crowded to- gether. The sunbeams streaming through their feathery arches brighten the ground, and you walk beneath the radiant ceiling in devout sub- dued mood, as if you were in a grand cathedral with mellow light sifting through colored win- dows, while the flowery pillared aisles open en- chanting vistas in every direction. Scarcely a peak or ridge in the whole region rises bare above the forests, though they are thinly planted in some places where the soil is shallow. From the cool breezy heights you look abroad over a boundless waving sea of evergreens, covering THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 81 hill and ridge and smooth-flowing slope as far as the eye can reach, and filling every hollow and down-plunging ravine in glorious triumphant exuberance. Perhaps the best general view of the pine forests of the park, and one of the best in the range, is obtained from the top of the Merced and Tuolumne divide near Hazel Green. On the long, smooth, finely folded slopes of the main ridge, at a height of five to six thousand feet above the sea, they reach most perfect devel- opment and are marshaled to view in magni- ficent towering ranks, their colossal spires and domes and broad palmlike crowns, deep in the kind sky, risimg above one another, — a multi- tude of giants in perfect health and beauty, — sun-fed mountaineers rejoicing in their strength, chanting with the winds, in accord with the fall- ing waters. The ground is mostly open and in- viting to walkers. The fragrant chamebatia is outspread in rich carpets miles in extent; the manzanita, in orchard-like groves, covered with pink bell-shaped flowers in the spring, grows in openings facing the sun, hazel and buckthorn in the dells; warm brows are purple with mint, yellow with sunflowers and violets ; and tall lilies ring their bells around the borders of meadows and along the ferny, mossy banks of the streams. Never was mountain forest more lavishly fur- nished. 82 OUR NATIONAL PARKS Hazel Green is a good place quietly to camp and study, to get acquainted with the trees and birds, to drink the reviving water and weather, and to watch the changing lights of the big charmed days. The rose light of the dawn, creeping higher among the stars, changes to daf- fodil yellow; then come the level enthusiastic sunbeams pouring across the feathery ridges, touching pine after pine, spruce and fir, liboce- drus and lordly sequoia, searching every recess, until all are awakened and warmed. In the white noon they shine in silvery splendor, every needle and cell in bole and branch thrilling and tingling with ardent life; and the whole land- scape glows with consciousness, like the face of a god. The hours go by uncounted. The even- ing flames with purple and gold. The breeze that has been blowing from the lowlands dies away, and far and near the mighty host of trees baptized in the purple flood stand hushed and thoughtful, awaiting the sun’s blessing and fare- well, — as impressive a ceremony as if it were never to rise again. When the daylight fades, the night breeze from the snowy summits begins to blow, and the trees, waving and rustling beneath the stars, breathe free again. It is hard to leave such camps and woods ; nevertheless, to the large majority of travelers the middle region of the park is still more in- teresting, for it has the most striking features of THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 83 all the Sierra scenery, — the deepest sections of the famous canons, of which the Yosemite Val- ley, Hetch-Hetchy Valley, and many smaller ones are wider portions, with level parklike floors and walls of immense height and grandeur of sculpture. This middle region holds also the greater number of the beautiful glacier lakes and glacier meadows, the great granite domes, and the most brilliant and most extensive of the glacier pavements. And though in large part it is severely rocky and bare, it is still rich in trees. The magnificent silver fir (Abies magnifica), which ranks with the giants, forms a continuous belt across the park above the pines at an eleva- tion of from seven to nine thousand feet, and north and south of the park boundaries to the, extremities of the range, only shghtly interrupted by the main canons. The two-leaved or tama- rack pine makes another less regular belt along the upper margin of the region, while between these two belts, and mingling with them, in groves or scattered, are the mountain hemlock, the most graceful of evergreens; the noble mountain pine; the Jeffrey form of the yellow pine, with big cones and long needles; and the brown, burly, sturdy Western juniper. All these, except the juniper, which grows on bald rocks, have plenty of flowery brush about them, and gardens in open spaces. Here, too, lies the broad, shining, heavily 84 OUR NATIONAL PARKS sculptured region of primeval granite, which best tells the story of the glacial period on the Pacific side of the continent. No other moun- tain chain on the globe, as far as I know, is so rich as the Sierra in bold, striking, well-preserved glacial monuments, easily understood by any- body capable of patient observation. Livery fea- ture is more or less glacial, and this park portion of the range is the brightest and clearest of all. Not a peak, ridge, dome, canon, lake basin, gar- den, forest, or stream but in some way explains the past existence and modes of action of flow- ing’, grinding, sculpturing, soil-making, scenery- making ice. For, notwithstanding the post- glacial agents— air, rain, frost, rivers, earth- quakes, avalanches — have been at work upon the greater part of the range for tens of thou- sands of stormy years, engraving their own characters over those of the ice, the latter are so heavily emphasized and enduring they still rise in sublime relief, clear and legible through every after inscription. The streams have traced only shallow wrinkles as yet, and avalanche, wind, rain, and melting snow have made blurs and scars, but the change effected on the face of the landscape is not greater than is made on the face of a mountaineer by a single year of weathering. Of all the glacial phenomena presented here, the most striking and attractive to travelers are the polished pavements, because they are so THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 85 beautiful, and their beauty is of so rare a kind, — unlike any part of the loose earthy lowlands where people dwell and earn their bread. They are simply flat or gently undulating areas of solid resisting granite, the unchanged surface over which the ancient glaciers flowed. They are found in the most perfect condition at an ele- vation of from eight to nine thousand feet above sea level. Some are miles in extent, only slightly blurred or scarred by spots that have at last yielded to the weather ; while the best preserved portions are brilliantly polished, and reflect the sunbeams as calm water or glass, shining as if rubbed and burnished every day, notwithstand- ing they have been exposed to plashing, corrod- ing rains, dew, frost, and melting sloppy snows for thousands of years. The attention of hunters and prospectors, who see so much in their wild journeys, is seldom at- tracted by moraines, however regular and arti- ficial-looking ; or rocks, however boldly sculp- tured ; or canons, however deep and sheer-walled. But when they come to these pavements, they go down on their knees and rub their hands ad- miringly on the glistening surface, and try hard to account for its mysterious smoothness and brightness. They may have seen the winter avalanches come down the mountains, through the woods, sweeping away the trees and scour- ing the ground; but they conclude that this 86 OUR NATIONAL PARKS cannot be the work of avalanches, because the striz show that the agent, whatever it was, flowed along and around and over the top of high ridges and domes, and also filled the deep canons. Neither can they see how water could be the agent, for the strange polish is found thousands of feet above the reach of any conceivable flood. Only the winds seem capable of moving over the face of the country in the directions indicated by the lines and grooves. The pavements are particularly fine around Lake Tenaya, and have suggested the Indian name Py-we-ack, the Lake of the Shining Rocks. Indians seldom trouble themselves with geolog:- cal questions, but a Mono Indian once came to me and asked if I could tell him what made the rocks so smooth at Tenaya. Even dogs and horses, on their first journeys into this region, study geology to the extent of gazing wonder- ingly at the strange brightness of the ground, and pawing it and smelling it, as if afraid of falling or sinking. In the production of this admirable hard finish, the glaciers in many places exerted a pressure of more than a hundred tons to the square foot, planing down granite, slate, and quartz alike, — showing their structure, and making beautiful mosaics. where large feldspar crystals form the greater part of the rock. On such pavements the sunshine is at times dazzling, as if the sur- face were of burnished silver. ALINASOA ‘NOILOV TVIOVTID AT NYOM SNWNTOO OLLIVSVd JO LNANAAVd THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 87 Here, also, are the brightest of the Sierra landscapes in general. The regions lying at the same elevation to the north and south were perhaps subjected to as long and intense a gla- ciation ; but because the rocks are less resisting, their polished surfaces have mostly given way to the weather, leaving here and there only small imperfect patches on the most enduring portions of canon walls protected from the action of rain and snow, and on hard bosses kept comparatively dry by boulders. The short, steeply inclined canons of the east flank of the range arein some places brightly polished, but they are far less magnificent than those of the broad west flank. One of the best general views of the middle region of the park is to be had from the top of a majestic dome which long ago I named the Glacier Monument. It is situated a few miles to the north of Cathedral Peak, and rises to a height of about fifteen hundred feet above its base and ten thousand above the sea. At first sight it seems sternly inaccessible, but a good climber will find that it may be scaled on the south side. Approaching it from this side you pass through a dense bryanthus-frmged grove of mountain hemlock, catching glimpses now and then of the colossal dome towering to an immense height above the dark evergreens ; and when at last you have made your way across woods, wad- ing through azalea and ledum thickets, you step abruptly out of the tree shadows and mossy 88 OUR NATIONAL PARKS leafy softness upon a bare porphyry pavement, and behold the dome unveiled in all its grandeur. Fancy a nicely proportioned monument, eight or ten feet high, hewn from one stone, standing in a pleasure ground; magnify it to a height of fifteen hundred feet, retaining its simplicity of form and fineness, and cover its surface with crystals ; then you may gain an idea of the sub- limity and beauty of this ice-burnished dome, one of many adorning this wonderful park. In making the ascent, one finds that the curve of the base rapidly steepens, until one is in danger of slipping ; but feldspar crystals, two or three inches long, that have been weathered into relief, afford slight footholds. The summit is in part burnished, like the sides and base, the strie and scratches indicating that the mighty Tuolumne Glacier, two or three thousand feet deep, overwhelmed it while it stood firm like a boulder at the bottom of a river. The pres- sure it withstood must have been enormous. Had it been less solidly built, 1t would have been ground and crushed into moraine fragments, like the general mass of the mountain flank in which at first it lay imbedded ; for it is only a hard re- sidual knob or knot with a concentric structure of superior strength, brought into relief by the removal of the less resisting rock about it, — an illustration in stone of the survival of the strong- est and most favorably situated. THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 89 Hardly less wonderful, when we contemplate the storms it has encountered since first it saw the light, is its present unwasted condition. The whole quantity of postglacial wear and tear it has suffered has not diminished its stature a sin- gle inch, as may be readily shown by measuring from the level of the unchanged polished por- tions of the surface. Indeed, the average post- glacial denudation of the entire region, measured in the same way, is found to be less than two inches, — a mighty contrast to that of the ice ; for the glacial denudation here has been not less than a mile; that is, in developing the present landscapes, an amount of rock a mile in average thickness has been silently carried away by flow- ing ice during the last glacial period. A few erratic boulders nicely poised on the rounded summit of the monument tell an inter- esting story. They came from a mountain on the crest of the range, about twelve miles to the eastward, floating like chips on the frozen sea, and were stranded here when the top of the monument emerged to the light of day, while the companions of these boulders, whose positions chanced to be over the slopes where they could not find rest, were carried farther on by the shal- lowing current. The general view from the summit consists of a sublime assemblage of iceborn mountains and rocks and long wavering ridges, lakes and 90 OUR NATIONAL PARKS streams and meadows, moraines in wide-sweeping belts, and beds covered and dotted with forests and groves, — hundreds of square miles of them composed in wild harmony. The snowy moun- tains on the axis of the range, mostly sharp- peaked and crested, rise in noble array along the sky to the eastward and northward ; the gray- pillared Hoffman spur and the Yosemite domes and a countless number of others to the west- ward; Cathedral Peak with its many spires and companion peaks and domes to the southward ; and a smooth billowy multitude of rocks, from fifty feet or less to a thousand feet high, which from their peculiar form seem to be rolling on westward, fill most of the middle ground. Im- mediately beneath you are the Big Tuolumne Meadows, with an ample swath of dark pine woods on either side, enlivened by the young river, that is seen sparkling and shimmering as it sways from side to side, tracing as best it can its broad glacial channel. The ancient Tuolumne Glacier, lavishly flooded by many a noble affluent from the snow-laden flanks of Mounts Dana, Gibbs, Lyell, Maclure, and others nameless as yet, poured its majes- tic overflowing current, four or five miles wide, directly against the high outstanding mass of Mount Hoffman, which divided and deflected it right and left, just as a river is divided against an island that stands in the middle of its chan- THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 91 nel. Two distinct glaciers were thus formed, one of which flowed through the Big Tuolumne Canon and Hetch-Hetchy Valley, while the other swept upward five hundred feet in a broad cur- rent across the divide between the basins of the Tuolumne and Merced into the Tenaya basin, and thence down through the Tenaya Canon and Yosemite Valley. The maplike distinctness and freshness of this glacial landscape cannot fail to excite the atten- tion of every observer, no matter how little of its scientific significance he may at first recognize. These bald, glossy, westward-leaning rocks in the open middle ground, with their rounded backs and shoulders toward the glacier fountains of the summit mountains and their split angular fronts looking in the opposite direction, every one of them displaying the form of greatest strength with reference to physical structure and glacial action, show the. tremendous force with which through unnumbered centuries the ice flood swept over them, and also the direction of the flow; while the mountains, with their sharp summits and abraded sides, indicate the height to which the glacier rose; and the moraines, curving and swaying in beautiful lines, mark the boundaries of the main trunk and its tributaries as they existed toward the close of the glacial winter. None of the commercial highways of the sea or land, marked with buoys and lamps, 92 OUR NATIONAL PARKS fences and guideboards, is so unmistakably indi- cated as are these channels of the vanished Tuo- lumne glaciers. The action of flowing ice, whether in the form of river-like glaciers or broad mantling folds, is but little understood as compared with that of other sculpturing agents. Rivers work openly where people dwell, and so do the rain, and the sea thundering on all the shores of the world; and the universal ocean of air, though unseen, speaks aloud in a thousand voices and explains its modes of working and its power. But gla- ciers, back in their cold solitudes, work apart from men, exerting their tremendous energies in silence and darkness. Coming in vapor from the sea, flying invisible on the wind, descending in snow, changing to ice, white, spiritlike, they brood out- spread over the predestined landscapes, working on unwearied through unmeasured ages, until in the fullness of time the mountains and valleys are brought forth, channels furrowed for the rivers, basins made for meadows and lakes, and soil beds spread for the forests and fields that man and beast may be fed. Then vanishing like clouds, they melt into streams and go singing back home to the sea. To an observer upon this adamantine old mon-. ument in the midst of such scenery, getting glimpses of the thoughts of God, the day seems endless, the sun stands still. Much faithless fuss THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 93 is made over the passage in the Bible telling of the standing still of the sun for Joshua. Here you may learn that the miracle occurs for every de- vout mountaineer, for everybody doing anything worth doing, seeing’ anything worth seeing. One day is as a thousand years, a thousand years as one day, and while yet in the flesh you enjoy immortality. From the monument you will find an easy way down through the woods and along the Big Tuolumne Meadows to Mount Dana, the summit of which commands a grand telling view of the alpine region. The scenery all the way is in- spiring, and you saunter on without knowing that you are climbing. The spacious sunny meadows, through the midst of which the bright river glides, extend with but little interruption ten miles to the eastward, dark woods rising on either side to the limit of tree growth, and above the woods a picturesque line of gray peaks and spires dotted with snow banks ; while, on the axis of the Sierra, Mount Dana and his noble compeers repose in massive sublimity, their vast size and simple flowing contours contrasting in the most striking manner with the clustering spires and thin-pinnacled crests crisply outlined on the horizon to the north and south of them. Tracing the silky lawns, gradually ascending, gazing at the sublime scenery more and more openly unfolded, noting the avalanche gaps in 94 OUR NATIONAL PARKS the upper forests, lingering over beds of blue gentians and purple-flowered bryanthus and cas- slope, and dwarf willows an inch high in close- felted gray carpets, brightened here and there with kalmia and soft creeping mats of vaccinium sprinkled with pink bells that seem to have been showered down from the sky lke hail, — thus beguiled and enchanted, you reach the base of the mountain wholly unconscious of the miles you have walked. And so on to the summit. For all the way up the long red slate slopes, that in the distance seemed barren, you find little gar- den beds and tufts of dwarf phlox, ivesia, and blue arctic daisies that go straight to your heart, blessed fellow mountaineers kept safe and warm by a thousand miracles. You are now more than thirteen thousand feet above the sea, and to the north and south you behold a sublime wilderness of mountains in glorious array, their snowy sum- mits towering together in crowded, bewildering abundance, shoulder to shoulder, peak beyond peak. To the east les the Great Basin, barren- looking and silent, apparently a land of pure desolation, rich only in beautiful light. Mono Lake, fourteen miles long, is outspread below you at a depth of nearly seven thousand feet, its shores of volcanic ashes and sand, treeless and sunburned; a group of volcanic cones, with well-formed, unwasted craters rises to the south of the lake ; while up from its eastern shore in- THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 95 numerable mountains with soft flowing outlines extend range beyond range, gray, and pale purple, and blue, — the farthest gradually fading on the glowing horizon. Westward you look down and over the countless moraines, glacier meadows, and grand sea of domes and rock waves of the upper Tuolumne basin, the Cathedral and Hoff- man mountains with their wavering lines and zones of forest, the wonderful region to the north of the Tuolumne Canon, and across the dark belt of silver firs to the pale mountains of the coast. In the icy fountains of the Mount Lyell and Ritter groups of peaks, to the south of Dana, three of the most important of the Sierra rivers —the Tuolumne, Merced, and San Joaquin — take their rise, their highest tributaries being within a few miles of one another as they rush forth on their adventurous courses from beneath snow banks and glaciers. Of the small shrinking glaciers of the Sierra, remnants of the majestic system that sculptured the range, I have seen sixty-five. About twenty- five of them are in the park, and eight are in sight from Mount Dana. The glacier lakes are sprinkled over all the alpine and subalpine regions, gleaming like eyes beneath heavy rock brows, tree-fringed or bare, embosomed in the woods, or lying in open basins with green and purple meadows around them; but the greater number are in the cool shadowy 96 OUR NATIONAL PARKS hollows of the summit mountains not far from the glaciers, the highest lying at an elevation of from eleven to nearly twelve thousand feet above the sea. The whole number in the Sierra, not counting the smallest, can hardly be less than fifteen hundred, of which about two hundred and fifty arein the park. From one standpoint, on Red Mountain, I counted forty-two, most’ of them within a radius of ten miles. The glacier meadows, which are spread over the filled-up basins of vanished lakes and form one of the most charming features of the scenery, are still more numerous than the lakes. An observer stationed here, in the glacial period, would have overlooked a wrinkled mantle of ice as continuous as that which now covers the continent of Greenland; and of all the vast landscape now shining in the sun, he would have seen only the tops of the summit peaks, rising darkly like storm-beaten islands, lifeless and hopeless, above rock-encumbered ice waves. — If among the agents that nature has employed in making these mountains there be one that above all others deserves the name of Destroyer, it is the glacier. But we quickly learn that de- struction is creation. During the dreary centu- ries through which the Sierra lay in darkness, crushed beneath the ice folds of the glacial win- ter, there was a steady invincible advance toward the warm life and beauty of to-day; and it is THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK 97 just where the glaciers crushed most destructively that the greatest amount of beauty is made man- ifest. But as these landscapes have succeeded the preglacial landscapes, so they in turn are giving place to others already planned and fore- seen. The granite domes and pavements, appa- rently imperishable, we take as symbols of permanence, while these crumbling peaks, down whose frosty gullies avalanches are ever falling, are symbols of change and decay. Yet all alike, fast or slow, are surely vanishing away. Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroymg, keeping every- thing whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in end- less song out of one beautiful form into another. CHAPTER IV THE FORESTS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK THE coniferous forests of the Yosemite Park, and of the Sierra in general, surpass all others of their kindin America or indeed in the world, not only in the size and beauty of the trees, but in the number of species assembled together, and the grandeur of the mountains they are growing on. Leaving the workaday lowlands, and wan- dering into the heart of the mountains, we find a new world, and stand beside the majestic pines and firs and sequoias silent and awestricken, as if in the presence of superior beings new arrived from some other star, so calm and bright and godlike they are. Going to the woods is going home; for I sup- pose we came from the woods originally. But in some of nature’s forests the adventurous tray- eler seems a feeble, unwelcome creature; wild beasts and the weather trying to kill him, the rank, tangled vegetation, armed with spears and stinging needles, barring his way and making life a hard struggle. Here everything is hospi- table and kind, as if planned for your pleasure, THE FORESTS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 99 ministering to every want of body and soul. Even the storms are friendly and seem to regard you as a brother, their beauty and tremendous fateful earnestness charming alike. But the weather is mostly sunshine, both winter and summer, and the clear sunny brightness of the park is one of its most striking characteristics. Even the heaviest portions of the main forest belt, where the trees are tallest and stand closest, are not in the least gloomy. The sunshine falls in glory through the colossal spires and crowns, each a symbol of health and strength, the noble shafts faithfully upright like the pillars of temples, upholding a roof of infinite leafy inter- lacing arches and fretted skylights. The more open portions are like spacious parks, carpeted with small shrubs, or only with the fallen needles sprinkled here and there with flowers. In some places, where the ground is level or slopes gently, the trees are assembled in groves, and the flow- ers and underbrush in trim beds and thickets as in landscape gardens or the lovingly planted grounds of homes; or they are drawn up in or- derly rows around meadows and lakes and along the brows of canons. But in general the forests are distributed in wide belts in accordance with climate and the comparative strength of each kind in gaining and holding possession of the ground, while anything like monotonous uni- formity is prevented by the grandly varied topo- 100 OUR NATIONAL PARKS gtaphy, and by the arrangement of the best soil- beds in intricate patterns like embroidery ; for these soilbeds are the moraines of ancient glaciers more or less modified by weathering and stream action, and the trees trace them over the hills and ridges, and far up the sides of the moun- tains, rismg with even growth on levels, and towering above one another on the long rich slopes prepared for them by the vanished gla- ciers. Had the Sierra forests been cheaply accessible, the most valuable of them commercially would ere this have fallen a prey to the lumberman. Thus far the redwood of the Coast Mountains and the Douglas spruce of Oregon and Wash- ington have been more available for lumber than the pine of the Sierra. It cost less to go a thousand miles up the coast for timber, where the trees came down to the shores of navigable rivers and bays, than fifty miles up the moun- tains. Nevertheless, the superior value of the sugar pine for many purposes has tempted capi- talists to expend large sums on flumes and rail- roads to reach the best forests, though perhaps © none of these enterprises has paid. Fortunately, the lately established system of parks and reser- vations has put a stop to any great extension of the business hereabouts in its most destructive forms. And as the Yosemite Park region has escaped the millmen, and the all-devouring ALINASOA ‘NALLIN LW UVAN ‘ANVI LAYISI GNVYSOOHL LV ANIT UAATWIL THE FORESTS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 101 hordes of hoofed locusts have been banished, it is still in the main a pure wilderness, unbroken by axe clearings except on the lower margin, where a few settlers have opened spots beside hay meadows for their cabins and gardens. But these are mere dots of cultivation, in no appre- ciable degree disturbing the grand solitude. Twenty or thirty years ago a good many trees were felled for their seeds; traces of this de- structive method of seed-collecting are still visible along the trails ; but these as well as the shingle- makers’ ruins are being rapidly overgrown, the gardens and beds of underbrush once devastated by sheep are blooming again in all their wild glory, and the park is a paradise that makes even the loss of Eden seem insignificant. On the way to Yosemite Valley, you get some grand views over the forests of the Merced and Tuolumne basins and glimpses of some of the finest trees by the roadside without leaving your seat in the stage. But to learn how they live and behave in pure wildness, to see them in their varying aspects through the seasons and weather, rejoicing in the great storms, in the spiritual mountain light, putting forth their new leaves and flowers when all the streams are in flood and the birds are singing, and sending away their seeds in the thoughtful Indian sum- mer when all the landscape is glowing in deep calm enthusiasm, — for this you must love them 102 OUR NATIONAL PARKS and live with them, as free from schemes and cares and time as the trees themselves. And surely nobody will find anything hard in this. Even the blind must enjoy these woods, drinking their fragrance, listening to the music of the winds in their groves, and fingering their flowers and plumes and cones and richly fur- rowed boles. The kind of study required is as easy and natural as breathing. Without any great knowledge of botany or wood-craft, in a single season you may learn the name and some- thing more of nearly every kind of tree m the park. With few exceptions all the Sierra trees are growing in the park, — nine species of pine, two of silver fir, one each of Douglas spruce, liboce- drus, hemlock, juniper, and sequoia, — sixteen conifers in all, and about the same number of round-headed trees, oaks, maples, poplars, laurel, alder, dogwood, tumion, ete. The first of the conifers you meet in going up the range from the west is the digger nut-pine (Pinus Sabiniana), a remarkably open, airy, wide-branched tree, forty to sixty feet high, with long, sparse, grayish green foliage and large cones. Ata height of fifteen to thirty feet from the ground the trunk usually divides into several main branches, which, after bearing away from one another, shoot straight up and form separate heads as if the axis of the tree had been broken, THE FORESTS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 103 while the secondary branches divide again and again into rather slender sprays loosely tasseled, with leaves eight to twelve inches long. The yellow and purple flowers are about an inch long, the staminate in showy clusters. The big, rough, burly cones, five to eight or ten inches in length and five or six in diameter, are rich brown in color when ripe, and full of hard-shelled nuts that are greatly prized by Indians and squirrels. This strange-looking pine, enjoying hot sunshine like a palm, is sparsely distributed along the driest part of the Sierra among small oaks and chaparral, and with its gray mist of foliage, strong trunk and branches, and big cones seen in relief on the glowing sky, forms the most striking feature of the foothill vegetation. Pinus attenuata is a small, slender, arrowy tree, with pale green leaves in threes, clustered flowers half an inch long, brownish yellow and crimson, and cones whorled in conspicuous clus- ters around the branches and also around the trunk. The cones never fall off or open until the tree dies. They are about four inches long, exceedingly strong and solid, and varnished with hard resin forming a waterproof and almost worm and squirrel proof package, i which the seeds are kept fresh and safe during the lifetime of the tree. Sometimes one of the trunk cones is overgrown and imbedded in the heart wood like a knot, but nearly all are pushed out and 104 OUR NATIONAL PARKS kept on the surface by the pressure of the suc- cessive layers of wood against the base. This admirable little tree grows on brushy, sun- beaten slopes, which from their position and the inflammable character of the vegetation are most frequently fire-swept. These grounds it is able to hold against all comers, however big and strong, by saving its seeds until death, when all it has pro- duced are scattered over the bare cleared ground, and a new generation quickly springs out of the ashes. Thus the curious fact that all the trees of extensive groves and belts are of the same age is accounted for, and their slender habit; for the lavish abundance of seed sown at the same time makes a crowded growth, and the seedlings with an even start rush up in a hurried race for hight and life. Only a few of the attenuata and Sabiniana pines are within the boundaries of the park, the former on the side of the Merced Canon, the latter on the walls of Hetch-Hetchy Valley and in the canon below it. The nut-pine (Pinus monophylla) is a small, hardy, contented-looking tree, about fifteen or twenty feet high and a foot in diameter. In its youth the close radiating and aspiring branches form a handsome broad-based pyramid, but when fully grown it becomes round-topped, knotty, and irregular, throwing out crooked divergent limbs like an apple tree. The leaves are pale THE FORESTS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 105 grayish green, about an inch and a half long, and instead of being divided into clusters they are single, round, sharp-pointed, and rigid like spikes, amid which in the spring the red flowers glow brightly. The cones are only about two inches in length and breadth, but nearly half of their bulk is made up of sweet nuts. This fruitful little pine grows on the dry east side of the park, along the margin of the Mono sage plain, and is the commonest tree of the short mountain ranges of the Great Basin. Tens of thousands of acres are covered with it, form- ing bountiful orchards for the Red-man. Being so low and accessible, the cones are easily beaten off with poles, and the nuts procured by roasting until the scales open. To the tribes of the desert and sage plains these seeds are the staff of life. They are eaten either raw or parched, or in the form of mush or cakes after being pounded intomeal. The time of nut harvest in the autumn is the Indian’s merriest time of all the year. An industrious squirrelish family can gather fifty or sixty bushels in a single month before the snow comes, and then their bread for the winter is sure. The white pine (Pinus jflexilis) is widely dis- tributed through the Rocky Mountains and the ranges of the Great Basin, where in many places it grows to a good size, and is an important tim- ber tree where none better is to be found. In 106 OUR NATIONAL PARKS the park it is sparsely scattered along the eastern flank of the range from Mono Pass southward, above the nut-pine, at an elevation of from eight to ten thousand feet, dwarfing toa tangled bush near the timber-line, but under favorable condi- tions attaining a height of forty or fifty feet, with a diameter of three to five. The long branches show a tendency to sweep out in bold curves, like those of the mountain and sugar pines to which it is closely related. The needles are in clusters of five, closely packed on the ends of the branchlets. The cones are about five inches long, — the smaller ones nearly oval, the larger cylindrical. But the most interesting feature of the tree is its bloom, the vivid red pistillate flowers glowing among the leaves like coals of fire. The dwarfed pine or white-barked pine (Pinus albicaulis) is sure to interest every observer on account of its curious low matted habit, and the great height on the snowy mountains at which it bravely grows. It forms the extreme edge of the timber-line on both flanks of the summit moun- tains —if so lowly a tree can be called timber — at an elevation of ten to twelve thousand feet above the level of the sea. Where it is first met on the lower limit of its range it may be thirty or forty feet high, but farther up the rocky wind-swept slopes, where the snow lies deep and heavy for six months of the year, it makes shaggy THE FORESTS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 107 clumps and beds, crinkled and pressed flat, over which you can easily walk. Nevertheless in this crushed, down-pressed, felted condition it clings hardily to life, puts forth fresh leaves every spring on the ends of its tasseled branchlets, blooms bravely in the lashing blasts with abun- dance of gay red and purple flowers, matures its seeds in the short summers, and often outlives the favored giants of the sun lands far below. One of the trees that I examined was only about three feet high, with a stem six inches in diame- ter at the ground, and branches that spread out horizontally as if they had grown up against a ceiling ; yet it was four hundred and twenty-six years old, and one of its supple branchlets, about an eighth of an inch in diameter inside the bark, was seventy-five years old, and so tough that I tied it into knots. At the age of this dwarf many of the sugar and yellow pines and sequoias are seven feet in diameter and over two hundred feet high. In detached clumps never touched by fire the fallen needles of centuries of growth make fine elastic mattresses for the weary mountaineer, while the tasseled branchlets spread a roof over him, and the dead roots, half resin, usually found in abun- dance, make capital camp-fires, unquenchable in thickest storms of rain or snow. Seen from a distance the belts and patches darkening the mountain sides look like mosses on a roof, and 108 OUR NATIONAL PARKS bring to mind Dr. Johnson’s remarks on the trees of Scotland. His guide, anxious for the honor of Mull, was still talking of its woods and pointing them out. “Sir,” said Johnson, “I saw at ‘Tobermory what they called a wood, which I unluckily took for heath. If you show me what I shall take for furze, it will be something.” The mountain pine ( Pinus monticola) is far the largest of the Sierra tree mountaineers. Climbing nearly as high as the dwarf albicaulis, it is still a giant in size, bold and strong, stand- ing erect on the storm-beaten peaks and ridges, tossing its cone-laden branches in the rough winds, living a thousand years, and reaching its greatest size — ninety to a hundred feet in height, six to eight in diameter — just where other trees, its companions, are dwarfed. But it is not able to endure burial in snow so long as the albicaulis and flexilis. Therefore, on the upper limit of its range it is found on slopes which, from their steepness or exposure, are least snowy. Its soft graceful beauty in youth, and its leaves, cones, and outsweeping feathery branches constantly remind you of the sugar pine, to which it is closely allied. An admirable tree, growing no- bler in form and size the colder and balder the mountains about it. The giants of the main forest in the favored middle region are the sequoia, sugar pine, yellow pine, libocedrus, Douglas spruce, and the two THE FORESTS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 109 silver firs. The park sequoias are restricted to two small groves, a few miles apart, on the Tuol- umne and Merced divide, about seventeen miles from Yosemite Valley. The Big Oak Flat road to the valley runs through the Tuolumne Grove, the Coulterville through the Merced. The more famous and better known Mariposa Grove, be- longing to the state, lies near the southwest cor- ner of the park, a few miles above Wawona. The sugar pine (Pinus Lambertiana) is first met in the park in open, sunny, flowery woods, at an elevation of about thirty-five hundred feet above the sea, attains full development at a height between five and six thousand feet, and vanishes at the level of eight thousand feet. In many places, especially on the northern slopes of the main ridges between the rivers, it forms the bulk of the forest, but mostly it is imtimately asso- ciated with its noble companions, above which it towers in glorious majesty on every hill, ridge, and plateau from one extremity of the range to the other, a distance of five hundred miles, — the largest, noblest, and most beautiful of all the seventy or eighty species of pine trees in the world, and of all the conifers second only to King Sequoia. A good many are from two hundred to two hundred and twenty feet in height, with a dia- meter at four feet from the ground of six to eight feet, and occasionally a grand patriarch, seven or 110 OUR NATIONAL PARKS eight hundred years old, is found that is ten or even twelve feet in diameter and two hundred and forty feet high, with a magnificent crown seventy feet wide. David Douglas, who discov- ered “ this most beautiful and immensely grand tree” in the fall of 1826 in southern Oregon, says that the largest of several that had been blown down, “at three feet from the ground was fifty-seven feet nine inches in circumference” (or fully eighteen feet in diameter); “at one hundred and thirty-four feet, seventeen feet five inches ; extreme length, two hundred and forty- five feet.” Probably for fifty-seven we should read thirty-seven for the base measurement, which would make it correspond with the other dimensions; for none of this species with any- thing like so great a girth has since been seen. A girth of even thirty feet is uncommon. A fallen specimen that I measured was nine feet three inches in diameter inside the bark at four feet from the ground, and six feet in diameter at a hundred feet from the ground. A compar- atively young tree, three hundred and thirty years old, that had been cut down, measured seven feet across the stump, was three feet three inches in diameter at a height of one hundred and fifty feet, and two hundred and ten feet in length. The trunk is a round, delicately tapered shaft with finely furrowed purplish-brown bark, usually THE FORESTS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 111 free of limbs for a hundred feet or more. The top is furnished with long and comparatively slender branches, which sweep gracefully down- ward and outward, feathered with short tasseled branchlets, and divided only at the ends, forming a palmlike crown fifty to seventy-five feet wide, but without the monotonous uniformity of palm crowns or of the spires of most conifers. The old trees are as tellingly varied and picturesque as oaks. No two are alike, and we are tempted to stop and admire every one we come to, whether as it stands silent in the calm balsam-scented sun- shine or waving in accord with enthusiastic storms. The leaves are about three or four inches long, in clusters of five, finely tempered, bright lively green, and radiant. The flowers are but little larger than those of the dwarf pine, and far less showy. The immense cylindrical cones, fifteen to twenty or even twenty-four inches long and three in diameter, hang singly or in clusters, like ornamental tassels, at the ends of the long branches, green, flushed with purple on the sunward side. Like those of almost all the pines they ripen in the autumn of the second season from the flower, and the seeds of all that have escaped the Indians, bears, and squirrels take wing and fly to their places. Then the cones become still more effective as ornaments, for by the spreading of the scales the diameter is nearly doubled, and the color changes to a rich 112 OUR NATIONAL PARKS brown. They remain on the tree the following winter and summer; therefore few fertile trees are ever found without them. Nor even after they fall is the beauty work of these grand cones done, for they make a fine show on the flowery, needle-strewn ground. The wood is pale yellow, fine in texture, and deliciously fragrant. The sugar, which gives name to the tree, exudes from the heart wood on wounds made by fire or the axe, and forms irregular crisp white candy-like masses. To the taste of most people it is as good as maple sugar, though it cannot be eaten in large quantities. No traveler, whether a tree lover or not, will ever forget his first walk in a sugar-pine forest. ‘The majestic crowns approaching one another make a glorious canopy, through the feathery arches of which the sunbeams pour, silvering the needles and gilding the stately columns and the ground into a scene of enchantment. The yellow pme (Pius ponderosa) is sur- passed in size and nobleness of port only by its kingly companion. Full-grown trees in the main forest where it is associated with the sugar pine, are about one hundred and seventy-five feet high, with a diameter of five to six feet, though much larger specimens may easily be found. The largest I ever measured was a little over eight feet in diameter four feet above the ground, and two hundred and twenty feet high. Where there THE FORESTS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 113 is plenty of sunshine and other conditions are favorable, it is a massive symmetrical spire, formed of a strong straight shaft clad with imnu- merable branches, which are divided again and again into stout branchlets laden with bright shining needles and green or purple cones. Where the growth is at all close half or more of the trunk is branchless. The species attains its greatest size and most majestic form in open groves on the deep, well-drained soil of lake basins at an elevation of about four thousand feet. There nearly all the old trees are over two hundred feet high, and the heavy, leafy, much- divided branches sumptuously clothe the trunk almost to the ground. Such trees are easily climbed, and in going up the winding stairs of knotty limbs to the top you will gain a most tell- ing and memorable idea of the height, the rich- ness and intricacy of the branches, and the mar- velous abundance and beauty of the long shining elastic foliage. In tranquil weather, you will see the firm outstanding needles in calm content, shimmering and throwing off keen minute rays of light like lances of ice ; but when heavy winds are blowing, the strong towers bend and wave in the blast with eager wide-awake enthusiasm, and every tree in the grove glows and flashes in one mass of white sunfire. Both the yellow and sugar pines grow rapidly on good soil where they are not crowded. At 114 OUR NATIONAL PARKS the age of a hundred years they are about two feet in diameter and a hundred or more high. They are then very handsome, though very un- like: the sugar pine, lithe, feathery, closely clad with ascending branches; the yellow, open, showing its axis from the ground to the top, its whorled branches but little divided as yet, spreading and turning up at the ends with mag- nificent tassels of long stout bright needles, the terminal shoot with its leaves being often three or four feet long and a foot and a half wide, the most hopeful looking and the handsomest tree- top in the woods. But instead of increasing, like its companion, in wildness and individual- ity of form with age, it becomes more evenly and compactly spiry. The bark is usually very thick, four to six inches at the ground, and ar- ranged in large plates, some of them on the lower part of the trunk four or five feet long and twelve to eighteen inches wide, forming a strong defense against fire. The leaves are in threes, and from three inches to a foot long. The flowers appear in May: the staminate pink or brown, in conspicuous clusters two or three inches wide ; the pistillate crimson, a fourth of an inch wide, and mostly hidden among the leaves on the tips of the branchlets. ‘The cones vary from about three to ten inches in length, two to five in width, and grow in sessile out- standing clusters near the ends of the upturned branchlets. THE FORESTS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 115 Being able to endure fire and hunger and many climates this grand tree is widely distribu- ted: eastward from the coast across the broad Rocky Mountain ranges to the Black Hills of Dakota, a distance of more than a thousand miles, and southward from British Columbia, near latitude 51°, to Mexico, about fifteen hun- dred miles. South of the Columbia River it meets the sugar pine, and accompanies it all the way down along the Coast and Cascade moun- tains and the Sierra and southern ranges to the mountains of the peninsula of Lower California, where they find their southmost homes together. Pinus ponderosa is extremely variable, and much bother it gives botanists who try to catch and confine the unmanageable proteus in two or a dozen species, — Jeffreyi, deflexa, Apacheca lati- foha, ete. But im all its wanderings, in every form, it manifests noble strength. Clad in thick bark like a warrior in mail, it extends its bright ranks over all the high ranges of the wild side of the continent: flourishes in the drenching fog and rain of the northern coast at the level of the sea, in the snow-laden blasts of the moun- tains, and the white glaring sunshine of the interior plateaus and plains, on the borders of mirage-haunted deserts, volcanoes, and lava beds, waving its bright plumes in the hot winds un- daunted, blooming every year for centuries, and tossing big ripe cones among the cinders and ashes of nature’s hearths. 116 OUR NATIONAL PARKS The Douglas spruce grows with the great pines, especially on the cool north sides of ridges and canons, and is here nearly as large as the yellow pine, but less abundant. The wood is strong and tough, the bark thick and deeply furrowed, and on vigorous, quick-growing trees the stout, spreading branches are covered with innumerable slender, swaying sprays, handsomely clothed with short leaves. The flowers are about three fourths of an inch in length, red or green- ish, not so showy as the pendulous bracted cones. But in June and July, when the young bright yellow leaves appear, the entire tree seems to be covered with bloom. It is this grand tree that forms the famous forests of western Oregon, Washington, and the adjacent coast regions of British Columbia, where it attains its greatest size and is most abundant, making almost pure forests over thou- sands of square miles, dark and close and almost maccessible, many of the trees towering with straight, imperceptibly tapered shafts to a height of three hundred feet, their heads together shut- ting out the light, —one of the largest, most widely distributed, and most important of all the Western giants. The incense cedar (Libocedrus decurrens), when full grown, is a magnificent tree, one hun- dred and twenty to nearly two hundred feet high, five to eight and occasionally twelve feet THE FORESTS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 117 in diameter, with cinnamon-colored bark and warm yellow-green foliage, and in general ap- pearance like an arbor vite. It is distributed through the main forest from an elevation of three to six thousand feet, and in sheltered por- tions of cafions on the warm sides to seven thou- sand five hundred. In midwinter, when most trees are asleep, it puts forth its flowers. The pistillate are pale green and inconspicuous; but the staminate are yellow, about one fourth of an inch long, and are produced in myriads, tingeing all the branches with gold, and making the tree as it stands in the snow look like a gigantic goldenrod. Though scattered rather sparsely amongst its companions in the open woods, it is seldom out of sight, and its bright brown shafts and warm masses of plumy foliage make a strik- ing feature of the landscape. While young and growing fast in an open situation no other tree of its size in the park forms so exactly tapered a pyramid. The branches, outspread in flat plumes and beautifully fronded, sweep grace- fully downward and outward, except those near the top, which aspire; the lowest droop to the ground, overlapping one another, shedding off rain and snow, and making fine tents for storm- bound mountaineers and birds. In old age it becomes irregular and picturesque, mostly from accidents: running fires, heavy wet snow break- ing the branches, lightning shattering the top, 118 OUR NATIONAL PARKS compelling it to try to make new summits out of side branches, ete. Still it frequently lives more than a thousand years, invincibly beautiful, and worthy its place beside the Douglas spruce and the great pines. This unrivaled forest is still further enriched by two majestic silver firs, Abies magnifica and Abies concolor, bands of which come down from the main fir belt by cool shady ridges and glens. Abies magnifica is the noblest of its race, grow- ing on moraines, at an elevation of seven thou- sand to eight thousand five hundred feet above the sea, to a height of two hundred or two hun- dred and fifty feet, and five to seven in diame- ter; and with these noble dimensions there is a richness and symmetry and perfection of finish not to be found in any other tree in the Sierra. The branches are whorled, in fives mostly, and stand out from the straight red purple bole in level or, on old trees, in drooping collars, every branch regularly pinnated like fern fronds, and clad with silvery needles, making broad plumes singularly rich and sumptuous. The flowers are in their prime about the mid- dle of June: the staminate red, growing on the underside of the branchlets in crowded profusion, giving a rich color to nearly all the tree; the pistillate greenish yellow tinged with pink, stand- ing erect on the upper side of the topmost branches ; while the tufts of young leaves, about THE FORESTS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 119 as brightly colored as those of the Douglas spruce, push out thew fragrant brown buds a few weeks later, making another grand show. The cones mature in a single season from the flowers. When full grown they are about six to eight inches long, three or four in diameter, blunt, massive, cylindrical, greenish gray in color, covered with a fine silvery down, and beaded with transparent balsam, very rich and precious- looking, standing erect like casks on the topmost branches. If possible, the side of the cone is still more beautiful. The scales and bracts are tinged with red, and the seed wings are purple with bright iridescence. Abies concolor, the white silver fir, grows best about two thousand feet lower than the magni- fica. It is nearly as large, but the branches are less regularly pinnated and whorled, the leaves are longer, and instead of standing out around the branchlets or turning up and clasping them they are mostly arranged in two horizontal or ascending rows, and the cones are less than half as large. The bark of the magnifica is reddish purple and closely furrowed, that of the concolor is gray and widely furrowed, — a noble pair, ri- valed only by the Abies grandis, amabilis, and nobilis of the forests of Oregon, Washington, and the Northern California Coast Range. But none of these northern species form pure forests that in extent and beauty approach those of the Sierra. 120 OUR NATIONAL PARKS The seeds of the conifers are curiously formed and colored, white, brown, purple, plain or spotted like birds’ eggs, and excepting the juni- per they are all handsomely and ingeniously winged with reference to their distribution. They are a sort of cunningly devised flymg ma- chines, — one-winged birds, birds with but one feather, — and they take but one flight, all save those which, after flying from the cone-nest in calm weather, chance to alight on branches where they have to wait fora wind. And though these seed wings are intended for only a mo- ment’s use, they are as thoughtfully colored and fashioned as the wings of birds, and require from one to two seasons to grow. ‘Those of the pine, fir, hemlock, and spruce are curved in such manner that, in being dragged through the air by the seeds, they are made to revolve, whirling the seeds in a close spiral, and sustaining them long enough to allow the winds to carry them to considerable distances, —a style of flying full of quick merry motion, strikingly contrasted to the sober dignified sailing of seeds on tufts of feathery pappus. Surely no merrier adventurers ever set out to seek their fortunes. Only in the fir woods are large flocks seen; for, unlike the cones of the pine, spruce, hemlock, ete., which let the seeds escape slowly, one or two at a time, by spreading the scales, the fir cones when ripe fall to pieces, and let nearly all go at once in THE FORESTS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 121 favorable weather. All along the Sierra for hun- dreds of miles, on dry breezy autumn days, the sunny spaces in the woods among the colossal spires are in a whirl with these shining’ purple- winged wanderers, notwithstanding the harvest- ing squirrels have been working at the top of their speed for weeks trying to cut off every cone before the seeds were ready to swarm and fly. Sequoia seeds have flat wings, and glint and glance in their flight like a boy’s kite. The dispersal of juniper seeds is effected by the plum and cherry plan of hiring birds at the cost of their board, and thus obtaining the use of a pair of extra good wings. Above the great fir belt, and below the ragged beds and fringes of the dwarf pine, stretch the broad dark forests of Pinus contorta, var. Mur- rayana, usually called tamarack pine. On broad fields of moraine material it forms nearly pure forests at an elevation of about eight or nine thousand feet above the sea, where it is a small, well proportioned tree, fifty or sixty feet high and one or two in diameter, with thin gray bark, crooked much-divided straggling branches, short needles in clusters of two, bright yellow and crimson flowers, and small prickly cones. The very largest I ever measured was ninety feet in height, and a little over six feet in dia- meter four feet above the ground. On moist well-drained soil in sheltered hollows along 122 OUR NATIONAL PARKS streamsides it grows tall and slender with ascend- ing branches, making graceful arrowy spires fifty to seventy-five feet high, with stems only five or six inches thick. The most extensive forest of this pine in the park lies to the north of the Big Tuolumne Meadows, — a famous deer pasture and hunting ground of the Mono Indians. For miles over wide moraine beds there is an even, nearly pure growth, broken only by glacier meadows, around which the trees stand in trim array, their sharp spires showing to fine advantage both in green flowery summer and white winter. On account of the closeness of its growth in many places, and the thinness and gumminess of its bark, it is easily killed by running fires, which work wide- spread destruction in its ranks; but a new gen- eration rises quickly from the ashes, for all or a part of its seeds are held in reserve for a year or two or many years, and when the tree is killed the cones open and the seeds are scattered over the burned ground like those of the attenuata. Next to the mountain hemlock and the dwarf pine this species best endures burial in heavy snow, while in braving hunger and cold on rocky ridgetops it is not surpassed by any. It is dis- tributed from Alaska to Southern California, and inland across the Rocky Mountains, taking many forms in accordance with demands of climate, soil, rivals, and enemies ; growing patiently in THE FORESTS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 123 bogs and on sand dunes beside the sea where it is pelted with salt scud, on high snowy moun- tains and down in the throats*of extinct volcanoes ; springing up with invincible vigor after every devastating fire and extending its conquests farther. The sturdy storm-enduring red cedar (Juni- perus occidentalis) delights to dwell on the tops of granite domes and ridges and glacier pave- ments of the upper pine belt, at an elevation of seven to ten thousand feet, where it can get plenty of sunshine and snow and elbow-room without encountering quick-growing overshadow- ing rivals. They never make anything like a forest, seldom come together even in groves, but stand out separate and independent in the wind, clinging by shght joimts to the rock, living chiefly on snow and thin air, and maintaining tough health on this diet for two thousand years or more, every feature and gesture expressing steadfast dogged endurance. The largest are usually about six or eight feet in diameter, and fifteen or twenty in height. A very few are ten feet in diameter, and on isolated moraine heaps forty to sixty feet in height. Many are mere stumps, as broad as high, broken by avalanches and lightning, picturesquely tufted with dense gray scalelike foliage, and giving no hint of dy- ing. The staminate flowers are like those of the libocedrus, but smaller ; the pistillate are incon- 124 OUR NATIONAL PARKS spicuous. The wood is red, fine-grained, and fragrant; the bark bright cinnamon and red, and in thrifty trees is strikingly braided and re- ticulated, flaking off in thin lustrous ribbons, which the Indians used to weave into matting and coarse cloth. These brown unshakable pil- lars, standing solitary on polished pavements with bossy masses of foliage in their arms, are exceedingly picturesque, and never fail to catch the eye of the artist. They seem sole survivors of some ancient race, wholly unacquainted with their neighbors. I have spent a good deal of time, trying to determine their age, but on account of dry rot which honeycombs most of the old ones, I never got a complete count of the largest. Some are undoubtedly more than two thousand years old ; for though on good moraine soil they grow about as fast as oaks, on bare pavements and smoothly glaciated overswept granite ridges in the dome region they grow extremely slowly. One on the Starr King ridge, only two feet eleven inches in diameter, was eleven hundred and forty years old. Another on the same ridge, only one foot seven and a half inches in diameter, had reached the age of eight hundred and thirty-four years. The first fifteen inches from the bark of a me- dium-sized tree — six feet in diameter — on the north Tenaya pavement had eight hundred and fifty-nine layers of wood, or fifty-seven to the THE FORESTS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 125 inch. Beyond this the count was stopped by dry rot and scars of old wounds. The largest I examined was thirty-three feet in girth, or nearly ten in diameter ; and though I failed to get any- thing like a complete count, I learned enough from this and many other specimens to convince me that most of the trees eight to ten feet thick standing on pavements are more than twenty cen- turies of age rather than less. Barring accidents, for all I can see, they would live forever. When killed, they waste out of existence about as slowly as granite. Even when overthrown by ava- lanches, after standing so long, they refuse to lie at rest, leaning stubbornly on their big elbows as if anxious to rise, and while a single root holds to the rock putting forth fresh leaves with a grim never-say-die and never-lie-down expression. As the juniper is the most stubborn and un- shakable of trees, the mountain hemlock (TZ’suga Mertensiana) is the most graceful and pliant and sensitive, responding to the slightest touches of the wind. Until it reaches a height of fifty or sixty feet it issumptuously clothed down to the ground with drooping branches, which are di- vided into countless delicate waving sprays, grouped and arranged in most indescribably beautiful ways, and profusely sprinkled with handsome brown cones. The flowers also are peculiarly beautiful and effective: the pistillate very dark rich purple ; the staminate blue of so 126 OUR NATIONAL PARKS fine and pure a tone that the best azure of the high sky seems to be condensed in them. Though apparently the most delicate and femi- nine of all the mountain trees, it grows best where the snow lies deepest, at an elevation of from nine thousand to nine thousand five hun- dred feet, in hollows on the northern slopes of mountains and ridges. But under all circum- stances and conditions of weather and soil, shel- tered from the main currents of the winds or in blank exposure to them, well fed or starved, it is always singularly graceful in habit. Even at its highest limit in the park, ten thousand five hun- dred feet above the sea on exposed ridgetops, where it crouches and huddles close together in low thickets like those of the dwarf pine, it still contrives to put forth its sprays and branches in forms of irrepressible beauty, while on moist well-drained moraines it displays a_ perfectly tropical luxuriance of foliage, flower, and fruit. In the first winter storms the snow 1s often- times soft, and lodges in the dense leafy branches, pressing them down against the trunk, and the slender drooping axis bends lower and lower as the load increases, until the top touches the ground and an ornamental archis made. Then, as storm succeeds storm and snow is heaped on snow, the whole tree is at last buried, not again to see the light or move leaf or limb until set free by the sprig thaws in June or July. Not THE FORESTS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 127 the young saplings only are thus carefully cov- ered and put to sleep in the whitest of white beds for five or six months of the year, but trees thirty and forty feet high. From April to May, when the snow is compacted, you may ride over the prostrate groves without seeing a single branch or leaf of them. In the autumn they are full of merry life, when Clark crows, squirrels, and chip- munks are gathering the abundant crop of seeds while the deer rest beneath the thick conceal- ing branches. The finest grove in the park is near Mount Conness, and the trail from the Tuolumne soda springs to the mountain runs through it. Many of the trees in this grove are three to four or five feet in diameter and about a hundred feet high. The mountain hemlock is widely distributed from near the south extremity of the high Sierra northward along the Cascade Mountains of Ore- gon and Washington and the coast ranges of British Columbia to Alaska, where it was first discovered in 1827. Its northmost limit, so far as I have observed, is in the icy fiords of Prince William’s Sound in latitude 61°, where it forms pure forests at the level of the sea, growing tall and majestic on the banks of the great glaciers, waving in accord with the mountain winds and the thunder of the falling icebergs. Here as in the Sierra it is ineffably hematak the very love- lest evergreen in America. 128 OUR NATIONAL PARKS Of the round-headed dicotyledonous trees in the park the most influential are the black and goldcup oaks. They occur in some parts of the main forest belt, scattered among the big pines like a heavier chaparral, but form extensive groves and reach perfect development only in the Yosemite valleys and flats of the main canons. The California black oak (Quercus Californica) is one of the largest and most beautiful of the Western oaks, attaining under fa- vorable conditions a height of sixty to a hundred feet, with a trunk three to seven feet in diameter, wide-spreading picturesque branches, and smooth — lively green foliage handsomely scalloped, purple in the spring, yellow and red in autumn. It grows best in sunny open groves on ground cov- ered with ferns, chokecherry, brier rose, rubus, mints, goldenrods, etc. Few, if any, of the fa- mous oak groves of Europe, however extensive, surpass these in the size and strength and bright, airy beauty of the trees, the color and fragrance of the vegetation beneath them, the quality of the light that fills their leafy arches, and in the grandeur of the surrounding scenery. ‘The fin- est grove in the park is in one of the little Yo- semite valleys of the Tuolumne Canon, a few miles above Hetch-Hetchy. The mountain live-oak, or goldeup oak (Quer- cus chrysolepis), forms extensive groves on earthquake and avalanche taluses and terraces THE FORESTS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 129 in canons and Yosemite valleys, from about three to five thousand feet above the sea. In tough, sturdy, unwedgeable strength this is the oak of oaks. In general appearance it resembles the great live-oak of the Southern states. It has pale gray bark, a short, uneven, heavily but- tressed trunk which usually divides a few feet above the ground into strong wide-reaching limbs, forming noble arches, and ending in an in- tricate maze of small branches and sprays, the outer ones frequently drooping in long tresses to the ground like those of the weeping willow, covered with small simple polished leaves, mak- ing a canopy broad and bossy, on which the sun- shine falls in glorious brightness. The acorn cups are shallow, thick-walled, and covered with yellow fuzzy dust. The flowers appear in May and June with a profusion of pollened tresses, followed by the bronze-colored young leaves. No tree in the park isa better measure of alti- tude. In canons, at an elevation of four thou- sand feet, you may easily find a tree six or eight feet in diameter; and at the head of a side canon, three thousand feet higher, up which you can climb in less than two hours, you find the knotty giant dwarfed to a slender shrub, with leaves like those of huckleberry bushes, still bearing acorns, and seemingly contented, form- ing dense patches of chaparral, on the top of which you may make your bed and sleep softly 130 OUR NATIONAL PARKS like a Highlander in heather. About a thou- sand feet higher it is still smaller, making fringes about a foot high around boulders and along seams in pavements and the brows of cafions, giving hand-holds here and there on cliffs hard to climb. The largest I have measured were from twenty-five to twenty-seven feet in girth, fifty to sixty feet high, and the spread of the limbs was about double the height. The principal riverside trees are poplar, alder, willow, broad-leaved maple, and Nuttall’s flower- ing dogwood. The poplar (Populus tricho- carpa), often called balm of Gilead from the gum on its buds, is a tall, stately tree, towering above its companions and gracefully embowering the banks of the main streams at an elevation of about four thousand feet. Its abundant foliage turns bright yellow in the fall, and the Indian- summer sunshine sifts through it in delightful tones over the slow-gliding waters when they are at their lowest ebb. The flowering dogwood is brighter still in these brooding days, for every branch of its broad head is then a brilliant crimson flame. In the spring, when the streams are in flood, it is the whitest of trees, white as a snow bank with its magnificent flowers four to eight inches in width, making a wonderful show, and drawing swarms of moths and butterflies. The broad-leaved maple is usually found in the THE FORESTS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 131 coolest boulder-choked canons, where the streams are gray and white with foam, over which it spreads its branches in beautiful arches from bank to bank, forming leafy tunnels full of soft green light and spray, — favorite homes of the water ousel. Around the glacier lakes, two or three thousand feet higher, the common aspen grows in fringing lines and groves which are brilliantly colored in autumn, reminding you of the color glory of the Eastern woods. Scattered here and there or in groves the bota- nist will find a few other trees, mostly small, — the mountain mahogany, cherry, chestnut-oak, laurel, and nutmeg. The California nutmeg (Tumion Californicum) is a handsome evergreen, belonging to the yew family, with pale bark, prickly leaves, fruit like a green-gage plum, and seed like a nutmeg. One of the best groves of it in the park is at the Cascades below Yosemite. But the noble oaks and all these rock-shading, stream-embowering trees are as nothing amid the vast abounding billowy forests of conifers. Dur- ing my first years in the Sierra I was ever calling on everybody within reach to admire them, but I found no one half warm enough until Emerson came. I had read his essays, and felt sure that of all men he would best interpret the sayings of these noble mountains and trees. Nor was my faith weakened when I met him in Yosemite. He seemed as serene as a sequoia, his head in the 132 OUR NATIONAL PARKS empyrean ; and forgetting his age, plans, duties, ties of every sort, 1 proposed an immeasurable camping trip back in the heart of the mountains. He seemed anxious to go, but considerately men- tioned his party. I said: “Never mind. The mountains are calling; run away, and let plans and parties and dragging lowland duties all ‘gang tapsal-teerie. We'll go up a canon sing- ing your own song, ‘Good-by, proud world! I’m going home,’ in divine earnest. Up there lies a new heaven and a new earth; let us go to the show.” But alas, it was too late, — too near the sundown of his life. The shadows were grow- ing long, and he leaned on his friends. His party, full of indoor philosophy, failed to seé the natural beauty and fullness of promise of my wild plan, and laughed at it in good-natured ignorance, as if it were necessarily amusing to imagine that Boston people might be led to accept Sierra manifestations of God at the price of rough camping. Anyhow, they would have none of it, and held Mr. Emerson to the hotels and trails. After spending only five tourist days in Yosemite he was led away, but I saw him two days more; for I was kindly invited to go with the party as far as the Mariposa big trees. I told Mr. Emerson that I would gladly go to the sequoias with him, if he would camp in the grove. He consented heartily, and I felt sure that we would haveat least one good wild memorable night THE FORESTS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 133 around a sequoia camp-fire. Next day we rode through the magnificent forests of the Merced basin, and I kept calling his attention to the sugar pines, quoting his wood-notes, ‘‘ Come listen what the pine tree saith,” etc., poiting out the noblest as kings and high priests, the most eloquent and commanding preachers of all the mountain forests, stretching forth their century- old arms in benediction over the worshiping con- gregations crowded about them. He gazed in devout admiration, saying but little, while his fine smile faded away. Early im the afternoon, when we reached Clark’s Station, I was surprised to see the party dismount. And when I asked if we were not going up into the grove to camp they said: “No; it would never do to lie out in the night air. Mr. Emerson might take cold; and you know, Mr. Muir, that would be a dreadful thing.” In vain I urged, that only in homes and hotels were colds caught, that nobody ever was known to take cold camping in these woods, that there was not a single cough or sneeze in all the Sierra. Then I pictured the big climate-changing, inspiring fire I would make, praised the beauty and fragrance of sequoia flame, told how the great trees would stand about us transfigured in the purple light, while the stars looked down between the great domes ; ending by urging them to come on and make an immortal Emerson night 134 OUR NATIONAL PARKS of it. But the house habit was not to be overcome, nor the strange dread of pure night air, though it is only cooled day air with a little dew in it. So the carpet dust and unknowable reeks were preferred. And to think of this being a Boston choice! Sad commentary on culture and the glo- rious transcendentalism. Accustomed to reach whatever place I started for, | was going up the mountain alone to camp, and wait the coming of the party next day. But since Emerson was so soon to vanish, I con- cluded to stop with him. He hardly spoke a word all the evening, yet it was a great pleasure simply to be near him, warming in the light of his face as at a fire. In the morning we rode up the trail through a noble forest of pine and fir into the famous Mariposa Grove, and stayed an hour or two, mostly in ordinary tourist fashion, — look- ing at the biggest giants, measuring them with a tape line, riding through prostrate fire-bored trunks, ete., though Mr. Emerson was alone occa- sionally, sauntermg about as if under a spell. As we walked through a fine group, he quoted, “There were giants in those days,” recognizing the antiquity of the race. To commemorate his visit, Mr. Galen Clark, the guardian of the grove, selected the finest of the unnamed trees and re- quested him to give it a name. He named it Samoset, after the New England sachem, as the best that occurred to him. THE FORESTS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 135 The poor bit of measured time was soon spent, and while the saddles were being adjusted I again urged Emerson to stay. “You are yourself a sequoia,’ I said. “Stop and get acquainted with your big brethren.” But he was past his prime, and was now as a child in the hands of his affee- tionate but sadly civilized friends, who seemed as full of old-fashioned conformity as of bold intel- lectual independence. It was the afternoon of the day and the afternoon of his life, and his course was now westward down all the mountains into the sunset. The party mounted and rode away in wondrous contentment, apparently, tracing the trail through ceanothus and dog- wood bushes, around the bases of the big trees, up the slope of the sequoia basin, and over the divide. I followed to the edge of the grove. Emerson lingered in the rear of the train, and when he reached the top of the ridge, after all the rest of the party were over and out of sight, he turned his horse, took off his hat and waved me a last good-by. I felt lonely, so sure had I been that Emerson of all men would be the quickest to see the mountains and sing them. Gazing awhile on the spot where he vanished, I sauntered back into the heart of the grove, made a bed of sequoia plumes and ferns by the side of a stream, gathered a store of firewood, and then walked about until sundown. The birds, robins, thrushes, warblers, etc., that had kept out of sight, came 136 OUR NATIONAL PARKS about me, now that all was quiet, and made cheer. After sundown I built a great fire, and as usual had it all to myself. And though lone- some for the first time in these forests, I quickly took heart again,—the trees had not gone to Boston, nor the birds; and as I sat by the fire, Emerson was still with me in spirit, though I never again saw him in the flesh. He sent books and wrote, cheering me on; advised me not to stay too long in solitude. Soon he hoped that my guardian angel would intimate that my pro- bation was at a close. Then I was to roll up my herbariums, sketches, and poems (though I never knew I had any poems), and come to his house ; and when I tired of him and his humble sur- roundings, he would show me to better people. But there remained many a forest to wander through, many a mountain and glacier to cross, before I was to see his Wachusett and Monad- nock, Boston and Concord. It was seventeen years after our parting on the Wawona ridge that I stood beside his grave under a pine tree on the hill above Sleepy Hollow. He had gone to higher Sierras, and, as I fancied, was again waving his hand in friendly recognition. CHAPTER V THE WILD GARDENS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK Wuewn California was wild, it was the floweri- est part of the continent. And perhaps it is so still, notwithstanding the lowland flora has in great part vanished before the farmers’ flocks and ploughs. So exuberant was the bloom of the main valley of the state, it would still have been extravagantly rich had ninety-nine out of every hundred of its crowded flowers been taken away, —far flowerier than the beautiful prairies of Illinois and Wisconsin, or the savan- nas of the Southern states. In the early spring it was a smooth, evenly planted sheet of purple and gold, one mass of bloom more than four hundred miles long, with scarce a green leaf in sight. Still more interesting is the rich and wonder- fully varied flora of the mountains. Going up the Sierra across the Yosemite Park to the Sum- mit peaks, thirteen thousand feet high, you find as much variety in the vegetation as in the scen- ery. Change succeeds change with bewildering rapidity, for in a few days you pass through as 138 OUR NATIONAL PARKS many climates and floras, ranged one above an- other, as you would in walking along the low- lands to the Arctic Ocean. And to the variety due to climate there is added that caused by the topographical features of the different regions. Again, the vegetation is profoundly varied by the peculiar distribution of the soil and moisture. Broad and deep mo- raines, ancient and well weathered, are spread over the lower regions, rough and comparatively recent and unweathered moraines over the middle and upper regions, alternating with bare ridges and domes and glacier-polished pavements, the highest in the icy recesses of the peaks, raw and shifting, some of them being still mm process of formation, and of course scarcely planted as yet. Besides these main soilbeds there are many others comparatively small, reformations of both glacial and weather soils, sifted, sorted out, and deposited by running water and the wind on gentle slopes and in all sorts of hollows, pot- holes, valleys, lake basins, etc., some in dry and breezy situations, others sheltered and kept moist by lakes, streams, and waftings of waterfall spray, making comfortable homes for plants widely varied. In general, glaciers give soil to high and low places almost alike, while water currents are dispensers of special blessings, con- stantly tending to make the ridges poorer and the valleys richer. Glaciers mingle all kinds of WILD GARDENS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 139 material together, mud particles and boulders fifty feet in diameter: water, whether in oozing currents or passionate torrents, discriminates both in the size and shape of the material it carries. Glacier mud is the finest meal ground for any use in the Park, and its transportation into lakes and as foundations for flowery garden meadows was the first work that the young rivers were called on to do. Bogs occur only in shallow alpine basins where the climate is cool enough for sphagnum, and where the surrounding topo- graphical conditions are such that they are safe, even in the most copious rains and thaws, from the action of flood currents capable of carrying rough gravel and sand, but where the water supply is nevertheless constant. The mosses dying from year to year gradually give rise to those rich spongy peat-beds in which so many of our best alpine plants delight to dwell. The strong winds that occasionally sweep the high Sierra play a more important part in the distri- bution of special soil-beds than is at first sight recognized, carrying forward considerable quan- tities of sand and gravel, flakes of mica, ete., and depositing them in fields and beds beautifully ruffled and embroidered and adapted to the wants of some of the hardiest and handsomest of the alpine shrubs and flowers. The more resisting of the smooth, solid, glacier-polished domes and ridges can hardly be said to have any soil at all, 140 OUR NATIONAL PARKS while others beginning to give way to the wea- ther are thinly sprinkled with coarse angular gravel. Some of them are full of erystals, which as the surface of the rock is decomposed are set free, covering the summits and rolling down the sides in minute avalanches, giving rise to zones and beds of crystalline soil. In some instances the various erystals occur only here and there, sprinkled in the gray gravel like daisies in a sod ; but in others half or more is made up of crystals, and the glow of the imbedded or loosely strewn gems and their colored gleams and glint- ings at different times of the day when the sun is shining might well exhilarate the flowers that grow among them, and console them for being so completely outshone. These radiant sheets and belts and dome-en- circling rings of crystals are the most beautiful of all the Sierra soil-beds, while the huge taluses | ranged along the walls of the great canons are the deepest and roughest. Instead of being slowly weathered and accumulated from the cliffs overhead like common taluses, they were all formed suddenly and simultaneously by an earthquake that occurred at least three centuries ago. Though thus hurled into existence at a single effort, they are the least changeable and destructible of all the soil formations in the range. Hxcepting those which were launched directly into the channels of rivers, scarcely one WILD GARDENS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 141 of their wedged and interlocked boulders has been moved since the day of their creation, and though mostly made up of huge angular blocks of granite, many of them from ten to fifty feet cube, trees and shrubs make out to live and thrive on them, and even delicate herbaceous plants, — draperia, collomia, zauschneria, etc., — soothing their rugged features with gardens and groves. In general views of the Park scarce a hint is given of its floral wealth. Only by pa- tiently, lovingly sauntering about in it will you discover that it is all more or less flowery, the forests as well as the open spaces, and the moun- tain tops and rugged slopes around the glaciers as well as the sunny meadows. Kven the majestic canon cliffs, seemingly ab- solutely flawless for thousands of feet and neces- sarily doomed to eternal sterility, are cheered with happy flowers on invisible niches and ledges wherever the slightest grip for a root can be found; as if Nature, like an enthusiastic gar- dener, could not resist the temptation to plant flowers everywhere. On high, dry rocky sum- mits and plateaus, most of the plants are so small they make but little show even when in bloom. But in the opener parts of the main forests, the meadows, stream banks, and the level floors of Yosemite valleys the vegetation is exceedingly rich in flowers, some of the lilies and larkspurs being from eight to ten feet high. And on the 142 OUR NATIONAL PARKS upper meadows there are miles of blue gentians and daisies, white and blue violets; and great breadths of rosy purple heathworts covermg rocky moraines with a marvelous abundance of bloom, enlivened by humming-birds, butterflies and a host of other insects as beautiful as flow- ers. In the lower and middle regions, also, many of the most extensive beds of bloom are in great part made by shrubs, — adenostoma, manzanita, ceanothus, chamebatia, cherry, rose, rubus, spi- rea, shad, laurel, azalea, honeysuckle, calycan- thus, ribes, philadelphus, and many others, the sunny spaces about them. bright and fragrant with mints, lupines, geraniums, lilies, daisies, goldenrods, castilleias, gilias, pentstemons, etc. Adenostoma fasciculatum is a handsome, hardy, heathlike shrub belonging to the rose family, flourishing on dry ground below the pine belt, and often covering areas of twenty or thirty square miles of rolling sun-beaten hills and dales with a dense, dark green, almost impenetrable chaparral, which in the distance looks like Scotch heather. It is about six to eight feet high, has slender elastic branches, red shreddy bark, needle- shaped leaves, and small white flowers in panicles about a foot long, making glorious sheets of fra- grant bloom in the spring. To running fires it offers no resistance, vanishing with the few other flowery shrubs and vines and _ lihaceous plants that grow with it about as fast as dry WILD GARDENS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 143 grass, leaving nothing but ashes. But with wonderful vigor it rises again and again in fresh beauty from the root, and calls back to its hos- pitable mansions the multitude of wild animals that had to flee for their lives. _ Ag soon as you enter the pine woods you meet the charming little Chamebatia foliolosa, one of the handsomest of the Park shrubs, next in fineness and beauty to the heathworts of the alpine regions. Like adenostoma it belongs to the rose family, is from twelve to eighteen inches high, has brown bark, slender branches, white flowers like those of the strawberry, and thrice- pinnate glandular, yellow-green leaves, finely cut and fernlike, as xf unusual pains had been taken in fashioning them. Where there is plenty of sunshine at an elevation of three thou- sand to six thousand feet, it makes a close, con- tinuous growth, leaf touching leaf over hundreds of acres, spreading a handsome mantle beneath the yellow and sugar pines. Here and there a lily rises above it, an arching bunch of tall bromus, and at wide intervals a rosebush or clump of ceanothus or manzanita, but there are no rough weeds mixed with it,—no roughness of any sort. Perhaps the most widely distributed of all the Park shrubs and of the Sierra in general, cer- tainly the most strikingly characteristic, are the many species of manzanita (Arctostaphylos). . 144 OUR NATIONAL PARKS Though one species, the Uva-ursa, or bearberry, —the kinikinic of the Western Indians, — ex- tends around the world, the greater part of them are Californian. They are mostly from four to ten feet high, round-headed, with imnumerable branches, brown or red bark, pale green leaves set on edge, and a rich profusion of small, pink, narrow-throated, urn-shaped flowers like those of arbutus. The branches are knotty, zigzagegy, and about as rigid as bones, and the bark is so thin and smooth, both trunk and branches seem to be naked, looking as if they had been peeled, polished, and painted red. The wood also is red, hard, and heavy. | These grand bushes seldom fail to engage the attention of the traveler and hold it, especially if he has to pass through closely planted fields of them such as grow on moraine slopes at an elevation of about seven thousand feet, and in canons choked with earthquake boulders; for they make the most uncompromisingly stubborn of all chaparral. Even bears take pains to go around the stoutest patches if possible, and when compelled to force a passage leave tufts of hair and broken branches to mark their way, while less skillful mountaineers under like circum- stances sometimes lose most of their clothing and all their temper. The manzanitas like sunny ground. On warm ridges and sandy flats at the foot of sun-beaten WILD GARDENS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 145 canon cliffs, some of the tallest specimens have well-defined trunks six inches to a foot or more thick, and stand apart in orchard-like growths which in bloomtime are among the finest gar- den sights in the Park. The largest I ever saw had a round, slightly fluted trunk nearly four feet in diameter, which at a height of only eigh- teen inches from the ground dissolved into a wilderness of branches, rising and spreading to a height and width of about twelve feet. In spring every bush over all the mountains is cov- ered with rosy flowers, in autumn with fruit. The red pleasantly acid berries, about the size of peas, ‘are like little apples, and the hungry mountaineer is glad to eat them, though half their bulk is made up of hard seeds. Indians, bears, coyotes, foxes, birds, and other mountain people live on them for months. Associated with manzanita there are six or seven species of ceanothus, flowery, fragrant, and altogether delightful shrubs, growing in glorious abundance in the forests on sunny or half-shaded ground, up to an elevation of about nine thousand feet above the sea. In the sugar- pine woods the most beautiful species is C. integerrimus, often called California lilac, or deer brush. It is five or six feet high, smooth, slender, willowy, with bright foliage and abund- ance of blue flowers in close, showy panicles. Two species, prostatus and procumbens, spread 146 OUR NATIONAL PARKS. handsome blue-flowered mats and rugs on warm ridges beneath the pines, and offer delightful beds to the tired mountaineers. The common- est species, C. cordulatus, is mostly restricted to the silver fir belt. It is white-flowered and thorny, and makes extensive thickets of tangled chaparral, far too dense to wade through, and too deep and loose to walk on, though it is pressed flat every winter by ten or fifteen feet of snow. Above these thorny beds, sometimes mixed with them, a very wild, red-fruited cherry grows in magnificent tangles, fragrant and white as snow when in bloom. The fruit is small and rather bitter, not so good as the black, puckery chokecherry that grows in the canons, but thrushes, robins, chipmunks like it. Below the cherry tangles, chinquapin and goldcup oak spread generous mantles of chaparral, and with hazel and ribes thickets in adjacent glens help to clothe and adorn the rocky wilderness, and produce food for the many mouths Nature has to fill. Azalea occidentalis is the glory of cool streams and meadows. It is from two to five feet high, has bright green leaves and a rich profu- sion of large, fragrant white and yellow flowers, which are in prime beauty in June, July, and August, according to the elevation (from three thousand to six thousand feet.) Only the pur- ple-flowered rhododendron of the redwood for- AZALEA THICKET, YOSEMITE WILD GARDENS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 147 ests rivals or surpasses it in superb abounding bloom. Back a little way from the azalea-bordered streams, a small wild rose makes thickets, often several acres in extent, deliciously fragrant on dewy mornings and after showers, the fragrance mingled with the music of birds nesting in them. And not far from these rose gardens Rubus Nutkanus covers the ground with broad velvety leaves and pure white flowers as large ‘as those of its neighbor the rose, and finer in texture ; followed at the end of summer by soft red berries good for bird and beast and man also. This is the commonest and the most beautiful of the whole blessed flowery fruity genus. The glory of the alpine region in bloomtime are the heathworts, cassiope, bryanthus, kalmia, and vaccinium, enriched here and there by the alpine honeysuckle, Lonicera conjugialis, and by the purple-flowered Primula suffruticosa, the only primrose discovered in California, and the only shrubby species in the genus. The lowly, hardy, adventurous cassiope has exceedingly slen- der creeping branches, scalelike leaves, and pale pink or white waxen bell flowers. Few plants, large or small, so well endure hard weather and rough ground over so great arange. In July it spreads a wavering, interrupted belt of the love- hest bloom around glacier lakes and meadows and across wild moory expanses, between roar- 148 OUR NATIONAL PARKS ing streams, all along the Sierra, and northward beneath cold skies by way of the mountain chains of Oregon, Washington, British Colum- bia, and Alaska, to the Arctic regions; gradu- ally descending, until at the north end of the continent it reaches the level of the sea; bloom- ing as profusely and at about the same time on mossy frozen tundras as on the high Sierra moraines. Bryanthus, the companion of cassiope, accom- panies it as far north as southeastern Alaska, where together they weave thick plushy beds on rounded mountain tops above the glaciers. It grows mostly at slightly lower elevations; the upper margin of what may be called the bryan- thus belt in the Sierra uniting with and overlap- ping the lower margin of the cassiope. The wide bell-shaped flowers are bright purple, about three fourths of an inch in diameter, hundreds to the square yard, the young branches, mostly erect, being covered with them. No Highlander in heather enjoys more luxurious rest than the Sierra mountaineer in a bed of blooming bryan- thus. And imagine the show on calm dewy mornings, when there is a radiant globe in the throat of every flower, and smaller gems on the needle-shaped leaves, the sunbeams pouring through them. | In the same wild, cold region the tiny Vacci- nium myrtillus, mixed with kalmia and dwarf WILD GARDENS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 149 willows, spreads thinner carpets, the down- pressed matted leaves profusely sprinkled with pink bells ; and on higher sandy slopes you will find several alpine species of eriogonum with gorgeous bossy masses of yellow bloom, and the lovely Arctic daisy with many blessed compan- ions; charming plants, gentle mountaineers, Nature’s darlings, which seem always the finer the higher and stormier their homes. Many interesting ferns are distributed over the Park from the foothills to a little above the timber line. The greater number are rock ferns, pellza, cheilanthes, polypodium, adiantum, wood- sla, cryptogramme, etc., with small tufted fronds, lining glens and gorges and fringing the cliffs and moraines. The most important of the larger species are woodwardia, aspidium, asple- nium, and the common pteris. Woodwardia radicans is a superb fern five to eight feet high, growing in vaselike clumps where the ground is level, and on slopes in-a regular thatch, frond over frond, like shingles on a roof. Its range in the Park is from the western boundary up to about five thousand feet, mostly on benches of the north walls of canons watered by small out- spread streams. It is far more abundant in the Coast Mountains beneath the noble redwoods, where it attains a height of ten to twelve feet. The aspidiums are mostly restricted to the moist parts of the lower forests, Asplenium filix-fe- 150 OUR NATIONAL PARKS mina to marshy streams. The hardy, broad- shouldered Pteris aquilina, the commonest of ferns, grows tall and graceful on sunny flats and hillsides, at elevations between three thousand and six thousand feet. Those who know it only in the Eastern states can form no fair conception of its stately beauty in the sunshine of the Si- erra. On the level sandy floors of Yosemite valleys it often attains a height of six to eight feet in fields thirty or forty acres in extent, the magnificent fronds outspread in a nearly hori- zontal position, forming a ceiling beneath which one may walk erect in delightful mellow shade. No other fern does so much for the color glory of autumn, with its browns and reds and yellows changing and interblending. Even after lying dead all winter beneath the snow it spreads a lively brown mantle over the desolate ground, until the young fronds with a noble display of faith and hope come rolling up into the light through the midst of the beautiful ruims. A few weeks suffice for their development, then, gracefully poised each in its place, they manage themselves in every exigency of weather as if they had passed through a long course of train- ing. I have seen solemn old sugar pines thrown into momentary confusion by the sudden onset of a storm, tossing their arms excitedly as if scarce awake, and wondering what had happened, but I never noticed surprise or embarrassment in the behavior of this noble pteris. WILD GARDENS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 151 Of five species of pellea in the Park, the handsome andromedefolia, growing’ in brushy foothills with Adiantum emarginatum, is the largest. P. Breweri, the hardiest and at the same time the most fragile of the genus, grows in dense tufts among rocks on storm-beaten mountain sides along the upper margin of the fern line. It is a charming little fern, four or five inches high, has shining bronze-colored stalks which are about as brittle as glass, and pale green pinnate fronds. Its companions on the lower part of its range are Cryptogramme acros- tichoides and Phegopteris alpestris, the latter soft and tender, not at all like a rock fern, though it grows on rocks where the snow lies longest. P. Bridgesi, with blue-green, narrow, simply pinnate fronds, is about the same size as Breweri and ranks next to it as a moun- taineer, growing in fissures and around boulders on glacier pavements. About a thousand feet lower we find the smaller and more abundant P. densa, on ledges and boulder-strewn fissured pavements, watered until late in summer by o0oz- ing currents from snow-banks or thin outspread streams from moraines, growing in close sods, —its little bright green triangular tripinnate fronds, about an inch in length, as innumerable as leaves of grass. P. ornithopus has twice or thrice pinnate fronds, is dull in color, and dwells on hot rocky hillsides among chaparral. 152 OUR NATIONAL PARKS Three species of Cheilanthes, — Californica, gracillima, and myriophylla, with beautiful two to four pinnate fronds, an inch to five inches long, adorn the stupendous walls of the cafons, however dry and sheer. The exceedingly deli- cate and interesting Californica is rare, the others abundant at from three thousand to seven thousand feet elevation, and are often accom- panied by the little gold fern, Gymnogramme triangularis, and rarely by the curious little Botrychium simplex, the smallest of which are less than an inch high. The finest of all the rock ferns is Adiantum pedatum, lover of waterfalls and the lightest waitings of irised spray. No other Sierra fern is so constant a companion of white spray-covered streams, or tells so well their wild thundering music. The homes it loves best are cave-like hollows beside the main falls, where it can float its plumes on their dewy breath, safely sheltered from the heavy spray-laden blasts. Many of these moss-lined chambers, so cool, so moist, and brightly colored with rainbow light, contain thousands of these happy ferns, clinging to the emerald walls by the slightest holds, reaching out the most wonderfully delicate fingered fronds on dark glossy stalks, sensitive, tremulous, all alive, in an attitude of eager attention ; throb- bing in unison with every motion and tone of the resounding waters, compliant to their faint- WILD GARDENS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 153 est impulses, moving each division of the frond separately at times as if fingering the music, playing on invisible keys. Considering the lilies as you go up the moun- tains, the first you come to is L. Pardalinum, with large orange-yellow, purple-spotted flowers big enough for babies’ bonnets. It is seldom found higher than thirty-five hundred feet above the sea, grows in magnificent groups of fifty to a hundred or more, in romantic waterfall dells in the pine woods shaded by overarching maple and willow, alder and dogwood, with bushes in front of the embowering trees for a border, and ferns and sedges in front of the bushes; while the bed of black humus in which the bulbs are set is carpeted with mosses and liverworts. These richly furnished lily gardens are the pride of the falls on the lower tributaries of the Tuol- umne and Merced rivers, falls not like those of Yosemite valleys, — coming from the sky with rock-shaking thunder tones, — but small, with low, kind voices cheerily singing in calm leafy bowers, self-contained, keeping their snowy skirts well about them, yet furnishing plenty of spray for the lilies. The Washington lily (ZL. Washingtonianum) is white, deliciously fragrant, moderate in size, with three to ten flowered racemes. The largest I ever measured was eight feet high, the raceme two feet long, with fifty-two flowers, fifteen of 154 OUR NATIONAL PARKS them open; the others had faded or were still in the bud. This famous lily is distributed over the sunny portions of the sugar-pine woods, never in large garden companies like pardalinum, but widely scattered, standing up to the waist in dense ceanothus and manzanita chaparral, waving its lovely flowers above the blooming wilderness of brush, and giving their fragrance to the breeze. These stony, thorny jungles are about the last places in the mountains in which one would look for lilies. But though they toil not nor spin, like other people under adverse circum- stances, they have to do the best they can. Be- cause their large bulbs are good to eat they are dug up by Indians and bears; therefore, like hunted animals, they seek refuge in the chapar- ral, where among the boulders and tough tangled roots they are comparatively safe. This is the favorite Sierra lily, and it is now growing in all the best parks and gardens of the world. The showiest gardens in the Park lieimbedded in the silver fir forests on the top of the main dividing ridges or hang like gayly colored scarfs down their sides. Their wet places are in great part taken up by veratrum, a robust broad-leaved plant determined to be seen, and habenaria and spiranthes; the drier parts by tall columbines, larkspurs, castilleias, lupines, hosackias, erigerons, valerian, etc., standing deep in grass, with violets here and there around the borders. But the WILD GARDENS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 155 finest feature of these forest gardens is Lilium parvum. It varies greatly in size, the tallest being from six to nine feet high, with splendid racemes of ten to fifty small orange-colored flow- ers, which rock and wave with great dignity above the other flowers in the infrequent winds that fall over the protecting wall of trees. Though rather frail-looking it is strong, reaching prime vigor and beauty eight thousand feet above the sea, and in some places venturing as high as eleven thousand. Calochortus, or Mariposa tulip, is a unique genus of many species confined to the California side of the continent ; charming plants, somewhat resembling the tulips of Europe, but far finer. The richest calochortus region lies below the western boundary of the Park; still five or six species are included. C. Nuttall is common on moraines in the forests of the two-leaved pine; and C. ceruleus and nudus, very slender, lowly species, may be found in moist garden spots near Yosemite. ©. albus, with pure white flowers, growing in shady places among the foothill shrubs, is, I think, the very loveliest of all the lily family, —a spotless soul, plant saint, that every one must love and so be made better. It puts the wildest mountaineer on his good behay- ior. With this plant the whole world would seem rich though none other existed. Next after Calo- chortus, Brodiza is the most interesting genus. 156 OUR NATIONAL PARKS Nearly all the many species have beautiful showy heads of blue, lilac, and yellow flowers, enriching the gardens of the lower pine region. Other lihaceous plants likely to attract attention are the blue-flowered camassia, the bulbs of which are prized as food by Indians; fritillaria, smila- cina, chloragalum, and the twining climbing stro- pholirion. The common orchidaceous plants are corallo- rhiza, goodyera, spiranthes, and habenaria. Cy- pripedium montanum, the only moccasin flower I have seen in the Park, is a handsome, thought- ful-looking plant living beside cool brooks. The large oval lip is white, delicately veined with purple ; the other petals and sepals purple, strap- shaped, and elegantly curved and twisted. To tourists the most attractive of all the flow- ers of the forest is the snow plant (Sarcodes san- guinea). It is a bright red, fleshy, succulent pillar that pushes up through the dead needles in the pine and fir woods like a gigantic aspara- gus shoot. ‘The first intimation of its coming is a loosening and upbulging of the brown stratum of decomposed needles on the forest floor, in the cracks of which you notice fiery gleams; pre- sently a blunt dome-shaped head an inch or two in diameter appears, covered with closely imbri- cated scales and bracts. In a week or so it grows to a height of six to twelveinches. Then the long fringed bracts spread and curl aside, WILD GARDENS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 157 allowing the twenty or thirty five-lobed bell- shaped flowers to open and look straight out from the fleshy axis. It is said to grow up through the snow; on the contrary it always waits until the ground is warm, though with other early flowers it is occasionally buried or half buried for a day or two by spring storms. The entire plant — flowers, bracts, stem, scales, and roots—dis red. But notwithstanding its glowing color and beautiful flowers, it is singu- larly unsympathetic and cold. Everybody ad- mires it as a wonderful curiosity, but nobody loves it. Without fragrance, rooted in decaying vegetable matter, it stands beneath the pines and firs lonely, silent, and about as rigid as a grave- yard monument. Down in the main canons adjoiming the azalea and rose gardens there are fine beds of herba- ceous plants, — tall mints and sunflowers, iris, cenothera, brodiza, and bright beds of erythrea on the ferny meadows. Bolandera, sedum, and airy, feathery, purple-flowered heuchera adorn mossy nooks near falls, the shading trees wreathed and festooned with wild grapevines and clematis; while lightly shaded flats are covered with gilia and eunanus of many species, hosackia, arnica, chenactis, gayophytum, gnaphalium, monardella, etc. Thousands of the most interesting gardens in the Park are never seen, for they are small and 158 OUR NATIONAL PARKS lie far up on ledges and terraces of the sheer canon walls, wherever a strip of soil, however narrow and shallow, can rest. The birds, winds, and down-washing rains have planted them with all sorts of hardy mountain flowers, and where there is sufficient moisture they flourish in pro- fusion. Many of them are watered by little streams that seem lost on the tremendous preci- pices, clinging to the face of the rock in lacelike strips, and dripping from ledge to ledge, too silent to be called falls, pathless wanderers from the upper meadows, which for centuries have been seeking a way down to the rivers they be- long to, without having worn as yet any appre- ciable channel, mostly evaporated or given to the plants they meet before reaching the foot of the cliffs. ‘To these unnoticed streams the finest of the cliff gardens owe their luxuriance and fresh- ness of beauty. In the larger ones ferns and showy flowers flourish in wonderful profusion, — woodwardia, columbine, collomia, castilleia, draperia, geranium, erythrea, pink and scarlet mimulus, hosackia, saxifrage, sunflowers and daisies, with azalea, spirea, and calycanthus, a few specimens of each that seem to have been culled from the large gardens above and beneath them. LTiven lilies are occasionally found in these irrigated cliff gardens, swinging their bells over the giddy precipices, seemingly as happy as their relatives down in the waterfall dells. Most of WILD GARDENS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 159 the cliff gardens, however, are dependent on summer showers, and though from the shallow- ness of the soil beds they are often dry, they still display a surprising number of bright flowers, — scarlet zauschneria, purple bush penstemon, mints, gilias, and bosses of glowing golden bahia. Nor is there any lack of commoner plants; the homely yarrow is often found in them, and sweet clover and honeysuckle for the bees. In the upper canons, where the walls are in- clined at so low an angle that they are loaded with moraine material, through which perennial streams percolate in broad diffused currents, there are long wavering garden beds, that seem to be descending through the forest like cascades, their fluent lines suggesting motion, swaying from side to side of the forested banks, surging up here and there over island-like boulder piles, or dividing and flowing around them. In some of these floral cascades the vegetation is chiefly sedges and grasses ruffled with willows ; in others, showy flowers like those of the lily gardens on the main divides. Another curious and pictu- resque series of wall gardens are made by thin streams that ooze slowly from moraines and slip gently over smooth glaciated slopes. From par- ticles of sand and mud they carry, a pair of lobe- shaped sheets of soil an inch or two thick are gradually formed, one of them hanging down from the brow of the slope, the other leaning up 160 OUR NATIONAL PARKS from the foot of it, like stalactite and stalagmite, the soil being held together by the flowery, moisture-loving plants growing in it. Along the rocky parts of the canon bottoms between lake basins, where the streams flow fast over glacier-polished granite, there are rows of pothole gardens full of ferns, daisies, golden- rods, and other common plants of the neigh- borhood nicely arranged like bouquets, and standing out in telling relief on the bare shining rock banks. And all the way up the canons te the Summit mountains, wherever there is soil of any sort, there is no lack of flowers, however short the summer may be. Within eight or ten feet of a snow bank lingering beneath a shadow, you may see belated ferns unrolling their fronds in September, and sedges hurrying up their brown spikes on ground that has been free from snow only eight or ten days, and likely to be . covered again within a few weeks; the winter in the coolest of these shadow gardens being about eleven months long, while spring, summer, and autumn are hurried and crowded into one month. Again, under favorable conditions, alpine gar- dens three or four thousand feet higher than the last are in their prime in June. Between the Summit peaks at the head of the canons sur- prising effects are produced where the sunshine falls direct on rocky slopes and reverberates among boulders. Toward the end of August, in WILD GARDENS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 161 one of these natural hothouses on the north shore of a glacier lake 11,500 feet above the sea, I found a luxuriant growth of hairy lupines, thistles, goldenrods, shrubby potentilla, spraguea, and the mountain epilobium with thousands of purple flowers an inch wide, while the opposite shore, at a distance of only three hundred yards, was bound in heavy avalanche snow,— flowery summer on one side, winter on the other. And I know a bench garden on the north wall of Yosemite in which a few flowers are in bloom all winter ; the massive rocks about it storing up sunshine enough in summer to melt the snow about as fast as it falls. When tired of the confinement of my cabin I used to camp out in it in January, and never failed to find flowers, and butterflies also, except during snowstorms and a few days after. From Yosemite one can easily walk in a day to the top of Mount Hoffman, a massive gray mountain that rises in-the centre of the Park, with easy slopes adorned with castellated piles and crests on the south side, rugged precipices banked with perpetual snow on the north. Most of the broad summit is comparatively level and smooth, and covered with crystals of quartz, mica, hornblende, feldspar, garnet, zircon, tour- maline, etc., weathered out and strewn loosely as if sown broadcast; their radiance so dazzling in some places as to fairly hide the multitude of 162 OUR NATIONAL PARKS small flowers that grow among them; myriads of keen lance rays infinitely fine, white or colored, making an almost continuous glow over all the ground, with here and there throbbing, spangling lilies of light, on the larger gems. At first sight only these crystal sunflowers are noticed, but looking closely you discover minute gilias, ivesias, eunanus, phloxes, etc., in thousands, showimg more petals than leaves; and larger plants in hollows and on the borders of rills, — lupines, potentillas, daisies, harebells, mountain columbine, astragalus, fringed with heathworts. You wander about from garden to garden en- chanted, as if walking among stars, gathering the brightest gems, each and all apparently doing their best with eager enthusiasm, as if everything depended on faithful shining; and considering the flowers basking in the glorious light, many of them looking like swarms of small moths and butterflies that were resting after long dances in the sunbeams. Now your attention is called to colonies of woodchucks and pikas, the mounds in front of their burrows glittermg like heaps of jewelry, — romantic ground to live in or die in. Now you look abroad over the vast round land- scape bounded by the down-curving sky, nearly all the Park in it displayed like a map, — forests, meadows, lakes, rock waves, and snowy mountains. Northward lies the basin of Yosemite Creek, paved with bright domes and lakes like larger erys- WILD GARDENS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 163 tals; eastward, the meadowy, billowy Tuolumne region and the Summit peaks in glorious array ; southward, Yosemite ; and westward, the bound- less forests. On no other mountain that I know of are you more likely to linger. It is a magnificent camp ground. Clumps of dwarf pine furnish rosiny roots and branches for fuel, and the rills pure water. Around your camp fire the flowers seem to be looking eagerly at the light, and the crystals shine unweariedly, making fine company as you lie at rest in the very heart of the vast, serene, majestic night. The finest of the glacier meadow gardens lie at an elevation of about nine thousand feet, imbedded in the upper pine forests like lakes of light. They are smooth and level, a mile or two long, and the rich, well-drained ground is com- pletely covered with a soft, silky, plushy sod enameled with flowers, not one of which is in the least weedy or coarse. In some places the sod is so crowded with showy flowers that the grasses are scarce noticed, in others they are rather sparingly scattered ; while every leaf and flower seems to have its winged representative in the swarms of happy flower-like insects that en- liven the air above them. With the winter snowstorms wings and petals are folded, and for more than half the year the meadows are snow-buried ten or fifteen feet deep. In June they begin to thaw out, small patches of 164 OUR NATIONAL PARKS the dead sloppy sod appear, gradually increasing in size until they are free and warm again, face to face with the sky; myriads of growing points push through the steaming mould, frogs sing cheeringly, soon jomed by the birds, and the merry insects come back as if suddenly raised from the dead. Soon the ground is green with mosses and liverworts and dotted with small fungi, making the first crop of the season. Then the grass leaves weave a new sod, and the ex- ceedingly slender panicles rise above it like a purple mist, speedily followed by potentilla, ivesia, bossy orthocarpus, yellow and purple, and afew pentstemons. Later come the daisies and goldenrods, asters and gentians. Of the last there are three species, small and fine, with vary- ing tones of blue, and in glorious abundance, colormg extensive patches where the sod is shal- lowest. Through the midst flows a stream only two or three feet wide, silently gliding as if care- ful not to disturb the hushed calm of the solitude, its banks embossed by the common sod bent down tothe water’s edge, and trimmed with mosses and violets; slender grass panicles lean over like miniature pine trees, and here and there on the driest places small mats of heathworts are neatly spread, enriching without roughening the bossy down-curling sod. In spring and summer the weather is mostly crisp, exhilarating sunshine, though magnificent mountain ranges of cumuli WILD GARDENS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 165 are often upheaved about noon, their shady hol- lows tinged with purple ineffably fine, their snowy sun-beaten bosses glowing against the sky, casting cooling shadows for an hour or two, then dissolving in a quick washing rain. But for days in succession there are no clouds at all, or only faint wisps and _ pencilings scarcely discernible. Toward the end of August the sunshine grows hazy, announcing the coming of Indian summer, the outlines of the landscapes are softened and mellowed, and more and more plainly are the mountains clothed with light, white tinged with pale purple, richest in the morning and evening. The warm, brooding days are full of life and thoughts of life to come, ripening seeds with next summer in them or a hundred summers. The nights are unspeakably impressive and calm ; frost erystals of wondrous beauty grow on the grass, — each carefully planned and finished as if intended to endure ferever. ‘The sod becomes yellow and brown, but the late asters and gen- tians, carefully closing their flowers at night, do not seem to feel the frost; no nipped, wilted plants of any kind are to be seen; even the early snowstorms fail to blight them. At last the precious seeds are ripe, all the work of the season is done, and the sighing pines tell the coming of winter and rest. Ascending the range you find that many of 166 OUR NATIONAL PARKS the higher meadows slope considerably, from the amount of loose material washed into their basins; and sedges and rushes are mixed with the grasses or take their places, though all are still more or less flowery and bordered with heathworts, sibbaldea, and dwarf willows. Here and there you come to small bogs, the wettest smooth and adorned with parnassia and butter- cups, others tussocky and ruffled like bits of Arctic tundra, their mosses and lichens inter- woven with dwarf shrubs. On boulder piles the red iridescent oxyria abounds, and on sandy, gravelly slopes several species of shrubby, yel- low-flowered erilogonum, some of the plants, less than a foot high, being very old, a century or more, as 1s shown by the rings made by the annual whorls of leaves on the big roots. Above these flower-dotted slopes the gray, savage wil- derness of crags and peaks seems lifeless and bare. Yet all the way up to the tops of the highest mountains, commonly supposed to be covered with eternal snow, there are bright garden spots crowded with flowers, their warm colors calling to mind the sparks and jets of fire on polar vol- canoes rising above a world of ice. The princi- pal mountain-top plants are phloxes, drabas, saxifrages, silene, cymopterus, hulsea, and pole- monium, growing in detached stripes and mats, —the highest streaks and splashes of the sum- mer wave as it breaks against these wintry WILD GARDENS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 167 heights. The most beautiful are the phloxes (douglasii and czspitosum), and the red-flowered silene, with innumerable flowers hiding the leaves. Though herbaceous plants, like the trees and shrubs, are dwarfed as they ascend, two of these mountain dwellers, Hulsea algida and Polemonium confertum, are notable excep- tions. The yellow-flowered hulsea is eight to twelve inches high, stout, erect, — the leaves, three to six inches long, secreting a rosiny, fra- grant gum, standing up boldly on the grim lichen-stained crags, and never looking in the least tired or discouraged. Both the ray and disk flowers are yellow; the heads are nearly two inches wide, and are eagerly sought for by roving bee mountaineers. The polemonium is quite as luxuriant and tropical-looking as its companion, about the same height, glandular, fragrant, its blue flowers closely packed in eight or ten heads, twenty to forty in a head. It is never far from hulsea, growing at elevations of between eleven and thirteen thousand feet wher- ever a little hollow or crevice favorably situated with a handful of wind-driven soil can be found. From these frosty Arctic sky gardens you may descend in one straight swoop to the abronia, mentzelia, and cenothera gardens of Mono, where the sunshine is warm enough for palms. But the greatest of all the gardens is the belt of forest trees, profusely covered in the spring 168 OUR NATIONAL PARKS with blue and purple, red and yellow blossoms, each tree with a gigantic panicle of flowers fifty to a hundred feet long. Yet strange to say they are seldom noticed. Few travel through the woods when they are in bloom, the flowers of some of the showiest species opening before the snow is off the ground. Nevertheless, one would think the news of such gigantic flowers would quickly spread, and travelers from all the world would make haste to the show. Hager inquiries are made for the bloomtime of rhodo- dendron-covered mountains and for the bloom- time of Yosemite streams, that they may be en- joyed in their prime ; but the far grander outburst of tree bloom covering a thousand mountains — who inquires about that? That the pistillate flowers of the pines and firs should escape the eyes of careless lookers is less to be wondered at, smece they mostly grow aloft on the topmost branches, and can hardly be seen from the foot of the trees. Yet even these make a magnificent show from the top of an overlooking ridge when the sunbeams are pouring through them. But the far more numerous staminate flowers of the pines in large rosy clusters, and those of the silver firs in countless thousands on the under side of the branches, cannot be hid, stand where you may. The mountain hemlock also is glori- ously colored with a profusion of lovely blue and purple flowers, a spectacle to gods and men. WILD GARDENS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 169 A single pie or hemlock or silver fir in the prime of its beauty about the middle of June is well worth the pains of the longest journey ; how much more broad forests of them thousands of miles long ! One of the best ways to see tree flowers is to climb one of the tallest trees and to get into close tingling touch with them, and then look abroad. Speaking of the benefits of tree climb- ing, Thoreau says: “I found my account in climbing a tree once. It was a tall white pine, on the top of a hill; and though I got well pitched, I was well paid for it, for I discovered new mountains in the horizon which I had never seen before. I might have walked about the foot of the tree for threescore years and ten, and yet I certainly should never have seen them. But, above all, I discovered around me, — it was near the middle of June, — on the ends of the topmost branches, a few minute and delicate red conelike blossoms, the fertile flower of the white pine looking heavenward. I carried straightway to the village the topmost spire, and showed it to stranger jurymen who walked the streets, — for it was court week,— and to farmers and lumbermen and woodchoppers and hunters, and not one had ever seen the like before, but they wondered as at a star dropped down.” The same marvelous blindness prevails here, although the blossoms are a thousandfold more 170 OUR NATIONAL PARKS abundant and telling. Once when I was collect- ing flowers of the red silver fir near a summer tourist resort on the mountains above Lake Ta- hoe, I carried a handful of flowery branches to the boarding house, where they quickly attracted a wondering, admiring crowd of men, women, and children. “Oh, where did you get these?” they cried. “How pretty they are— mighty handsome — just too lovely for anything — where do they grow?” “On the commonest trees about you,” I replied. “ You are now standing beside one of them, and it is in full bloom; look up.’ And I pointed to a blossom-laden Abies magnifica, about a hundred and twenty feet high, in front of the house, used as a hitching post. And seeing its beauty for the first time, their wonder could hardly have been greater or more sincere had their silver fir hitching post blossomed for them at that moment as suddenly as Aaron’s rod. The mountain hemlock extends an almost con- tinuous belt along the Sierra and northern ranges to Prince William’s Sound, accompanied part of the way by the pines; our two silver firs, to Mount Shasta, thence the fir belt is continued through Oregon, Washington, and British Colum- bia by four other species, Abies nobilis, grandis, amabilis, and lasiocarpa; while the magnificent Sitka spruce, with large, bright, purple flowers, adorns the coast region from California to Cook’s WILD GARDENS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 171 Inlet and Kodiak. All these, interblending, form one flowery belt — one garden blooming in June, rocking its myriad spires in the hearty weather, bowing and swirling, enjoying clouds and the winds and fillmg them with balsam ; covering thousands of miles of the wildest moun- tains, clothing the long slopes by the sea, crown- ing bluffs and headlands and innumerable islands, and, fringing the banks of the glaciers, one wild wavering belt of the noblest flowers in the world, worth a lifetime of love work to know it. CHAPTER VI AMONG THE ANIMALS OF THE YOSEMITE THE Sierra bear, brown or gray, the sequoia of the animals, tramps over all the park, though few travelers have the pleasure of seemg him. On he fares through the majestic forests and canons, facing all sorts of weather, rejoicing in his strength, everywhere at home, harmonizing with the trees and rocks and shaggy chaparral. Happy fellow! his lines have fallen in pleasant places, —lily gardens im silver-fir forests, miles of bushes in endless variety and exuberance of bloom over hill-waves and valleys and along the banks of streams, canons full of music and waterfalls, parks fair as Eden, — places in which one might expect to meet angels rather than bears. Tn this happy land no famine comes nigh him. All the year round his bread is sure, for some of the thousand kinds that he likes are always in season and accessible, ranged on the shelves of — the mountains like stores in a pantry. From one to another, from climate to climate, up and down he climbs, feasting on each in turn, — en- AMONG THE ANIMALS OF THE YOSEMITE 173 joying as great variety as if he traveled to far-off countries north and south. To him almost every thing is food except granite. Every tree helps to feed him, every bush and herb, with fruits and flowers, leaves and bark; and all the animals he can catch, — badgers, gophers, ground squirrels, lizards, snakes, etc., and ants, bees, wasps, old and young, together with their eggs and larvee and nests. Craunched and hashed, down all go to his marvelous stomach, and vanish as if cast into a fire. What digestion! A sheep or a wounded deer ora pig he eats warm, about as quickly as a boy eats a buttered muffin ; or should the meat be a month old, it still is welcomed with tremendous relish. After so gross a meal as this, perhaps the next will be strawberries and clover, or raspberries with mushrooms and nuts, or puckery acorns and chokecherries. And as if fearing that anything eatable in all his domin- ions should escape being eaten, he breaks into cabins to look after sugar, dried apples, bacon, ete. Occasionally he eats the mountaineer’s bed ; but when he has had a full meal of more tempting dainties he usually leaves it undisturbed, though he has been known to drag it up through a hole in the roof, carry it to the foot of a tree, and lie down on it to enjoyasiesta. Hating everything, never is he himself eaten except by man, and only man is an enemy to be feared. “ B’ar meat,” said a hunter from whom I was seeking informa- 174 OUR NATIONAL PARKS tion, “ b’ar meat is the best meat in the moun- tains; their skins make the best beds, and their grease the best butter. Biscuit shortened with b’ar grease goes as far as beans; a man will walk all day on a couple of them biscuit.” In my first interview with a Sierra bear we were frightened and embarrassed, both of us, but the bear’s behavior was better than mine. When I discovered him, he was standing in a narrow strip of meadow, and I was concealed be- hind a tree on the side of it. After studying his appearance as he stood at rest, I rushed toward him to frighten him, that I might study his gait in running. But, contrary to all I had heard about the shyness of bears, he did not run at all; and when I stopped short within a few steps of him, as he held his ground in a fighting attitude, my mistake was monstrously plain. I was then put on my good behavior, and never afterward forgot the right manners of the wilderness. This happened on my first Sierra excursion in the forest to the north of Yosemite Valley. I was eager to meet the animals, and many of them came to me as if willing to show themselves and make my acquaintance; but the bears kept out of my way. An old mountaineer, in reply to my questions, told me that bears were very shy, all save grim old grizzlies, and that I might travel the moun- tains for years without seemg one, unless I gave AMONG THE ANIMALS OF THE YOSEMITE 175 my mind to them and practiced the stealthy ways of hunters. Nevertheless, it was only a few weeks after I had received this information that I met the one mentioned above, and obtained instruc- tion at first-hand. I was encamped in the woods about a mile back of the rim of Yosemite, beside a stream that falls into the valley by the way of Indian Canon. Nearly every day for weeks I went to the top of the North Dome to sketch ; for it commands a gen- eral view of the valley, and I was anxious to draw every tree and rock and waterfall. Carlo, a St. Bernard dog, was my companion, — a fine, intel- higent fellow that belonged to a hunter who was compelled to remain all summer on the hot plains, and who loaned him to me for the season for the sake of having him in the mountains, where he would be so much better off. Carlo knew bears through long experience, and he it was who led me to my first interview, though he seemed as much surprised as the bear at my unhunter-like behavior. One morning in June, just as the sun- beams began to stream through the trees, I set out for a day’s sketching on the dome; and be- fore we had gone half a mile from camp Carlo snuffed the air and looked cautiously ahead, low- ered his bushy tail, drooped his ears, and began to step softly like a cat, turning every few yards and looking me in the face with a telling expres- sion, saying plainly enough, “ There is a bear a 176 OUR NATIONAL PARKS little way ahead.” I walked carefully in the in- dicated direction, until I approached a small flowery meadow that I was familiar with, then crawled to the foot of a tree on its margin, bear- ing in mind what I had been told about the shy- ness of bears. Looking out cautiously over the instep of the tree, I saw a big, burly cinnamon bear about thirty yards off, half erect, his paws resting on the trunk of a fir that had fallen into the meadow, his hips almost buried in grass and flowers. He was listening attentively and trying to catch the scent, showing that in some way he was aware of our approach. I watched his ges- tures, and tried to make the most of my opportu- nity to learn what I could about him, fearing he would not stay long. He made a fine picture, standing alert in the sunny garden walled in by the most beautiful firs in the world. After examining him at leisure, noting the sharp muzzle thrust inquiringly forward, the long shaggy hair on his broad chest, the stiff ears nearly buried in hair, and the slow, heavy way in which he moved his head, I foolishly made a rush on him, throwing up my arms and shouting to frighten him, to see him run. He did not mind the demonstration much; only pushed his head farther forward, and looked at me sharply as if asking, “ What now? If you want to fight, I’m ready.” Then I began to fear that on me would fall the work of running. But I was afraid to AMONG THE ANIMALS OF THE YOSEMITE 177 run, lest he should be encouraged to pursue me ; therefore I held my ground, staring him in the face within a dozen yards or so, putting on as bold a look as I could, and hoping the influence of the human eye would be as great as it is said to be. Under these strained relations the inter- view seemed to last along time. Finally, the bear, seeing how still I was, calmly withdrew his huge paws from the log, gave me a piercing look, as if warning me not to follow him, turned, and walked slowly up the middle of the meadow into the for- est; stopping every few steps and looking back to make sure that I was not trying to take him at a disadvantage in a rear attack. I was glad to part with him, and greatly enjoyed the van- ishing view as he waded through the lilies and columbines. Thenceforth I always tried to give bears re- spectful notice of my approach, and they usu- ally kept well out of my way. Though they often came around my camp in the night, only once afterward, as far as I know, was I very near one of them in daylight. This time it was a grizzly I met; and as luck would have it, I was even nearer to him than I had been to the big cinnamon. Though not a large specimen, he seemed formidable enough at a distance of less than a dozen yards. His shaggy coat was well grizzled, his head almost white. When I first caught sight of him he was eating acorns 178 OUR NATIONAL PARKS under a Kellogg oak, at a distance of perhaps seventy-five yards, and I tried to slip past with- out disturbing him. But he had either heard my steps on the gravel or caught my scent, for he came straight toward me, stopping every rod or so to look and listen: and as I was afraid to be seen running, I crawled on my hands and knees a little way to one side and hid behind a libocedrus, hoping he would pass me unnoticed. He soon came up opposite me, and stood look- ing ahead, while I looked at him, peering past the bulging trunk of the tree. At last, turn- ing his head, he caught sight of mine, stared sharply a minute or two, and then, with fine dignity, disappeared in a manzanita-covered earthquake talus. Considering how heavy and broad-footed bears are, itis wonderful how little harm they do im the wilderness. Even in the well-watered gar- dens of the middle region, where the flowers gtow tallest, and where during warm weather the bears wallow and roll, no evidence of destruc- tion is visible. On the contrary, under nature’s direction, the massive beasts act as gardeners. On the forest floor, carpeted with needles and brush, and on the tough sod of glacier meadows, bears make no mark; but around the sandy mar- gin of lakes their magnificent tracks form grand lines of embroidery. Their well-worn trails ex- tend along the main canons on either side, and AMONG THE ANIMALS OF THE YOSEMITE 179 though dusty in some places make no scar on the landscape. They bite and break off the branches of some of the pines and oaks to get the nuts, but this pruning is so light that few mountaineers ever notice it ; and though they interfere with the orderly lichen-veiled decay of fallen trees, tearing them to pieces to reach the colonies of ants that inhabit them, the scattered ruins are quickly pressed back into harmony by snow and rain and over-leaning vegetation. The number of bears that make the Park their home may be guessed by the number that have been killed by the two best hunters, Duncan and old David Brown. Duncan began to be known as a bear-killer about the year 1865. He was then roaming the woods, hunting and prospect- ing on the south fork of the Merced. A friend told me that he killed his first bear near his cabin at Wawona ; that after mustering courage to fire he fled, without waiting to learn the ef- fect of his shot. Going back im a few hours he found poor Bruin dead, and gained courage to try again. Duncan confessed to me, when we made an excursion together in 1875, that he was at first mortally afraid of bears, but after killing a half dozen he began to keep count of his vic- tims, and became ambitious to be known as a great bear-hunter. In nine years he had killed forty-nine, keeping count by notches cut on one of the timbers of his cabin on the shore of Cres- 180 OUR NATIONAL PARKS cent Lake, near the south boundary of the Park. He said the more he knew about bears, the more he respected them and the less he feared them. But at the same time he grew more and more cautious, and never fired until he had every ad- vantage, no matter how long he had to wait and how far he had to go before he got the bear just right as to the direction of the wind, the dis- tance, and the way of escape in case of accident ; making allowance also for the character of the animal, old or young, cinnamon or grizzly. For old grizzlies, he said, he had no use whatever, and he was mighty careful to avoid their ac- quaintance. He wanted to killan even hundred; then he was going to confine himself to safer game. There was not much money in bears, anyhow, and a round hundred was enough for glory. I have not seen or heard of him lately, and do not know how his bloody count stands. On my excursions, I occasionally passed his cabin. It was full of meat and skins hung in bundles from the rafters, and the ground about it was strewn with bones and hair, — infinitely less tidy than a bear’s den. He went as hunter and guide with a geological survey party for a year or two, and was very proud of the scientific knowledge he picked up. His admiring fellow mountain- eers, he said, gave him credit for knowing not only the botanical names of all the trees and AMONG THE ANIMALS OF THE YOSEMITE 181 bushes, but also the “botanical names of the bears.” The most famous hunter of the region was David Brown, an old pioneer, who early in the gold period established his main camp in a. little forest glade on the north fork of the Merced, which is still called “ Brown’s Flat.” No finer solitude for a hunter and prospector could be found ; the climate is delightful all the year, and the scenery of both earth and sky is a perpetual feast. Though he was not much of a “scenery fellow,” his friends say that he knew a pretty place when he saw it as well as any one, and liked mightily to get on the top of a command- ing ridge to “look off.” When out of provisions, he would take down his old-fashioned long-barreled rifle from its deer- horn rest over the fireplace and set out in search of game. Seldom did he have to go far for veni- son, because the deer liked the wooded slopes of Pilot Peak ridge, with its open spots where they could rest and look about them, and enjoy the breeze from the sea in warm weather, free from troublesome flies, while they found hiding-places and fine aromatic food in the deer-brush chapar- ral. A small, wise dog was his only companion, and well the little mountaineer understood the object of every hunt, whether deer or bears, or only grouse hidden in the fir-tops. In deer- hunting Sandy had little to do, trottmg behind 182 OUR NATIONAL PARKS his master as he walked noiselessly through the fragrant woods, careful not to step heavily on dry twigs, scanning open spots in the chaparral where the deer feed in the early morning and toward sunset, peering over ridges and swells as new outlooks were reached, and along alder and willow fringed flats and streams, until he found a young buck, killed it, tied its legs together, threw it on his shoulder, and so back to camp. But when bears were hunted, Sandy played an important part as leader, and several times saved his master’s life; and it was as a bear-hunter that David Brown became famous. His method, as I had it from a friend who had passed many an evening in his cabin listening to his long stories of adventure, was simply to take a few pounds of flour and his rifle, and go slowly and silently over hill and valley in the loneliest part of the wilderness, until little Sandy came upon the fresh track of a bear, then follow it to the death, paying no heed to time. Wherever the bear went he went, however rough the ground, led by Sandy, who looked back from time to time to see how his master was coming on, and regulated his pace accordingly, never growing weary or allow- ing any other track to divert him. When high ground was reached a halt was made, to scan the openings in every direction, and perchance Bruin would be discovered sitting upright on his haunches, eating manzanita berries ; pulling AMONG THE ANIMALS OF THE YOSEMITE 183 down the fruit-laden branches with his paws and pressing them together, so as to get substantial mouthfuls, however mixed with leaves and twigs. The time of year enabled the hunter to deter- mine approximately where the game would be found: in spring and early summer, in lush grass and clover meadows and in berry tangles along the banks of streams, or on pea-vine and lupine clad slopes; in late summer and autumn, beneath the pines, eating the cones cut off by the squir- rels, and in oak groves at the bottom of cafions, munching acorns, manzanita berries, and cher- ries; and after sow had fallen, in alluvial bot- toms, feeding on ants and yellow-jacket wasps. These food places were always cautiously ap- proached, so as to avoid the chance of sudden encounters. “Whenever,” said the hunter, “I saw a bear before he saw me, I had no trouble in killing him. I just took lots of time to learn what he was up to and how long he would be likely to stay, and to study the direction of the wind and the lay of the land. Then I worked round to leeward of him, no matter how far I had to go; crawled and dodged to within a hundred yards, near the foot of a tree that I could climb, but which was too small for a bear to climb. There I looked well to the priming of my rifle, took off my boots so as to climb quickly if necessary, and, with my rifle in rest and Sandy behind me, 184 OUR NATIONAL PARKS waited until my bear stood right, when I made a sure, or at least a good shot back of the fore leg. In case he showed fight, I got up the tree I had in mind, before he could reach me. But bears are slow and awkward with their eyes, and being to windward they could not scent me, and often I got in a second shot before they saw the smoke. Usually, however, they tried to get away when they were hurt, and I let them go a good safe while before I ventured into the brush after them. Then Sandy was pretty sure to find them dead ; if not, he barked bold asa lion to draw attention, or rushed in and nipped them behind, enabling me to get to a safe dis- tance and watch a chance for a finishing shot. “ Oh yes, bear-hunting is a mighty interesting business, and safe enough if followed just right, though, like every other business, especially the wild kind, it has its accidents, and Sandy and I have had close “alls at times. Bears are nobody’s fools, and they know enough to let men alone as a general thing, unless they are wounded, or cornered, or have cubs. In my opinion, a hun- gry old mother would catch and eat a man, if she could; which is only fair play, anyhow, for we eat them. But nobody, as far as I know, has been eaten up in these rich mountains. Why they never tackle a fellow when he is lying asleep I never could understand. They could — gobble us mighty handy, but I suppose it’s nature to respect a sleeping man.” | AMONG THE ANIMALS OF THE YOSEMITE 185 Sheep-owners and their shepherds have killed a great many bears, mostly by poison and traps of various sorts. Bears are fond of mutton, and levy heavy toll on every flock driven into the mountains. They usually come to the corral at night, climb in, kill a sheep with a stroke of the paw, carry it off a little distance, eat about half of it, and return the next night for the other half; and so on all summer, or until they are themselves killed. It is not, however, by direct lalling, but by suffocation through crowding against the corral wall in fright, that the great- est losses are incurred. From ten to fifteen sheep are found dead, smothered in the corral, after every attack; or the walls are broken, and the flock is scattered far and wide. A _ flock may escape the attention of these marauders for a week or two in the spring; but after their first taste of the fine mountain-fed meat the visits are persistently kept up, in spite of all precautions. Once I spent a night with two Portuguese shepherds, who were greatly troubled with bears, from two to four or five visiting them almost every night. Their camp was near the middle of the Park, and the wicked bears, they said, were getting worse and worse. Not waiting now until dark, they came out of the brush in broad daylight, and boldly carried off as many sheep as they liked. One evening, _ before sundown, a bear, followed by two cubs, 186 OUR NATIONAL PARKS came for an early supper, as the flock was being slowly driven toward the camp. Joe, the elder of the shepherds, warned by many exciting ex- periences, promptly climbed a tall tamarack pine, and left the freebooters to help themselves ; while Antone, calling him a coward, and declar- ing that he was not going to let bears eat up his sheep before his face, set the dogs on them, and rushed toward them with a great noise and a stick. The frightened cubs ran up a tree, and the mother ran to meet the shepherd and dogs. Antone stood astonished for a moment, eying the oncoming bear; then fled faster than Joe had, closely pursued. He scrambled to the roof of their little cabin, the only refuge quickly available; and fortunately, the bear, anxious about her young, did not climb after him, — only held him in mortal terror a few minutes, glaring and threatening, then hastened back to her cubs, called them down, went to the fright- ened, huddled flock, killed a sheep, and feasted in peace. Antone piteously entreated cautious Joe to show him a good safe tree, up which he climbed like a sailor climbing a mast, and held on as long as he could with legs crossed, the slim pine recommended by Joe being nearly branch- less. “So you, too, are a bear coward as well as Joe,’ I said, after hearing the story. ‘Oh, I tell you,” he replied, with grand solemnity, “bear face close by look awful; she just as soon AMONG THE ANIMALS OF THE YOSEMITE 187 eat me as not. She do so as eef all my sheeps b’long every one to her own self. I run to bear no more. I take tree every time.” After this the shepherds corraled the flock about an hour before sundown, chopped large quantities of dry wood and made a circle of fires around the corral every night, and one with a gun kept watch on a stage built in a pine by the side of the cabin, while the other slept. But after the first night or two this fire fence did no good, for the robbers seemed to regard the light as an advantage, after becoming used to it. On the night I spent at their camp the show made by the wall of fire when it was blazing in its prime was magnificent, — the illumined trees round about relieved against solid darkness, and the two thousand sheep lying down in one gray mass, sprinkled with gloriously brilliant gems, the effect of the firelight im their eyes. It was nearly midnight when a pair of the freebooters arrived. They walked boldly through a gap in the fire circle, killed two sheep, carried them out, and vanished in the dark woods, leaving ten dead in a pile, trampled down and smothered against the corral fence; while the scared watcher in the tree did not fire a single shot, saying he was afraid he would hit some of the sheep, as the bears got among them before he could get a good sight. In the morning I asked the shepherds why 188 OUR NATIONAL PARKS they did not move the flock to a new pasture. “Oh, no use!” cried Antone. “Look my dead sheeps. We move three four time before, all the same bear come by the track. No use. To-morrow we go home below. Look my dead sheeps. Soon all dead.” Thus were they driven out of the mountains more than a month before the usual time. After Uncle Sam’s soldiers, bears are the most effective forest police, but some of the shepherds are very successful in killing them. Altogether, by hunters, mountaineers, Indians, and sheepmen, probably five or six hundred have been killed within the bounds of the Park, during the last thirty years. But they are not in danger of extinction. Now that the Park is guarded by soldiers, not only has the vegetation in great part come back to the desolate ground, but all the wild animals are increasing in numbers. No guns are allowed in the Park except under cer- tain restrictions, and after a permit has been obtained from the officer in charge. This has stopped the barbarous slaughter of bears, and especially of deer, by shepherds, hunters, and hunting tourists, who, it would seem, can find no pleasure without blood. | The Sierra deer — the blacktail — spend the winters in the brushy and exceedingly rough region just below the main timber-belt, and are less accessible to hunters there than when they AMONG THE ANIMALS OF THE YOSEMITE 189 are passing through the comparatively open for- ests to and from their summer pastures near the summits of the range. They go up the moun- tains early in the spring as the snow melts, not waiting for it all to disappear; reaching the high Sierra about the first of June, and the coolest recesses at the base of the peaks a month or so later. I have tracked them for miles over compacted snow from three to ten feet deep. Deer are capital mountaineers, making their way into the heart of the roughest mountains; seeking not only pasturage, but a cool climate, and safe hidden places in which to bring forth their young. They are not supreme as rock- climbing animals; they take second rank, yield- ing the first to the mountain sheep, which dwell above them on the highest crags and _ peaks. Still, the two meet frequently; for the deer climbs all the peaks save the lofty summits above the glaciers, crossing piles of angular boulders, roaring swollen streams, and sheer-walled canons by fords and passes that would try the nerves of the hardiest mountaineers, — climbing with graceful ease and reserve of strength that can- not fail to arouse admiration. Hverywhere some species of deer seems to be at home, — on rough or smooth ground, lowlands or highlands, in swamps and barrens and the densest woods, in varying climates, hot or cold, over all the conti- nent ; maintaining glorious health, never mak- 190 OUR NATIONAL PARKS ing an awkward step. Standing, lying down, walking, feeding, running even for life, it is al- ways invincibly graceful, and adds beauty and animation to every landscape, — a charming ani- mal, and a great credit to nature. I never see one of the common blacktail deer, the only species in the Park, without fresh ad- miration; and since I never carry a gun I see them well: lymg beneath a juniper or dwarf pine, among the brown needles on the brink of some cliff or the end of a ridge commanding a wide outlook; feeding in sunny openings among chaparral, daintily selecting aromatic leaves and twigs ; leading their fawns out of my way, or making them lie down and hide ; bounding past through the forest, or curiously advancing and retreating again and again. One morning when I was eating breakfast in a little garden spot on the Kaweah, hedged around with chaparral, I noticed a deer’s head thrust through the bushes, the big beautiful eyes gazing at me. I kept still, and the deer ventured forward a step, then snorted and with- drew. In a few minutes she returned, and came into the open garden, stepping with in- finite grace, followed by two others. After showing themselves for a moment, they bounded over the hedge with sharp, timid snorts and vanished. But curiosity brought them back with still another, and all four came into my AMONG THE ANIMALS OF THE YOSEMITE 191 garden, and, satisfied that I meant them no ill, began to feed, actually eating breakfast with me, like tame, gentle sheep around a shepherd, — rare company, and the most graceful in move- ments and attitudes. I eagerly watched them while they fed on ceanothus and wild cherry, daintily culling single leaves here and there from the side of the hedge, turning now and then to snip a few leaves of mint from the midst of the garden flowers. Grass they did not eat at all. — No wonder the contents of the deer’s stomach are eaten by the Indians. While exploring the upper canon of the north fork of the San Joaquin, one evening, the sky threatening rain, I searched for a dry bed, and made choice of a big juniper that had been pushed down by a snow avalanche, but was rest- ing stubbornly on its knees high enough to let me lie under its broad trunk. Just below my shelter there was another juniper on the very brink of a precipice, and, examining it, I found a deer-bed beneath it, completely protected and concealed by drooping branches, — a fine refuge and lookout as well as resting-place. About an hour before dark I heard the clear, sharp snort- ing of a deer, and looking down on the brushy, rocky canon bottom, discovered an anxious doe that no doubt had her fawns concealed near by. She bounded over the chaparral and up the far- ther slope of the wall, often stopping to look 192 OUR NATIONAL PARKS back and listen, —a fine picture of vivid, eager alertness. I sat perfectly still, and as my shirt was colored like the juniper bark I was not easily seen. After a little she came cautiously toward me, sniffing the air and grazing, and her move- ments, as she descended the canon side over boulder piles and brush and fallen timber, were admirably strong and beautiful; she never strained or made apparent efforts, although jumping high here and there. As she drew nigh she sniffed anxiously, trying the air in dif- ferent directions until she caught my scent; then bounded off, and vanished behind a small grove of firs. Soon she came back with the same caution. and insatiable curiosity, — coming and going five or six times. While I sat admirmg her, a Douglas squirrel, evidently excited by her noisy alarms, climbed a boulder beneath me, and witnessed her performances as attentively as I did, while a frisky chipmunk, too restless or hun- gry for such shows, busied himself about his supper in a thicket of shadbushes, the fruit of which was then ripe, glancing about on the slender twigs lightly as a sparrow. Toward the end of the Indian summer, when the young are strong, the deer begin to gather in little bands of from six to fifteen or twenty, and on the approach of the first snowstorm they set out on their march down the mountains to their winter quarters ; lingering usually on warm AMONG THE ANIMALS OF THE YOSEMITE 193 hillsides and spurs eight or ten miles below the summits, as if loath to leave. About the end of November, a heavy, far-reaching storm drives them down in haste along the dividing ridges between the rivers, led by old experienced bucks whose knowledge of the topography is wonder- ful. It is when the deer are coming down that the Indians set out on their grand fall hunt. Too lazy to go into the recesses of the mountains away from trails, they wait for the deer to come out, and then waylay them. This plan also has the advantage of finding them in bands. Great preparations are made. Old guns are mended, bullets moulded, and the hunters wash them- selves and fast to some extent, to imsure good luck, as they say. Men and women, old and young, set forth together. Central camps are made on the well-known highways of the deer, which are soon red with blood. Each hunter comes in laden, old crones as well as maidens smiling on the luckiest. All grow fat and merry. Boys, each armed with an antlered head, play at buck-fighting, and plague the industrious wo- men, who are busily preparing the meat for transportation, by stealing up behind them and throwing fresh hides over them. But the In- dians are passing away here as everywhere, and their red camps on the mountains are fewer every year. 194 OUR NATIONAL PARKS There are panthers, foxes, badgers, porcupines, and coyotes in the Park, but not in large num- bers. I have seen coyotes well back in the range at the head of the Tuolumne Meadows as early as June Ist, before the snow was gone, feeding on marmots; but they are far more numerous on the inhabited lowlands around ranches, where they enjoy life on chickens, turkeys, quail eggs, ground squirrels, hares, etc., and all kinds of fruit. Few wild sheep, I fear, are left here- abouts; for, though safe on the high peaks, they are driven down the eastern slope of the moun- tains when the deer are driven down the western, to ridges and outlying spurs where the snow does not fall to a great depth, and there they are within reach of the cattlemen’s rifles. The two squirrels of the Park, the Douglas and the California gray, keep all the woods lively. ‘The former is far more abundant and more widely distributed, being found all the way up from the foothills to the dwarf pines on the Summit peaks. He is the most influential of the Sierra animals, though small, and the brightest of all the squirrels I know, — a squirrel of squirrels, quick mountain vigor and valor condensed, purely wild, and as free from disease as a sunbeam. One cannot think of such an animal ever being weary or sick. He claims all the woods, and is inclined to drive away even men as intruders. How he scolds, and what faces he makes! If AMONG THE ANIMALS OF THE YOSEMITE 195 not so comically small he would be a dreadful fellow. The gray, Sciurus fossor, is the hand- somest, I think, of all the large American squirrels. He is something like the Eastern gray, but is brighter and clearer in color, and more lithe and slender. He dwells in the oak and pine woods up to a height of about five thousand feet above the sea, is rather common in Yosemite Valley, Hetch-Hetchy, Kings River Canon, and indeed in all the main canons and Yosemites, but does not like the high fir-covered ridges. Compared with the Douglas, the gray is more than twice as large; nevertheless, he manages to make his way through the trees with less stir than his small, peppery neighbor, and is much less influential in every way. In the spring, before the pine-nuts and hazel-nuts are ripe, he examines last year’s cones for the few seeds that may be left in them between the half- open scales, and gleans fallen nuts and seeds on the ground among the leaves, after making sure that no enemy is nigh. His fine tail floats, now behind, now above him, level or gracefully curled, light and radiant as dry thistledown. His body seems hardly more substantial than his tail. The Douglas is a firm, emphatic bolt of life, fiery, pungent, full of brag and show and fight, and his movements have none of the ele- gant deliberation of the gray. They are so quick and keen they almost sting the onlooker, 196 - OUR NATIONAL PARKS and the acrobatic harlequin gyrating show he makes of himself turns one giddy to see. The gray is shy and oftentimes stealthy, as if half ex- pecting to find an enemy in every tree and bush and behind every log; he seems to wish to be let alone, and manifests no desire to be seen, or admired, or feared. He is hunted by the In- dians, and this of itself is cause enough for cau- tion. The Douglas is less attractive for game, and probably increasing in numbers in spite of every enemy. He goes his ways bold as a lion, up and down and across, round and round, the happiest, merriest of all the hairy tribe, and at the same time tremendously earnest and solemn, sunshine incarnate, making every tree tingle with his electric toes. If you prick him, you cannot think he will bleed. He seems above the chance and change that beset common mortals, though in busily gathering burs and nuts he shows that he has to work for a living, like the rest of us. I never found a dead Douglas. He gets into the world and out of it without bemg noticed; only in prime is he seen, like some little plants that are visible only when in bloom. The little striped Tamias quadrivittatus is one of the most amiable and delightful of all the mountain tree-climbers. A brighter, cheerier chipmunk does not exist. He is smarter, more arboreal and squirrel-like, than the familiar Hast- ern species, and is distributed as widely on the AMONG THE ANIMALS OF THE YOSEMITE 197 Sierra as the Douglas. Every forest, however dense or open, every hilltop and caiion, how- ever brushy or bare, is cheered and enlivened by this happy little animal. You are likely to notice him first on the lower edge of the coniferous belt, where the Sabine and yellow pines meet; and thence upward, go where you may, you will find him every day, even in winter, unless the weather is stormy. He is an exceedingly interesting little fellow, full of odd, quaint ways, confiding, thinking no evil; and without being a squirrel —a true shadow-tail— he lives the life of a squirrel, and has almost all squirrelish accom- plishments without aggressive quarrelsomeness. I never weary of watching him as he frisks about the bushes, gathering seeds and berries ; poising on slender twigs of wild cherry, shad, chinquapin, buckthorn, bramble ; skimming along prostrate trunks or over the grassy, needle-strewn forest floor; darting from boulder to boulder on glacial pavements and the tops of the great domes. When the seeds of the conifers are ripe, he climbs the trees and cuts off the cones for a winter store, working diligently, though not with the tremendous lightning energy of the Douglas, who frequently drives him out of the best trees. Then he lies in wait, and picks up a share of the burs cut off by his domineering cousin, and stores them beneath logs and in hollows. Few of the Sierra animals are so well liked as this little airy, 198 OUR NATIONAL PARKS . fluffy half squirrel, half spermophile. So gentle, confiding, and busily cheery and happy, he takes one’s heart and keeps his place among the best- loved of the mountain darlings. A diligent col- lector of seeds, nuts, and berries, of course he is well fed, though never in the least dumpy with fat. On the contrary, he looks lke a mere fluff of fur, weighing but little more than a field mouse, and of his frisky, birdlike liveliness with- out haste there is no end. Douglas can bark with his mouth closed, but little quad always opens his when he talks or sings. He has a considerable variety of notes which correspond with his movements, some of them sweet and liquid, like water dripping into a pool with tink- ling sound. His eyes are black and animated, shining like dew. He seems dearly to like teas- ing a dog, venturing within a few feet of it, then frisking away with a lively chipping and low squirrelish churring ; beating time to his music, such as it is, with his tail, which at each chip and churr describes a half circle. Not even Douglas "is surer footed or takes greater risks. I have seen him running about on sheer Yosemite cliffs, holding on with as little effort as a fly and as little thought of danger, in places where, if he had made the least slip, he would have fallen thousands of feet. How fine it would be could mountaineers move about on precipices with the same sure grip! AMONG THE ANIMALS OF THE YOSEMITE 199 Before the pine-nuts are ripe, grass seeds and those of the many species of ceanothus, with strawberries, raspberries, and the soft red thim- bleberries of Rubus nutkanus, form the bulk of his food, and a neater eater is not to be found in the mountains. Bees powdered with pollen, poking their blunt noses into the bells of flowers, are comparatively clumsy and boorish. Frisking along some fallen pine or fir, when the grass seeds are ripe, he looks about him, considering which of the tufts he sees is likely to have the best, runs out to it, selects what he thinks is sure to be a good head, cuts it off, carries it to the top of the log, sits upright and nibbles out the grain without getting awns in his mouth, turning the head round, holding it and fingering it as if playing on a flute; then skips for another and another, bringing them to the same dining-log. The woodchuck (Arctomys monax) dwells on high bleak ridges and boulder piles; and a very different sort of mountaineer is he, — bulky, fat, aldermanic, and fairly bloated at times by hearty indulgence in the lush pastures of his airy home. And yet he is by no means a dull animal. In the midst of what we regard as storm-beaten desolation, high in the frosty air, beside the glaciers he pipes and whistles right cheerily and lives to a good old age. If you are as early a riser as he is, you may oftentimes see him come blinking out of his burrow to meet the 200 OUR NATIONAL PARKS first beams of the morning and take a sunbath on some favorite flat-topped boulder. Afterward, well warmed, he goes to breakfast in one of his garden hollows, eats heartily like a cow in clover — until comfortably swollen, then goes a-visiting, and plays and loves and fights. In the spring of 1875, when I was exploring the peaks and glaciers about the head of the middle fork of the San Joaquin, I had crossed the range from the head of Owen River, and one morning, passing around a frozen lake where © the snow was perhaps ten feet deep, I was sur- prised to find the fresh track of a woodchuck plainly marked, the sun having softened the sur- face. What could the animal be thinking of, coming out so early while all the ground was snow-buried? The steady trend of his track showed he had a definite aim, and fortunately it was toward a mountain thirteen thousand feet high that I meant to climb. So I followed to see if I could find out what he wasup to. From the base of the mountain the track poimted straight up, and I knew by the melting snow that I was not far behind him. [I lost the track on a crumbling ridge, partly projecting through the snow, but soon discovered it again. Well toward the summit of the mountain, in an open spot on the south side, nearly inclosed by disin- tegrating pinnacles among which the sun heat reverberated, making an isolated patch of warm AMONG THE ANIMALS OF THE YOSEMITE 201 climate, I found a nice garden, full of rock cress, phlox, silene, draba, etc., and a few grasses ; and in this garden I overtook the wanderer, enjoy- ing a fine fresh meal, perhaps the first of the season. How did he know the way to this one garden spot, so high and far off, and what told him that it was in bloom while yet the snow was ten feet deep over his den? For this it would seem he would need more botanical, topo- graphical, and climatological knowledge than most mountaineers are possessed of. The shy, curious mountain beaver, Haplo- don, lives on the heights, not far from the woodchuck. He digs canals and controls the flow of small streams under the sod. And it is startling when one is camped on the edge of a sloping meadow near the homes of these indus- trious mountaineers, to be awakened in the still night by the sound of water rushing and gure- ling under one’s head in a newly formed canal. Pouched gophers also have a way of awakening nervous campers that is quite as exciting as the Haplodon’s paln ; that is, by a series of firm up- ward pushes when they are driving tunnels and shoving up the dirt. One naturally cries out, “Who ’s there?” and then discovering the cause, “ All right. Go on. Good-night,” and goes to sleep again. The haymaking pika, bob-tailed spermophile, and wood-rat are also among the most interest- 202 OUR NATIONAL PARKS ing of the Sierra animals. The last Neotoma is scarcely at all like the common rat, is nearly twice as large, has a delicate, soft, brownish fur, white on the belly, large ears thin and trans- lucent, eyes full and liquid and mild in ex- pression, nose blunt and squirrelish, slender claws sharp as needles, and as his limbs are strong he can climb about as well as a squirrel ; while no rat or squirrel has so mnocent a look, is so easily approached, or in general expresses so much confidence in one’s good intentions. He seems too fine for the thorny thickets he in- habits, and his big, rough hut is as unlike him- self as possible. No other animal in these mountains makes nests so large and striking in appearance as his. They are built of all kinds of sticks (broken branches, and old rotten moss- erown chunks and green twigs, smooth or thorny, cut from the nearest bushes), mixed with miscellaneous rubbish and curious odds and ends, —pbits of cloddy earth, stones, bones, bits of deer-horn, etc.: the whole simply piled in conical masses on the ground in chaparral thickets. Some of these cabins are five or six feet high, and occasionally a dozen or more are grouped together ; less, perhaps, for society’s sake than for advantages of food and shelter. Coming through deep, stiff chaparral in the heart of the wilderness, heated and weary in forcing a way, the solitary explorer, happening AMONG THE ANIMALS OF THE YOSEMITE 203 into one of these curious neotoma villages, is startled at the strange sight, and may imagine he is in an Indian village, and feel anxious as to the reception he will get in a place so wild. At first, perhaps, not a single inhabitant will be seen, or at most only two or three seated on the tops of their huts as at the doors, observing the stranger with the mildest of mild eyes. The nest in the centre of the cabin is made of grass and films of bark chewed to tow, and lined with feathers and the down of various seeds. The thick, rough walls seem to be built for defense against enemies — fox, coyote, etc. —as well as for shelter, and the delicate creatures in their big, rude homes, suggest tender flowers, like those of Salvia carduacea, defended by thorny involucres. Sometimes the home is built in the forks of an oak, twenty or thirty feet from the ground, and even in garrets. Among housekeepers who have these bushmen as neighbors or guests they are regarded as thieves, because they carry away and pile together everything transportable (knives, forks, tin cups, spoons, spectacles, combs, nails, kindling-wood, etc., as well as eatables of all sorts), to strengthen their fortifi- cations or to shine among rivals. Once, far back in the high Sierra, they stole my snow- goggles, the lid of my teapot, and my aneroid barometer; and one stormy night, when en- camped under a prostrate cedar, I was awakened 204 OUR NATIONAL PARKS by a gritting sound on the granite, and by the light of my fire I discovered a handsome neo- toma beside me, dragging away my ice-hatchet, pullmg with might and main by a_ buckskin strmg on the handle. I threw bits of bark at him and made a noise to frighten him, but he stood scolding and chattering back at me, his fine eyes shining with an air of injured innocence. A great variety of lizards enliven the warm portions of the Park. Some of them are more than a foot in length, others but little larger than grasshoppers. A few are snaky and re- pulsive at first sight, but most of the species are handsome and attractive, and bear acquaintance well; we like them better the farther we see into their charming lives. Small fellow mortals, gen- tle and guileless, they are easily tamed, and have beautiful eyes, expressing the clearest innocence, so that, in spite of prejudices brought from cool, lizardless countries, one must soon learn to like them. ven the horned toad of the plains and foothills, called horrid, is mild and gentle, with charming eyes, and so are the snakelike species found in the underbrush of the lower forests. These glidein curves with all the ease and grace of snakes, while their small, undeveloped limbs drag for the most part as useless appendages. One specimen that I measured was fourteen inches long, and as far as I saw it made no use whatever of its diminutive limbs. AMONG THE ANIMALS OF THE YOSEMITE 205 Most of them glint and dart on the sunny rocks and across open spaces from bush to bush, swift as dragonflies and humming-birds, and about as brilliantly colored. They never make a long-sustained run, whatever their object, but dart direct as arrows for a distance of ten or twenty feet, then suddenly stop, and as suddenly start again. These stops are necessary as rests, for they are short-winded, and when pursued steadily are soon run out of breath, pant piti- fully, and may easily be caught where no retreat in bush or rock is quickly available. If you stay with them a week or two and be- have well, these gentle saurians, descendants of an ancient race of giants, will soon know and trust you, come to your feet, play, and watch your every motion with cunning curiosity. You will surely learn to like them, not only the bright ones, gorgeous as the rainbow, but the little ones, gray as lichened granite, and scarcely bigger than grasshoppers; and they will teach you that scales may cover as fine a nature as hair or feathers or anything tailored. There are many snakes in the cafions and lower forests, but they are mostly handsome and harmless. Of all the tourists and travelers who have visited Yosemite and the adjacent moun- tains, not one has been bitten by a snake of any sort, while thousands have been charmed by them. Some of them vie with the lizards in 206 OUR NATIONAL PARKS beauty of color and dress patterns. Only the rattlesnake is venomous, and he carefully keeps his venom to himself as far as man is concerned, unless his life is threatened. Before I learned to respect rattlesnakes I killed two, the first on the San Joaquin plain. He was coiled comfortably around a tuft of bunch-grass, and I discovered him when he was between my feet as I was stepping over him. He held his head down and did not attempt to strike, although in danger of being trampled. At that time, thirty years ago, I imagined that rattlesnakes should be killed wherever found. I had no weapon of any sort, and on the smooth plain there was not a stick or a stone within miles ; so I crushed him by jumping on him, as the deer are said to do. Lookmg me in the face he saw I meant mischief, and quickly cast himself into a coil, ready to strike in defense. I knew he could not strike when traveling, therefore I threw handfuls of dirt and grass sods at him, to tease him out of coil. He held his ground a few minutes, threatening and strik- ing, and then started off to get rid of me. I ran forward and jumped on him; but he drew back his head so quickly my heel missed, and he also missed his stroke at me. Persecuted, tormented, again and again he tried to get away, bravely striking out to protect himself; but at last my heel came squarely down, sorely wound- AMONG THE ANIMALS OF THE YOSEMITE 207 ing him, and a few more brutal stampings crushed him. I felt degraded by the killing business, farther from heaven, and I made up my mind to try to be at least as fair and chari- table as the snakes themselves, and to kill no more save in self-defense. The second killing might also, I think, have been avoided, and I have always felt somewhat sore and guilty about it. I had built a little cabin in Yosemite, and for convenience in get- ting water, and for the sake of music and so- ciety, I led a small stream from Yosemite Creek into it. Running along the side of the wall it was not in the way, and it had just fall enough to ripple and sing in low, sweet tones, making delightful company, especially at night when I was lying awake. Then a few frogs came in and made merry with the stream,— and one snake, I suppose to catch the frogs. Returning from my long walks, I usually brought home a large handful of plants, partly for study, partly for ornament, and set them in a corner of the cabin, with their stems in the stream to keep them fresh. One day, when I picked up a handful that had begun to fade, I uncovered a large coiled rattler that had been hiding behind the flowers. Thus suddenly brought to light face to face with the rightful owner of the place, the poor reptile was desper- ately embarrassed, evidently realizing that he 208 OUR NATIONAL PARKS had no right in the cabin. It was not only fear that he showed, but a good deal of downright bashfulness and embarrassment, like that of a more than half honest person caught under sus- picious circumstances behind a door. Instead of striking or threatening to strike, though coiled and ready, he slowly drew his head down as far as he could, with awkward, confused kinks in his neck and a shamefaced expression, as if wishing the ground would open and hide him. I have looked into the eyes of so many wild animals that I feel sure I did not mistake the feelings of this unfortunate snake. I did not want to kill him, but I had many visitors, some of them children, and I oftentimes came in late at night; so I judged he must die. Since then I have seen perhaps a hundred or more in these mountains, but J have never in- tentionally disturbed them, nor have they dis- turbed me to any great extent, even by accident, though in danger of beg stepped on. Once, while I was on my knees kindling a fire, one glided under the arch made by my arm. He was only going away from the ground I had se- lected for a camp, and there was not the slight- est danger, because I kept still and allowed him to go in peace. The only time I felt myself in serious danger was when I was coming out of the Tuolumne Canon by a steep side canon to- ward the head of Yosemite Creek. On an AMONG THE ANIMALS OF THE YOSEMITE 209 earthquake talus, a boulder in my way presented a front so high that I could just reach the upper edge of it while standing on the next below it. Drawing myself up, as soon as my head was above the flat top of it I caiight sight of a coiled rattler. My hands had alarmed him, and he was ready for me; but even with this provoca- tion, and when my head came in sight within a foot of him, he did not strike. The last time I sauntered through the big canon I saw about two a day. One was not coiled, but neatly folded in a narrow space between two cobble- stones on the side of the river, his head below the level of them, ready to shoot up like a Jack- in-the-box for frogs or birds. My foot spanned the space above within an inch or two of his head, but he only held it lower. In making my way through a particularly tedious tangle of buckthorn, I parted the branches on the side of an open spot and threw my bundle of bread into it; and when, with my arms free, I was pushing through after it, I saw a small rattlesnake drag- ging his tail from beneath my bundle. When he caught sight of me he eyed me angrily, and with an air of righteous indignation seemed to be asking why I had thrown that stuff on him. He was so small that I was inclined to slight him, but he struck out so angrily that I drew back, and approached the opening from the other side. But he had been listening, and 210 OUR NATIONAL PARKS when I looked through the brush I found him confronting me, still with a come-in-if-you-dare expression. In vain I tried to explain that I only wanted my bread; he stoutly held the ground in front of it; so I went back a dozen rods and kept still for half an hour, and when I returned he had gone. One evening, near sundown, in a very rough, boulder-choked portion of the canon, I searched long for a level spot for a bed, and at last was glad to find a patch of flood-sand on the river- bank, and a lot of driftwood close by for a camp- fire. But when I threw down my bundle, I found two snakes in possession of the ground. I might have passed the night even in this snake den without danger, for I never knew a single instance of their coming into camp in the night; but fearing that, in so small a space, some late comers, not aware of my presence, might get stepped on when I was replenishing the fire, to avoid possible crowding I encamped on one of the earthquake boulders. There are two species of Crotalus in the Park, and when I was exploring the basin of Yosemite Creek I thought I had discovered a new one. I saw a snake with curious divided appendages on its head. Going nearer, I found that the strange headgear was only the feet of a frog. Cutting a switch, I struck the snake lightly until he dis- gorged the poor frog, or rather allowed it to SNIVINONOA AHAIY SONIMN AHL AO ANO AMONG THE ANIMALS OF THE YOSEMITE 211 back out. On its return to the light from one of the very darkest of death valleys, it blinked a moment with a sort of dazed look, then plunged into a stream, apparently happy and well. Frogs abound in all the bogs, marshes, pools, and lakes, however cold and high and isolated. How did they manage to get up these high mountains? Surely not by jumping. Long and dry excursions through weary miles of boulders and brush would be trying to frogs. Most likely their stringy spawn is carried on the feet of ducks, cranes, and other waterbirds. Anyhow, they are most thoroughly distributed, and flourish fa- mously. What a cheery, hearty set they are, and how bravely their krmk and tronk concerts enliven the rocky wilderness ! None of the high-lying mountain lakes or branches of the rivers above sheer falls had fish of any sort until stocked by the agency of man. In the high Sierra, the only river in which trout exist naturally is the middle fork of Kings River. There are no sheer falls on this stream ; some of the rapids, however, are so swift and rough, even at the lowest stage of water, that it is surprising any fish can climb them. I found trout in abundance in this fork up to seventy-five hundred feet. They also run quite high on the Kern. On the Merced they get no higher than Yosemite Valley, four thousand feet, all the forks of the river being barred there by sheer falls, and on 212 OUR NATIONAL PARKS the main Tuolumne they are stopped by a fall below Hetch-Hetchy, still lower than Yosemite. Though these upper waters are inaccessible to the fish, one would suppose their eggs might have been planted there by some means. Nature has so many ways of doing such things. In this case she waited for the agency of man, and now many of these hitherto fishless lakes and streams are full of fine trout, stocked by individual enter- prise, Walton clubs, etc., in great part under the auspices of the United States Fish Commission. A few trout carried into Hetch-Hetchy in a com- mon water-bucket have multiplied wonderfully fast. Lake Tenaya, at an elevation of over eight thousand feet, was stocked eight years ago by Mr. Murphy, who carried a few trout from Yo- semite. Many of the small streams of the east- ern slope have also been stocked with trout trans- ported over the passes in tin cans on the backs of mules. Soon, it would seem, all the streams of the range will be enriched by these lively fish, and will become the means of drawing thousands of visitors into the mountains. Catching trout with a bit of bent wire is a rather trivial business, but fortunately people fish better than they know. In most cases it is the man who is caught. Trout-fishing regarded as bait for catching men, for the saving of both body and soul, is impor- tant, and deserves all the expense and care be- stowed on it. CHAPTER VII AMONG THE BIRDS OF THE YOSEMITE TRAVELERS in the Sierra forests usually com- plain of the want of life. “The trees,” they say, “are fine, but the empty stillness is deadly ; there are no animals to be seen, no birds. We have not heard a song in all the woods.” And nowonder! ‘They go in large parties with mules and horses; they make a great noise; they are dressed in outlandish, unnatural colors; every animal shuns them. Even the frightened pines would run away if they could. But Nature- lovers, devout, silent, open-eyed, looking and lis- tening with love, find no lack of inhabitants in these mountain mansions; and they come to them gladly. Not to mention the large animals or the small insect people, every waterfall has its ouzel and every tree its squirrel or tamias or bird: tiny nuthatch threading the furrows of the bark, cheerily whispering to itself as it deftly pries off loose scales and examines the curled edges of lichens; or Clarke crow or jay examining the cones; or some singer — oriole, tanager, warbler — resting, feeding, attending to domestic affairs. 214 OUR NATIONAL PARKS Hawks and eagles sail overhead, grouse walk in happy flocks below, and song sparrows sing in every bed of chaparral. There is no crowding, to be sure. Unlike the low Eastern trees, those of the Sierra in the main forest belt average nearly two hundred feet in height, and of course many birds are required to make much show in them, and many voices to fill them. Nevertheless, the whole range, from foothills to snowy summits, is shaken into song every summer ; and though low and thin in winter, the music never ceases. The sage cock (Centrocercus urophasianus) is the largest of the Sierra game-birds and the king of American grouse. It is an admirably strong, hardy, handsome, independent bird, able with comfort to bid defiance to heat, cold, drought, hunger, and all sorts of storms, living on whatever seeds or insects chance to come in its way, or simply on the leaves of sage-brush, everywhere abundant on its desert range. In winter, when the temperature is oftentimes below zero, and heavy snowstorms are blowing, he sits beneath a sage bush and allows himself to be covered, poking his head now and then through the snow to feed on the leaves of his shelter. Not even the Arctic ptarmigan is hardier in brav- ing frost and snow and wintry darkness. When in full plumage he is a beautiful bird, with a long, firm, sharp-pointed tail, which in walking is slightly raised and swings sidewise back and AMONG THE BIRDS OF THE YOSEMITE 215 forth with each step. The male is handsomely marked with black and white on the neck, back, and wings, weighs five or six pounds, and mea- sures about thirty inches in length. The female is clad mostly in plain brown, and is not so large. They occasionally wander from the sage plains into the open nut-pine and juniper woods, but never enter the main coniferous forest. It is only in the broad, dry, half-desert sage plains that they are quite at home, where the weather is blazing hot in summer, cold in winter. If any one passes through a flock, all squat on the gray ground and hold their heads low, hoping to es- cape observation ; but when approached within a rod or so, they rise with a magnificent burst of wing-beats, looking about as big as turkeys and making a noise like a whirlwind. On the 28th of June, at the head of Owen’s Valley, I caught one of the young that was then just able to fly. It was seven inches long, of a uniform gray color, blunt-billed, and when cap- tured cried lustily in a shrill piping voice, clear in tone as a boy’s small willow whistle. I have seen flocks of from ten to thirty or forty on the east margin of the Park, where the Mono Desert meets the gray foothills of the Sierra; but since cattle have been pastured there they are becom- ing rarer every year. Another magnificent bird, the blue or dusky grouse, next in size to the sage cock, is found all 216 OUR NATIONAL PARKS through the main forest belt, though not in great numbers. They like best the heaviest silver-fir woods near garden and meadow openings, where there is but little underbrush to cover the ap- proach of enemies. When a flock of these brave birds, sauntermg and feeding on the sunny, flow- ery levels of some hidden meadow or Yosemite valley far back in the heart of the mountains, see a man for the first time in their lives, they rise with hurried notes of surprise and excitement and alight on the lowest branches of the trees, wondering’ what the wanderer may be, and show- ing great eagerness to get a good view of the strange vertical animal. Knowing nothing of guns, they allow you to approach within a half dozen paces, then quietly hop a few branches higher or fly to the next tree without a thought of concealment, so that you may observe them as long as you like, near enough to see the fine shading of their plumage, the feathers on their toes, and the innocent wonderment in their beau- tiful wild eyes. But in the neighborhood of roads and trails they soon become shy, and when disturbed fly ito the highest, leafiest trees, and suddenly become invisible, so well do they know how to hide and keep still and make use of their protective colormg. Nor can they be easily dis- lodged ere they are ready to go. In vain the hunter goes round and round some tall pine or fir into which he has perhaps seen a dozen enter, AMONG THE BIRDS OF THE YOSEMITE 217 gazing up through the branches, straining his eyes while his gun is held ready; not a feather can he see unless his eyes have been sharpened by long experience and knowledge of the blue erouse’s habits. Then, perhaps, when he is thinking that the tree must be hollow and that the birds have all gone inside, they burst forth with a startling whir of wing-beats, and after gaining full speed go skating swiftly away through the forest arches in a long, silent, wav- ering slide, with wings held steady. During the summer they are most of the time on the ground, feeding on insects, seeds, berries, etc., around the margins of open spots and rocky moraines, playing and sauntering, taking sun baths and sand baths, and drinking at little pools and rills during the heat of the day. In winter they live mostly in the trees, depending on buds for food, sheltering beneath dense overlapping branches at night and during storms on the lee- side of the trunk, sunning themselves on the southside limbs in fine weather, and sometimes diving into the mealy snow to flutter and wallow, apparently for exercise and fun. I have seen young broods running beneath the firsin June at a height of eight thousand feet above the sea. On the approach of danger, the mother with a peculiar cry warns the helpless midgets to scatter and hide beneath leaves and twigs, and even in plain open places it is almost 218 OUR NATIONAL PARKS impossible to discover them. In the meantime the mother feigns lameness, throws herself at your feet, kicks and gasps and flutters, to draw your attention from the chicks. The young are generally able to fly about the middle of July ; but even after they can fly well they are usually advised to run and hide and lie still, no matter how closely approached, while the mother goes on with her loving, lying acting, apparently as desperately concerned for their safety as when they were featherless infants. Sometimes, how- ever, after carefully studying the circumstances, she tells them to take wing; and up and away ina blurry birr and whir they scatter to all points of the compass, as if blown up with gunpowder, dropping cunningly out of sight three or four hundred yards off, and keeping quiet until called, after the danger is supposed to be past. If you walk on a little way without manifesting any in- clination to hunt them, you may sit down at the foot of a tree near enough to see and hear the happy reunion. One touch of nature makes the whole world kin ; and it is truly wonderful how love-telling the small voices of these birds are, and how far they reach through the woods into one another’s hearts and into ours. The tones are so perfectly human and so full of anxious affection, few mountaineers can fail to be touched by them. They are cared for until full grown. On the AMONG THE BIRDS OF THE YOSEMITE 219 20th of August, as I was passing along the mar- gin of a garden spot on the head-waters of the San Joaquin, a grouse rose from the ruins of an old juniper that had been uprooted and brought down by an avalanche from a cliff overhead. She threw herself at my feet, limped and flut- tered and gasped, showing, as I thought, that she had a nest and was raising a second brood. Looking for the eggs, I was surprised to see a strong-winged flock nearly as large as the mo- ther fly up around me. Instead of seeking a warmer climate when the winter storms set in, these hardy birds stay all the year in the high Sierra forests, and I have never known them to suffer in any sort of wea- ther. Able to live on the buds of pine, spruce, and fir, they are forever independent in the matter of food supply, which gives so many of us trouble, dragging us here and there away from our best work. How gladly I would live on pine buds, however pitchy, for the sake of this grand independence! With all his superior resources, man makes more distracting difficulty concerning food than any other of the family. The mountain quail, or plumed partridge (Ore- ortyx pictus plumiferus) is common in all the upper portions of the Park, though nowhere in numbers. He ranges considerably higher than the grouse in summer, but is unable to endure the heavy storms of winter. When his food is 220 OUR NATIONAL PARKS buried, he descends the range to the brushy foothills, at a height of from two thousand to three thousand feet above the sea; but like every true mountaineer, he is quick to follow the spring back into the highest mountains. I think he is the very handsomest and most inter- esting of all the American partridges, larger and handsomer than the famous Bob White, or even the fine California valley quail, or the Massena partridge of Arizona and Mexico. That he is not so regarded, is because as a lonely moun- taineer he is not half known. His plumage is delicately shaded, brown above, white and rich chestnut below and on the sides, with many dainty markings of black and white and gray here and there, while his beauti- ful head plume, three or four inches long, nearly straight, composed of two feathers closely folded so as to appear as one, is worn jauntily slanted backward like a single feather in a boy’s cap, giving him a very marked appearance. They wander over the lonely mountains in family flocks of from six to fifteen, beneath ceanothus, manzanita, and wild cherry thickets, and over dry sandy flats, glacier meadows, rocky ridges, and beds of Bryanthus around glacier lakes, especially in autumn, when the berries of the upper gardens are ripe, uttering low clucking notes to enable them to keep together. When they are so suddenly disturbed that they are AMONG THE BIRDS OF THE YOSEMITE 221 afraid they cannot escape the danger by running into thickets, they rise with a fine hearty whir and scatter in the brush over an area of half a square mile or so, a few of them diving into leafy trees. But as soon as the danger is past, the parents with a clear piping note call them together again. By the end of July the young are two thirds grown and fly well, though only dire necessity can compel them to try their wings. In gait, gestures, habits, and general behavior they are like domestic chickens, but in- finitely finer, searching for insects and seeds, looking to this side and that, scratching among fallen leaves, jumping up to pull down grass heads, and clucking and muttering in low tones. Once when I was seated at the foot of a tree on the head-waters of the Merced, sketching, I heard a flock up the valley behind me, and by their voices gradually sounding nearer I knew that they were feeding toward me. I kept still, hoping to see them. Soon one came within three or four feet of me, without noticmg me any more than if I were a stump or a bulging part of the trunk agaist which I was leaning, my clothing being brown, nearly like the bark. Presently along came another and another, and it was delightful to get so near a view of these handsome chickens perfectly undisturbed, ob- serve their manners, and hear their low peace- ful notes. At last one of them caught my eye, 222 OUR NATIONAL PARKS gazed in silent wonder for a moment, then ut- tered a peculiar cry, which was followed by a lot of hurried muttered notes that sounded like speech. The others, of course, saw me as soon as the alarm was sounded, and joined the won- der talk, gazing and chattering, astonished but not frightened. Then all with one accord ran back with the news to the rest of the flock. “What is it? what is it? Oh, you never saw the like,’ they seemed to be saying. “Nota deer, or a wolf, ora bear; come see, come see.” “Where? where?” ‘Down there by that tree.” Then they approached cautiously, past the tree, stretching their necks, and looking up in turn as if knowing from the story told them just where I was. For fifteen or twenty minutes they kept coming and going, venturing within’ a few feet of me, and discussing the wonder in charming chatter. Their curiosity at last satis- fied, they began to scatter and feed again, going back in the direction they had come from; while I, loath to part with them, followed noise- lessly, crawling beneath the bushes, keeping them in sight for an hour or two, learning their habits, and finding out what seeds and berries they liked best. The valley quail is not a mountaineer, and seldom enters the Park except at a few of the lowest places on the western boundary. It be- longs to the brushy foothills and plains, orchards AMONG THE BIRDS OF THE YOSEMITE 223 and wheatfields, and is a hundred times more numerous than the mountain quail. It is a beautiful bird, about the size of the Bob White, and has a handsome crest of four or five feathers an inch long, recurved, standing nearly erect at times or drooping forward. The loud calls of these quails in the spring — Pe-check-ah, Pe- check-a, Hoy, Hoy — are heard far and near over all the lowlands. They have vastly increased in numbers since the settlement of the country, notwithstanding the immense numbers killed every season by boys and pot-hunters as well as the regular leggined sportsmen from the towns ; for man’s destructive action is more than coun- terbalanced by increased supply of food from cultivation, and by the destruction of their ene- mies — coyotes, skunks, foxes, hawks, owls, ete. — which not only kill the old birds, but plunder their nests. Where coyotes and skunks abound, scarce one pair in a hundred is successful in raising a brood. So well aware are these birds of the protection afforded by man, even now that the number of their wild enemies has been greatly diminished, that they prefer to nest near houses, notwithstanding they are so shy. Four or five pairs rear their young around our cottage every spring. One year a pair nested in a straw pile within four or five feet of the stable door, and did not leave the eggs when the men led the horses back and forth within a foot or two. For 224. OUR NATIONAL PARKS many seasons a pair nested in a tuft of pampas grass in the garden; another pair in an ivy vine on the cottage roof, and when the young were hatched, it was interesting to see the parents get- ting the fluffy dots down. ‘They were greatly excited, and their anxious calls and directions to their many babes attracted our attention. They had no great difficulty in persuading the young birds to pitch themselves from the main roof to the porch roof among the ivy, but to get them safely down from the latter to the ground, a distance of ten feet, was most distressing. It seemed impossible the frail soft things could avoid being killed. The anxious parents led them to a point above a spirzea bush, that reached nearly to the eaves, which they seemed to know would break the fall. Anyhow they led their chicks to this point, and with infinite coaxing and en- couragement got them to tumble themselves off. Down they rolled and sifted through the soft leaves and panicles to the pavement, and, strange to say, all got away unhurt except one that lay as if dead for a few minutes. When it re- vived, the joyful parents, with their brood fairly launched on the journey of life, proudly led them down the cottage hill, through the gar- den, and along an osage orange hedge into the cherry orchard. These charming birds even en- ter towns and villages, where the gardens are of good size and guns are forbidden, sometimes AMONG THE BIRDS OF THE YOSEMITE 225 going several miles to feed, and returning every evening to their roosts in ivy or brushy trees and shrubs. Geese occasionally visit the Park, but never stay long. Sometimes on their way across the range, a flock wanders into Hetch-Hetchy or Yosemite to rest or get something to eat, and if shot at, are often sorely bewildered in seek- ing a way out. I have seen them rise from the meadow or river, wheel round in a spiral until a height of four or five hundred feet was reached, then form ranks and try to fly over the wall. But Yosemite magnitudes seem to be as deceptive to geese as to men, for they would suddenly find themselves against the cliffs not a fourth of the way to the top. Then turning in confusion, and screaming at the strange heights, they would try the opposite side, and so on until exhausted they were compelled to rest, and only after discover- ing the river canon could they make their escape. Large, harrow-shaped flocks may often be seen crossing the range in the spring, at a height of at least fourteen thousand feet. Think of the strength of wing required to sustain so heavy a bird in air so thin. At this elevation it is but little over half as dense as at the sea level. Yet they hold bravely on in beautifully dressed ranks, and have breath enough to spare for loud honking. After the crest of the Sierra is passed it is only a smooth slide down the sky to 226 OUR NATIONAL PARKS the waters of Mono, where they may rest as long as they like. Ducks of five or six species, among which are the mallard and wood duck, go far up into the heart of the mountains in the spring, and of course come down in the fall with the families they have reared. A few, as uf loath to leave the mountains, pass the winter in the lower val- leys of the Park at a height of three thousand to four thousand feet, where the main streams are never wholly frozen over, and snow never falls to a great depth or lies long. In summer they are found up to a height of eleven thousand feet on all the lakes and branches of the rivers except the smallest, and those beside the glaciers incum- bered with drifting ice and snow. I found mal- lards and wood ducks at Lake Tenaya, June 1, before the ice-covering was half melted, and a flock of young ones in Bloody Canon Lake, June 20. They are usually met in pairs, never in large flocks. No place is too wild or rocky or solitary for these brave swimmers, no stream too rapid. In the roaring, resounding canon torrents, they seem as much at home as in the tranquil reaches and lakes of the broad glacial valleys. Aban- doning themselves to the wild play of the waters, they go drifting confidingly through blinding, thrashing spray, dancing on _ boulder-dashed waves, tossing in beautiful security on rougher water than is usually encountered by sea birds when storms are blowing. AMONG THE BIRDS OF THE YOSEMITE 227 A mother duck with her family of ten little ones, waltzing round and round in a pot-hole ornamented with foam bells, huge rocks leaning over them, cascades above and below and beside them, made one of the most interesting bird pictures [ ever saw. I have never found the great northern diver in the Park lakes. Most of them are inaccessible to him. He might plump down into them, but would hardly be able to get out of them, since, with his small wings and heavy body, a wide ex- panse of elbow room is required in rising. Now and then one may be seen in the lower Sierra lakes to the northward about Lassens Butte and Shasta, at a height of four thousand to five thou- sand feet, making the loneliest places lonelier with the wildest of wild cries. Plovers are found along the sandy shores of nearly all the mountain lakes, tripping daintily on the water’s edge, picking up insects; and it is interesting to learn how few of these familiar birds are required to make a solitude cheerful. Sandhill cranes are sometimes found in com- paratively small marshes, mere dots in the mighty forest. In such spots, at an elevation of from six thousand to eight thousand feet above the sea, they are occasionally met in pairs as early as the end of May, while the snow is still deep in the surrounding fir and sugar-pine woods. And on sunny days in autumn, large 228 OUR NATIONAL PARKS flocks may be seen sailing at a great height above the forests, shaking the crisp air into roll- ing waves with their hearty koor-r-r, koor-r-r, uck-uck, soaring in circles for hours together on their majestic wings, seeming to float without effort like clouds, eying the wrinkled landscape outspread like a map mottled with lakes and gla- ciers and meadows and streaked with shadowy canons and streams, and surveying every frog marsh and sandy flat within a hundred miles. Eagles and hawks are oftentimes seen above the ridges anddomes. The greatest height at which I have observed them was about twelve thousand feet, over the summits of Mount Hoffman, in the middle region of the Park. A few pairs had their nests on the cliffs of this mountain, and could be seen every day in summer, hunting marmots, mountain beavers, pikas, ete. A pair of golden eagles have made their home in Yo- semite ever since I went there thirty years ago. Their nest is on the Nevada Fall Cliff, opposite the Liberty Cap. Their screams are rather pleasant to hear in the vast gulfs between the granite cliffs, and they help the owls in keeping the echoes busy. But of all the birds of the high Sierra, the strangest, noisiest, and most notable is the Clarke crow (Wucifraga columbiana). He is a foot long and nearly two feet in extent of wing, ashy gray in general color, with black wings, white FROM GLACIER POINT NATIONAL PARK YOSEMITE AMONG THE BIRDS OF THE YOSEMITE 229 tail, and a strong, sharp bill, with which he digs into the pine cones for the seeds on which he mainly subsists. He is quick, boisterous, jerky, and irregular in his movements and _ speech, and makes a tremendously loud and showy ad- vertisement of himself, — swooping and diving in deep curves across gorges and valleys from ridge to ridge, alighting on dead spars, looking warily about him, and leaving his dry springy perches, trembling from the vigor of his kick as he launches himself for a new flight, screaming from time to time loud enough to be heard more than a mile in still weather. He dwells far back on the high stormbeaten margin of the forest, where the mountain pine, juniper, and hemlock grow wide apart on glacier pavements and domes and rough crumbling ridges, and the dwarf pine makes a low crinkled growth along the flanks of the Summit peaks. In so open a region, of course, he is well seen. Hverybody notices him, and nobody at first knows what to make of him. One guesses he must be a woodpecker; another a crow or some sort of jay, another a magpie. He seems to be a pretty thoroughly mixed and fer- mented compound of all these birds, has all their strength, cunning, shyness, thievishness, and wary, suspicious curiosity combined and con- densed. He flies like a woodpecker, hammers dead limbs for insects, digs big holes in pine cones to get at the seeds, cracks nuts held be- 230 OUR NATIONAL PARKS tween his toes, cries like a crow or Stellar jay, — but in a far louder, harsher, and more forbidding tone of voice, —and besides his crow caws and screams, has a great variety of small chatter talk, mostly uttered in a fault-finding tone. Like the magpie, he steals articles that can be of no use to him. Once when I made my camp in a grove at Cathedral Lake, I chanced to leave a cake of soap on the shore where I had been washing, and a few minutes afterward I saw my soap flying past me through the grove, pushed by a Clarke crow. In winter, when the snow is deep, the cones of the mountain pines are empty, and the juniper, hemlock, and dwarf pine orchard buried, he comes down to glean seeds in the yellow pine forests, startling the grouse with his loud screams. But even in winter, in calm weather, he stays in his high mountain home, defying the bitter frost. Once I lay snowbound through a three days’ storm at the timber-line on Mount Shasta; and while the roarmg snow-laden blast swept by, one of these brave-birds came to my camp, and began hammering at the cones on the topmost branches of half-buried pines, without showing the slight- est distress. I have seen Clarke crows feeding their young as early as June 19, at a height of more than ten thousand feet, when nearly the whole landscape was snow-covered. They are excessively shy, and keep away from AMONG THE BIRDS OF THE YOSEMITE 231 the traveler as long as they think they are ob- served; but when one goes on without seeming to notice them, or sits down and keeps still, their curiosity speedily gets the better of their cau- tion, and they come flying from tree to tree, nearer and nearer, and watch every motion. Few, T am afraid, will ever learn to like this bird, he is so suspicious and self-reliant, and his voice is so harsh that to most ears the scream of the eagle will seem melodious compared with it. Yet the mountaineer who has battled and suffered and struggled must admire his strength and endur- ance, — the way he faces the mountain weather, cleaves the icy blasts, cares for his young, and digs a living from the stern wilderness. Higher yet than Nucifraga dwells the little dun-headed sparrow (Leucosticte tephrocotis). From early spring to late autumn he is to be found only on the snowy, icy peaks at the head of the glacier cirques and canons. His feeding grounds in spring are the snow sheets between the peaks, and in midsummer and autumn the glaciers. Many bold insects go mountaineering almost as soon as they are born, ascending the highest summits on the mild breezes that blow in from the sea every day during steady weather ; but comparatively few of these adventurers find their way down or see a flower bed again. Get- ting tired and chilly, they alight on the snow fields and glaciers, attracted perhaps by the 232 OUR NATIONAL PARKS glare, take cold, and die. There they lie as if on a white cloth purposely outspread for them, and the dun sparrows find them a rich and varied repast requiring no pursuit, — bees and butter- flies on ice, and many spicy beetles, a perpetual feast, on tables big for guests so small, and in vast banqueting halls ventilated by cool breezes that ruffle the feathers of the fairy brownies. Happy fellows, no rivals come to dispute posses- sion with them. No other birds, not even hawks, as far as I have noticed, live so high. They see people so seldom, they flutter around the ex- plorer with the liveliest curiosity, and come down a little way, sometimes nearly a mile, to meet him and conduct him into their icy homes. When I was exploring the Merced group, climbing up the grand canon between the Merced and Red mountains into the fountam amphi- theatre of an ancient glacier, just as I was ap- proaching the small active glacier that leans back in the shadow of Merced Mountain, a flock of twenty or thirty of these little birds, the first I had seen, came down the cafion to meet me, fly- ing low, straight toward me as if they meant to fly in my face. Instead of attacking me or pass- ing by, they circled round my head, chirping and fluttermg for a minute or two, then turned and escorted me up the canon, alighting on the nearest rocks on either hand, and flying ahead a few yards at a time to keep even with me. AMONG THE BIRDS OF THE YOSEMITE 233 I have not discovered their winter quarters. Probably they are in the desert ranges to the eastward, for I never saw any of them in Yo- semite, the winter refuge of so many of the mountain birds. Humming-birds are among the best and most conspicuous of the mountaineers, flashing their ruby throats in countless wild gardens far up the higher slopes, where they would be least expected. All one has to do to enjoy the com- pany of these mountain-loving midgets is to dis- play a showy blanket or handkerchief. The arctic bluebird is another delightful moun- taineer, singing a wild, cheery song and “ carry- ing the sky on his back”? over all the gray ridges and domes of the subalpine region. A fine, hearty, good-natured lot of woodpeck- ers dwell in the Park, and keep it lively all the year round. Among the most notable of these are the magnificent log cock (Ceophleus pilea- tus), the prince of Sierra-woodpeckers, and only second in rank, as far as I know, of all the wood- peckers of the world; the Lewis woodpecker, large, black, glossy, that flaps and flies like a crow, does but little hammering, and feeds in great part on wild cherries and berries; and the carpenter, who stores up great quantities of acorns in the bark of trees for winter use. The last-named species is a beautiful bird, and far more common than the others. In the woods 234 OUR NATIONAL PARKS of the West he represents the Eastern red-head. Bright, cheerful, industrious, not in the least shy, the carpenters give delightful animation to the open Sierra forests at a height of from three thousand to fifty-five hundred feet, especially in autumn, when the acorns are ripe. Then no squirrel works harder at his pine-nut harvest than these woodpeckers at their acorn harvest, drilling holes in the thick, corky bark of the yellow pine and incense cedar, in which to store the crop for winter use, —a hole for each acorn, so nicely adjusted as to size that when the acorn, point foremost, is driven in, it fits so well that it cannot be drawn out without dig- ging around it. Each acorn is thus carefully stored in a dry bin, perfectly protected from the weather, — a most laborious method of stowing away a crop, a granary for each kernel. Yet the birds seem never to weary at the work, but go on so diligently that they seem determined to save every acorn in the grove. They are never seen eating acorns at the time they are storing them, and it is commonly believed that they never eat them or intend to eat them, but that the wise birds store them and protect them from the depredations of squirrels and jays, solely for the sake of the worms they are supposed to con- tain. And because these worms are too small for use at the time the acorns drop, they are shut up like lean calves and steers, each in a AMONG THE BIRDS OF THE YOSEMITE 235 separate stall with abundance of food, to grow big and fat by the time they will be most wanted, that is, in winter, when insects are scarce and stall-fed worms most valuable. So these wood- peckers are supposed to be a sort of cattle-raisers, each with a drove of thousands, rivaling the ants that raise grain and keep herds of plant lice for milk cows. Needless to say the story is not true, though some naturalists, even, believe it. When Emerson was in the Park, having heard the worm story and seen the great pines plugged full of acorns, he asked (just to pump me, I suppose), “ Why do the woodpeckers take the trouble to put acorns into the bark of the trees?” “For the same reason,” I replied, “that bees store honey and squirrels nuts.” “But they tell me, Mr. Muir, that woodpeckers don’t eat acorns.” “Yes, they do,” I said, “1 have seen them eating them. During snow- storms they seem to eat little besides acorns. I have repeatedly interrupted them at their meals, and seen the perfectly sound, half-eaten acorns. They eat them in the shell as some people eat egos.” “But what about the worms?” “TI suppose,” I said, “that when they come to a wormy one they eat both worm and acorn. Anyhow, they eat the sound ones when they can’t find anything they like better, and from the time they store them until they are used they guard them, and woe to the squirrel or jay 236 OUR NATIONAL PARKS caught stealing.” Indians, in times of scarcity, frequently resort to these stores and chop them out with hatchets; a bushel or more may be gathered from a single cedar or pine. The common robin, with all his familiar notes and gestures, is found nearly everywhere through- out the Park, — in shady dells beneath dogwoods and maples, along the flowery banks of the streams, tripping daintily about the margins of meadows in the fir and pine woods, and far be- yond on the shores of glacier lakes and the slopes of the peaks. How admirable the consti- tution and temper of this cheery, graceful bird, keeping glad health over so vast and varied a range. In all America he is at home, flying from plains to mountains, up and down, north and south, away and back, with the seasons and supply of food. Oftentimes in the High Sierra, as you wander through the solemn woods, awe- stricken and silent, you will hear the reassur- ing voice of this fellow wanderer ringing out sweet and clear as if saying, “ Fear not, fear not. Only love is here.” In the severest soli- tudes he seems as happy as in gardens and apple orchards. The robins enter the Park as soon as the snow melts, and go on up the mountains, gradually higher, with the opening flowers, until the top- most glacier meadows are reached in June and July. After the short summer is done, they AMONG THE BIRDS OF THE YOSEMITE 237 descend like most other summer visitors in con- cord with the weather, keeping out of the first heavy snows as much as possible, while lingering among the frost-nipped wild cherries on the slopes just below the glacier meadows. Thence they go to the lower slopes of the forest region, compelled to make haste at times by heavy all- day storms, picking up seeds or benumbed in- sects by the way; and at last all, save a few that winter in Yosemite valleys, arrive in the vine- yards and orchards and stubble-fields of the low- lands in November, picking up fallen fruit and grain, and awakening old-time memories among the white-headed pioneers, who cannot fail to recognize the influence of so homelike a bird. They are then in flocks of hundreds, and make their way into the gardens of towns as well as into the parks and fields and orchards about the bay of San Francisco, where many of the wan- derers are shot for sport and the morsel of meat on their breasts. Man then seems a beast of prey. Not even genuine piety can make the robin-killer quite respectable. Saturday is the great slaughter day in the bay region. Then the city pot-hunters, with a rag-tag of boys, go forth to kill, kept in countenance by a sprinkling of regular sportsmen arrayed in self-conscious majesty and leggins, leading dogs and carrying hammerless, breech-loading guns of famous makers. Over the fine landscapes the killing 238 OUR NATIONAL PARKS goes forward with shameful enthusiasm. After escaping countless dangers, thousands fall, big bagfuls are gathered, many are left wounded to die slowly, no Red Cross Society to help them. Next day, Sunday, the blood and leggins vanish from the most devout of the bird-butchers, who go to church, carrying gold-headed canes instead of guns. After hymns, prayers, and sermon they go home to feast, to put God’s song birds to use, put them in their dinners instead of in their hearts, eat them, and suck the pitiful little drumsticks. It is only race living on race, to be sure, but Christians singing Divine Love need not be driven to such straits while wheat and apples grow and the shops are full of dead cattle. Song birds for food! Compared with this, mak- ing kindlings of pianos and violins would be pious economy. The larks come in large flocks from the hills and mountains in the fall, and are slaughtered as ruthlessly as the robins. Fortunately, most of our song birds keep back in leafy hidings, and are comparatively inaccessible. The water ouzel, in his rocky home amid foaming waters, seldom sees a gun, and of all the singers I like him the best. He is a plainly dressed little bird, about the size of a robin, with short, crisp, but rather broad wings, and a tail of moderate length, slanted up, giving him, with his nodding, bobbing manners, a wrennish look. AMONG THE BIRDS OF THE YOSEMITE 239 He is usually seen fluttering about in the spray of falls and the rapid cascading portions of the main branches of the rivers. These are his fa- vorite haunts; but he is often seen also on com- paratively level reaches and occasionally on the shores of mountain lakes, especially at the be- ginning of winter, when heavy snowfalls have blurred the streams with sludge. Though not a water-bird in structure, he gets his living in the water, and is never seen away from the immedi- ate margin of streams. He dives fearlessly into rough, boiling eddies and rapids to feed at the bottom, flying under water seemingly as easily as in the air. Sometimes he wades in shallow places, thrusting his head under from time to time in a nodding, frisky way that is sure to attract attention. His flight is a solid whir of wing-beats like that of a partridge, and in going from place to place along his favorite string of rapids he follows the windings of the stream, and usually alights on some rock or snag on the bank or out in the current, or rarely on the dry limb of an overhanging tree, perching like a tree bird when it suits his convenience. He has the oddest, neatest manners imaginable, and all his gestures as he flits about in the wild, dashing waters bespeak the utmost cheerfulness and con- fidence. He sings both winter and summer, in all sorts of weather,—a sweet, fluty melody, rather low, and much less keen and accentuated 240 OUR NATIONAL PARKS than from the brisk vigor of his movements one would be led to expect. How romantic and beautiful is the life of this brave little singer on the wild mountain streams, building his round bossy nest of moss by the side of a rapid or fall, where it is sprinkled and kept fresh and green by the spray! No wonder he sings well, since all the air about him is music ; every breath he draws is part of a song, and he gets his first music lessons before he is born; for the eggs vibrate in time with the tones of the waterfalls. Bird and stream are inseparable, songful and wild, gentle and strong, — the bird ever in danger in the midst of the stream’s mad whirlpools, yet seemingly immortal. And so I might go on, writing words, words, words; but to what purpose? Go see him and love him, and through him as through a window look into Nature’s warm heart. CHAPTER VIII THE FOUNTAINS AND STREAMS OF THE YOSEM- ITE NATIONAL PARK “ Come let ’s to the fields, the meads, and the mountains, The forests invite us, the streams and the fountains.” Carlyle, Translations, vol. iii. Tue joyful, songful streams of the Sierra are among the most famous and interesting in the world, and draw the admiring traveler on and on through their wonderful cations, year after year, unwearied. After long wanderings with them, tracing them to their fountains, learning their history and the forms they take in their wild works and ways throughout the different seasons of the year, we may then view them together in one magnificent show, outspread over all the range like embroidery, their silvery branches interlacing on a thousand mountains, singing their way home to the sea: the small rills, with hard roads to travel, dropping from ledge to ledge, pool to pool, like chains of sweet-toned bells, slipping gently over beds of pebbles and sand, resting in lakes, shining, spangling, shimmering, lapping the shores with whispering ripples, and shaking over- 242 OUR NATIONAL PARKS leaning bushes and grass; the larger streams and rivers in the canons displaying noble purity and beauty with ungovernable energy, rushing down smooth inclines in wide foamy sheets fold over fold, springing up here and there in mag- nificent whirls, scattering crisp clashing spray for the sunbeams to iris, bursting with hoarse rever- berating roar through rugged gorges and boulder dams, booming in falls, glidmg, glancing with cool soothing murmuring, through long forested reaches richly embowered, — filling the grand canons with glorious song, and giving life to all the landscape. The present rivers of the Sierra are still young, and have made but little mark as yet on the grand cafions prepared for them by the ancient glaciers. Only a very short geological time ago they all lay buried beneath the glaciers they drained, singing in low smothered or silvery ringing tones in crystal channels, while the sum- mer weather melted the ice and snow of the sur- face or gave showers. At first only in warm weather was any part of these buried rivers dis- played in the light of day; for as soon as frost prevailed the surface rills vanished, though the streams beneath the ice and in the body of it flowed on all the year. When, toward the close of the glacial period, the ice mantle began to shrink and recede from the lowlands, the lower portions of the rivers were FOUNTAINS AND STREAMS 243 developed, issuing from cavelike openings on the melting margin and growing longer as the ice withdrew ; while for many a century the tributa- ries and upper portions of the trunks remained covered. In the fullness of time these also were set free in the sunshine, to take their places in the newborn landscapes ; each tributary with its smaller branches being gradually developed like the main trunks, as the climatic changes went on. At first all of them were muddy with glacial detritus, and they became clear only after the glaciers they drained had receded beyond lake basins in which the sediments were dropped. This early history is clearly explained by the present rivers of southeastern Alaska. Of those draining glaciers that discharge into arms of the sea, only the rills on the surface of the ice, and upboiling, eddying, turbid currents in the tide water in front of the terminal ice wall, are visible. Where glaciers, in the first stage of decadence, have receded from the shore, short sections of the trunks of the rivers that are to take their places may be seen rushing out from caverns and tunnels in the melting front, — rough, roar- ing, detritus-laden torrents, foaming and tum- bling over outspread terminal moraines to the sea, perhaps without a single bush or flower to brighten their raw, shifting banks. Again, in some of the warmer canons and valleys from which the trunk glaciers have been melted, the 244 OUR NATIONAL PARKS main trunks of the rivers are well developed, and their banks planted with fine forests, while their upper branches, lying high on the snowy moun- tains, are still buried beneath shrinking residual glaciers ; illustrating every stage of development, from icy darkness to light, and from muddiness to crystal clearness. Now that the hard grinding sculpture work of the glacial period is done, the whole bright band of Sierra rivers run clear all the year, except when the snow is melting fast m the warm spring weather, and during extraordinary winter floods and the heavy thunderstorms of summer called cloud-bursts. Even then they arenot muddy above the foothill mining region,-unless the mo- raines have been loosened and the vegetation de- stroyed by sheep; for the rocks of the upper basins are clean, and the most able streams find but little to carry save the spoils of the forests, — trees, branches, flakes of bark, cones, leaves, pollen dust, ete.,— with scales of mica, sand grains, and boulders, which are rolled along the bottom of the steep parts of the main channels. Short sections of a few of the highest tributaries © heading in glaciers are of course turbid with finely ground rock mud, but this is dropped in the first lakes they enter. On the northern part of the range, mantled with porous fissured volcanic rocks, the fountain waters sink and flow below the surface for con- FOUNTAINS AND STREAMS 245 siderable distances, groping their way in the dark like the draining streams of glaciers, and at last bursting forth in big generous springs, filtered and cool and exquisitely clear. Some of the largest look like lakes, their waters welling straight up from the bottom of deep rock basins in quiet massive volume giving rise to young rivers. Others issue from horizontal clefts in sheer bluffs, with loud tumultuous roaring that may be heard half a mile or more. Magnificent examples of these great northern spring foun- tains, twenty or thirty feet deep and ten to nearly a hundred yards wide, abound on the main branches of the Feather, Pitt, McCloud, and Fall rivers. The springs of the Yosemite Park, and the high Sierra in general, though many times more numerous, are comparatively small, oozing from moraines and snowbanks in thin, flat irregular currents which remain on the surface or near it, the rocks of the south half of the range being mostly flawless impervious granite; and since granite is but slightly soluble, the streams are particularly pure. Nevertheless, though they are all clear, and in the upper and main central forest regions delightfully lively and cool, they vary somewhat in color and taste as well as tem- perature, on account of differences, however slight, in exposure, and in the rocks and vegeta- tion with which they come in contact. Some 246 OUR NATIONAL PARKS are more exposed than others to winds and sun- shine in their falls and thin plumelike cascades; the amount of dashing, mixing, and airing the waters of each receive varies considerably ; and there is always more or less variety in the kind and quantity of the vegetation they flow through, and in the time they lie in shady or sunny lakes and bogs. The water of one of the branches of the north fork of Owens River, near the southeastern boun- dary of the Park, at an elevation of ninety-five hundred feet above the sea, is the best I ever found. It is not only delightfully cool and bright, but brisk, sparkling, exhilarating, and so positively delicious to the taste that a party of friends I led to it twenty-five years ago still praise it, and refer to it as “that wonderful champagne water ;” though, comparatively, the finest wine is a coarse and vulgar drink. The party camped about a week in a pme grove on the edge of a little round sedgy meadow through which the stream ran bank full, and drank its icy water on frosty mornings, before breakfast, and at night about as eagerly as in the heat of the day; lying down and taking massy draughts direct from the brimming’ flood, lest the touch of a cup might disturb its celestial flavor. On one of my excursions I took pains to trace this stream to its head springs. It is mostly derived from snow that lies in heavy drifts and avalanche FOUNTAINS AND STREAMS 247 heaps on or near the axis of the range. It flows first in flat sheets over coarse sand or shingle derived from a granite ridge and the metamor- phic slates of Red Mountain. Then, gathering its many small branches, it runs through beds of moraine material, and a series of lakelets and meadows and frosty juicy bogs bordered with heathworts and linked together by short bould- ery reaches. Below these, growing strong with tribute drawn from many a snowy fountain on either side, the glad stream goes dashing and swirling through clumps of the white-barked pine, and tangled willow and alder thickets en- riched by the fragrant herbaceous vegetation usually found about them. And just above the level camp meadow it is chafed and churned and beaten white over and over again in crossing a talus of big earthquake boulders, giving it a very thorough airing. But to what the peculiar indefinable excellence of this water is due I don’t know; for other streams in adjacent canons are aired in about the same way, and draw traces of minerals and plant essences from similar sources. The best mineral water yet discovered in the Park flows from the Tuolumne soda springs, on the north side of the Big Meadow. Moun- taineers like it and ascribe every healing virtue to it, but in no way can any of these waters be compared with the Owens River champagne. It is a curious fact that the waters of some 248 OUR NATIONAL PARKS of the Sierra lakes and streams are invisible, or nearly so, under certain weather conditions. This is noticed by mountaineers, hunters, and prospectors, wide-awake, sharp-eyed observers, little likely to be fooled by fine whims. One of these mountain men, whom I had nursed while a broken leg was mending, always gratefully re- ported the wonders he found. Once, returning from a trip on the head waters of the Tuolumne, he came running eagerly, crying: “ Muir, I’ve found the queerest lake in the mountains! It’s high up where nothing grows; and when it isn’t shiny you can’t see it, and you walk right into it as if there was nothing there. The first you know of that lake you are in it, and get tripped up by the water, and hear the splash.” The waters of Illilouette Creek are nearly invisible in the autumn; so that, in following the channel, jumping from boulder to boulder after a shower, you will frequently drag your feet in the appar- ently surfaceless pools. Excepting a few low, warm slopes, fountain snow usually covers all the Yosemite Park from November or December to May, most of it until June or July, while on the coolest parts of the north slopes of the mountains, at a height of eleven to thirteen thousand feet, it is perpetual. It seldom les at a greater depth than two or three feet on the lower margin, ten feet over the middle forested region, or fifteen to twenty feet FOUNTAINS AND STREAMS 249 in the shadowy cafions and cirques among the peaks of the Summit, except where it is drifted, or piled in avalanche heaps at the foot of long converging slopes to form perennial fountains. The first crop of snow crystals that whitens the mountains and refreshes the streams usually falls in September or October, in the midst of charming Indian summer weather, often while the goldenrods and gentians are in their prime ; but these Indian summer snows, like some of the late ones that bury the June gardens, vanish in a day or two, and garden work goes on with ac- celerated speed. The grand winter storms that load the mountains with enduring fountain snow seldom set in before the end of November. The fertile clouds, descending, glide about and hover in brooding silence, as if thoughtfully examining the forests and streams with reference to the work before them; then small flakes or single crystals appear, glinting and swirling in zigzags and spirals; and soon the thronging feathery masses fill the sky and make darkness like night, hurrying wandering mountaineers to their winter quarters. The first fall is usually about two to four feet deep. Then, with intervals of bright weather, not very cold, storm succeeds storm, heaping snow on snow, until from thirty to fifty or sixty feet has fallen ; but on account of heavy settling and compacting, and the waste from evaporation and melting, the depth in the 250 OUR NATIONAL PARKS middle region, as stated above, rarely exceeds ten feet. Evaporation never wholly ceases, even in the coldest weather, and the sunshine between storms melts the surface more or less. Waste from melting also goes on at the bottom from summer heat stored in the rocks, as is shown by the rise of the streams after the first general storm, and their steady sustained flow all winter. In the deep sugar-pine and silver-fir woods, up to a height of eight thousand feet, most of the snow lies where it falls, in one smooth universal fountain, until set free in the streams. But in the © lighter forests of the two-leaved pine, and on the bleak slopes above the timber line, there is much wild drifting during storms accompanied by high winds, and for a day or two after they have fallen, when the temperature is low, and the snow dry and dusty. Then the trees, bending in the darkening blast, roar like feeding lions; the frozen lakes are buried ; so also are the streams, which now flow in dark tunnels, as if another glacial period had come. On high ridges, where the winds have a free sweep, magnificent over-_ curling cornices are formed, which, with the ava- lanche piles, last as fountains almost all summer ; and when an exceptionally high wind is blowing from the north, the snow, rolled, drifted, and ground to dust, is driven up the converging northern slopes of the peaks and sent flying for miles in the form of bright wavering banners, SGOOM ULINASOA FOUNTAINS AND STREAMS 251 displayed in wonderful clearness and beauty against the sky. The greatest storms, however, are usually fol- lowed by a deep, peculiar silence, especially pro- found and solemn in the forests; and the noble trees stand hushed and motionless, as if under a spell, until the morning sunbeams begin to sift through their laden spires. Then the snow, shifting and falling from the top branches, strikes the lower ones in succession, and dislodges bossy masses all the way down. Thus each tree is en- veloped in a hollow conical avalanche of fairy fineness, silvery white, irised on the outside ; while the relieved branches spring up and wave with startling effect in the general stillness, as if moving of their own volition. These beautiful tree avalanches, hundreds of which may be seen falling at once on fine mornings after storms, pile their snow in raised rings around correspond- ing hollows beneath the trees, making the forest mantle somewhat irregular, but without greatly influencing its duration and the flow of the streams. The large storm avalanches are most abundant on the Summit peaks of the range. They de- scend the broad, steep slopes, as well as narrow gorges and couloirs, with grand roaring and booming, and glide in graceful curves out on the glaciers they so bountifully feed. Down in the main cafions of the middle region 252 OUR NATIONAL PARKS broad masses are launched over the brows of cliffs three or four thousand feet high, which, worn to dust by friction in falling so far through the air, oftentimes hang for a minute or two in front of the tremendous precipices like gauzy half-transparent veils, gloriously beautiful when the sun is shining through them. Most of the canon avalanches, however, flow in regular chan- nels, like the cascades of tributary streams. When the snow first gives way on the upper slopes of their basins a dull muffled rush and rumble is heard, which, increasing with heavy deliberation, seems to draw rapidly nearer with appalling intensity of tone. Presently the wild flood comes in sight, bounding out over bosses and sheer places, leaping from bench to bench, spreading and narrowing and throwing off clouds of whirling diamond dust like a majestic foamy cataract. Compared with cascades and falls, avalanches are short-lived, and the sharp clashing sounds so common in dashing water are usually wanting; but in their deep thunder tones and pearly purple-tinged whiteness, and in dress, gait, gestures, and general behavior, they are much alike. Besides these common storm avalanches there are two other kinds, the annual and the century, which still further enrich the scenery, though their influence on fountains is comparatively small. Annual avalanches are composed of heavy com- FOUNTAINS AND STREAMS 253 pacted, snow which has been subjected to frequent alternations of frost and thaw. They are devel- oped on canon and mountain sides, the greater number of them, at elevations of from nine to ten thousand feet, where the slopes are so in- clined that the dry snows of winter accumulate and hold fast until the spring thaws sap their foundations and make them slippery. Then away in grand style go the ponderous icy masses, adorned with crystalline spray without any cloudy snow dust ; some of the largest descend- ing more than a mile with even, sustained energy and directness like thunderbolts. The grand cen- tury avalanches, that mow wide swaths through the upper forests, occur on shady mountain sides about ten to twelve thousand feet high, where, under ordinary conditions, the snow accumulated from winter to winter lies at rest for many years, allowing trees fifty to a hundred feet high to grow undisturbed on the slopes below them. On their way through the forests they usually make a clean sweep, stripping off the soil as well as the trees, clearing paths two or three hundred yards wide from the timber line to the glacier meadows, and piling the uprooted trees, head downward, in windrows along the sides like lateral moraines. Scars and broken branches on the standing trees bordering the gaps record the side depth of the” overwhelming flood ; and when we come to count the annual wood rings of the uprooted trees, we 254 OUR NATIONAL PARKS learn that some of these colossal avalanches occur only once in about a century, or even at still wider intervals. Few mountaineers go far enough, during the snowy months, to see many avalanches, and fewer still know the thrilling exhilaration of rid- ing on them. In all my wild mountaineering I have enjoyed only one avalanche ride; and the start was so sudden, and the end came so soon, I thought but little of the danger that goes with this sort of travel, though one thinks fast at such times. One calm, bright morning in Yosemite, after a hearty storm had given three or four feet of fresh snow to the mountains, being eager to see as many avalanches as possible, and gain wide views of the peaks and forests arrayed in their new robes, before the sunshine had time to change or rearrange them, I set out early to climb by a side canon to the top of a command- ing ridge a little over three thousand feet above the valley. On account of the looseness of the snow that blocked the canon I knew the climb would be trying, and estimated it might require three or four hours. But it proved far more difficult than I had foreseen. Most of the way I sank waist-deep, in some places almost out of sight ; and after spending the day to within half an hour of sundown in this loose, baffling snow work, I was still several hundred feet below the summit. ‘Then my hopes were reduced to get- FOUNTAINS AND STREAMS 255 ting up in time for the sunset, and a quick, sparkling home-going beneath the stars. But I was not to get top views of any sort that day ; for deep trampling near the canon head, where the snow was strained, started an avalanche, and I was swished back down to the foot of the canon as if by enchantment. The plodding, wallowing ascent of about a mile had taken all day, the undoing descent perhaps a minute. When the snow suddenly gave way, I instinc- tively threw myself on my back and spread my arms, to try to keep from sinking. Fortunately, though the grade of the cafon was steep, it was not interrupted by step levels or precipices big enough to cause outbounding or free plunging. On no part of the rush wasI buried. I was only moderately imbedded on the surface or a little below it, and covered with a hissing back-stream- ing veil of dusty snow particles; and as the whole mass beneath or about me joined in the flight I felt no friction, though tossed here and there, and lurched from side to side. And when the torrent swedged and came to rest, I found myself on the top of the crumpled pile, without a single bruise or scar. Hawthorne says that steam has spiritualized travel, notwithstanding the smoke, friction, smells, and clatter of boat and rail riding. This flight in a milky way of snow flowers was the most spiritual of all my travels ; and, after many years, the mere thought of it is still an exhilaration. 256 OUR NATIONAL PARKS In the spring, after all the avalanches are down and the snow is melting fast, it is glorious to hear the streams sing out on the mountains. Every fountain swelling, countless rills hurry together to the rivers at the call of the sun, — beginning to run and sing soon after sunrise, in- creasing until toward sundown, then gradually failing through the cold frosty hours of the night. Thus the volume of the upper rivers, even in flood time, is nearly doubled during the day, rising and falling as regularly as the tides of the sea. At the height of flood, in the warm- est June weather, they seem fairly to shout for joy, and clash their upleaping waters together like clapping of hands; racing down the canons with white manes flying in glorious exuberance of strength, compelling huge sleeping boulders to wake up and join in the dance and song to swell their chorus. Then the plants also are in flood; the hidden sap singing into leaf and flower, responding as faithfully to the call of the sun as the streams from the snow, gathering along the outspread roots like rills in their channels on the moun- tains, rushing’ up the stems of herb and tree, swirling in their myriad cells like streams in pot- holes, spreading along the branches and break- ing into foamy bloom, while fragrance, like a finer music, rises and flows with the winds. About the same may be said of the spring FOUNTAINS AND STREAMS 257 gladness of blood when the red streams surge and sing in accord with the swelling plants and rivers, inclining animals and everybody to travel in hurrahing crowds like floods, while exhilarat- ing melody in color and fragrance, form and motion, flows to the heart through all the quick- ening’ senses. In early summer the streams are in bright prime, running: crystal clear, deep and full, but not overflowing their banks, — about as deep through the night as the day, the variation so marked in spring being now too slight to be noticed. Nearly all the weather is cloudless sun- shine, and everything is at its brightest, — lake, river, garden, and forest, with all their warm, throbbing life. Most of the plants are in full leaf and flower; the blessed ousels have built their mossy huts, and are now singing their sweetest songs on spray-sprinkled ledges beside the waterfalls. In tranquil, mellow autumn, when the year’s work is about done, when the fruits are ripe, birds and seeds out of their nests, and all the landscape is glowing like a benevolent counte- nance at rest, then the streams are at their lowest ebb, — their wild rejoicing soothed to thought- ful calm.. All the smaller tributaries whose branches do not reach back to the perennial fountains of the Summit peaks shrink to whis- pering, tinkling currents. The snow of their 258 OUR NATIONAL PARKS basins gone, they are now fed only by small mo- raine springs, whose waters are mostly evapo- rated in passing over warm pavements, and in feeling their way from pool to pool through the midst of boulders and sand. Even the main streams are so low they may be easily forded, and their grand falls and cascades, now gentle and approachable, have waned to sheets and webs of embroidery, falling fold over fold in new and ever changing: beauty. Two of the most songful of the rivers, ie Tuolumne and Merced, water nearly all the Park, spreading their branches far and wide, like broad- headed oaks; and the highest branches of each draw their sources from one and the same foun- tain on Mount Lyell, at an elevation of about thirteen thousand feet above the sea. The crest of the mountain, against which the head of the glacier rests, is worn to a thin blade full of joints, through which a part of the glacial water flows southward, giving rise to the highest trickling affluents of the Merced; while the main drain- age, flowing northward, gives rise to those of the Tuolumne. After diverging for a distance of ten or twelve miles, these twin rivers flow in a general westerly direction, descending rapidly for the first thirty miles, and rushing in glorious apron cascades and falls from one Yosemite valley to another. Below the Yosemites they descend in gray rapids and swirling, swaying reaches, ALINASOA ‘AGVOSVO ANWNIOONL FOUNTAINS AND STREAMS 259 through the chaparral-clad canons of the foot- hills and across the golden California plain, to their confluence with the San Joaquin, where, after all their long wanderings, they are only about ten miles apart. The main canons are from fifty to seventy miles long, and from two to four thousand feet deep, carved in the solid flank of the range. Though rough in some places and hard to travel, they are the most delightful of roads, leading through the grandest scenery, full of life and motion, and offering most telling lessons in earth sculpture. The walls, far from being unbroken, featureless cliffs, seem lke ranges of separate mountains, so deep and varied is their sculp- ture; rising in lordly domes, towers, round- browed outstanding headlands, and clustering spires, with dark, shadowy side cations between. But, however wonderful in height and mass and fineness of finish, no anomalous curiosities are presented, no “freaks of nature.” All stand related in delicate rhythm, a grand glacial rock song. Among the most interesting and influential of the secondary features of canon scenery are the great avalanche taluses, that lean against the walls at intervals of a mile or two. In the mid- dle Yosemite region they are usually from three .to five hundred feet high, and are made up of huge, angular, well-preserved, unshifting boul- 260 OUR NATIONAL PARKS ders, overgrown with gray lichens, trees, shrubs, and delicate flowering plants. Some of the largest of the boulders are forty or fifty feet cube, weighing from five to ten thousand tons ; and where the cleavage joints of the granite are exceptionally wide apart a few blocks may be found nearly a hundred feet in diameter. These wonderful boulder piles are distributed through- out all the canons of the range, completely chok- ing them in some of the narrower portions, and no mountaineer will be likely to forget the sav- age roughness of the roads they make. LHven the swift, overbearing rivers, accustomed to sweep everything out of their way, are in some places bridled and held in check by them. Foaming, roaring, in glorious majesty of flood, rushing off long rumbling trains of ponderous blocks with- out apparent effort, they are not able to move the largest, which, withstanding all assaults for centuries, are left at rest in the channels like isl- ands, with gardens on their tops, fringed with foam below, with flowers above. On some points concerning the origin of these taluses I was long in doubt. Plainly enough they were derived from the cliffs above them, the size of each talus being approximately mea- sured by a scar on the wall, the rough angular surface of which contrasts with the rounded, glaciated, unfractured parts. I saw also that, instead of being slowly accumulated material, FOUNTAINS AND STREAMS 261 weathered off, boulder by boulder, in the ordi- nary way, almost every talus had been formed suddenly, in a single avalanche, and had not been increased in size during the last three or four centuries ; for trees three or four hundred years old were growing on them, some standing at the top close to the wall, without a bruise or broken branch, showing that scarcely a single boulder had fallen among them since they were planted. Furthermore, all the taluses throughout the range seemed, by the trees and lichens growing on them, to be of the same age. All the phenomena pointed straight to a grand ancient earthquake. But I left the question open for years, and went on from cafion to canon, observing again and again ; measuring the heights of taluses throughout the range on both flanks, and the variations in the angles of their surface slopes; studying the way their boulders were assorted and related and brought to rest, and the cleavage joints of the cliffs from whence they were derived, cautious about making up my mind. Only after I had seen one made did all doubt as to their formation vanish. In Yosemite Valley, one morning about two o'clock, I was aroused by an earthquake; and though I had never before enjoyed a storm of this sort, the strange, wild thrilling motion and rum- bling could not be mistaken, and I ran out of my cabin, near the Sentinel Rock, both glad and 262 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 1» frightened, shouting, “A noble earthquake feeling sure I was going to learn something. The shocks were so violent and varied, and suc- ceeded one another so closely, one had to balance in walking as if on the deck of a ship among the waves, and it seemed impossible the high cliffs should escape being shattered. In particular, I feared that the sheer-fronted Sentinel Rock, which rises to a height of three thousand feet, would be shaken down, and I took shelter back of a big pine, hoping I might be protected from outbounding boulders, should any come so far. I was now convinced that an earthquake had been the maker of the taluses, and positive proof soon came. It was a calm moonlight night, and no sound was heard for the first minute or two save a low muffled underground rumbling and a slight rustling of the agitated trees, as if, in wrestling with the mountains, Nature were holding her breath. Then, suddenly, out of the strange silence and strange motion there came a tremendous roar. The Hagle Rock, a short dis- tance up the valley, had given way, and I saw it falling in thousands of the great boulders I had been studying so long, pouring to the valley floor in a free curve luminous from friction, making a terribly sublime and_ beautiful spec- tacle, — an are of fire fifteen hundred feet span, as true in form and as steady as a rainbow, in the midst of the stupendous roaring rock storm. The FOUNTAINS AND STREAMS 263 sound was inconceivably deep and broad and ear- nest, as if the whole earth, like a living creature, had at last found a voice and were calling to her sister planets. It seemed to me that if all the thunder I ever heard were condensed into one roar it would not equal this rock roar at the birth of a mountain talus. Think, then, of the roar that arose to heaven when all the thousands of ancient canon taluses throughout the length and breadth of the range were simultaneously given birth. The main storm was soon over, and, eager to see the new-born talus, I ran up the valley in the moonlight and climbed it before the huge blocks, after their wild fiery flight, had come to complete rest. They were slowly settling into their places, chafing, gratimg against one another, groaning, and whispering; but no motion was visible ex- cept in a stream of small fragments pattering down the face of the cliff at the head of the talus.