TIME AND CHANGE 



foot of the fall. At first I was surprised at the vol 

 ume of water that came hurrying out of the hidden 

 recess of dripping rocks and trees a swiftly flow 

 ing stream, thirty or forty feet wide, and four or 

 five feet deep. How could that comparatively nar 

 row curtain of white spray up there give birth to 

 such a full robust stream? But I saw that in making 

 the tremendous leap from the top of the precipice, 

 the stream was suddenly drawn out, as we stretch 

 a rubber band in our hands, and that the solid and 

 massive current below was like the rubber again re 

 laxed. The strain was over, and the united waters 

 deepened and slowed up over their rocky bed. 



Yosemite for a home or a camp, the Grand Canon 

 for a spectacle. I have spoken of the robin I saw 

 in Yosemite Valley. Think how forlorn and out of 

 place a robin would seem in the Grand Canon! 

 What would he do there? There is no turf for him 

 to inspect, and there are no trees for him to perch 

 on. I should as soon expect to find him amid the 

 pyramids of Egypt, or amid the ruins of Karnak. 

 The bluebird was in the Yosemite also, and the 

 water-ouzel haunted the lucid waters. 



I noticed a peculiarity of the oak in Yosemite that 

 I never saw elsewhere 1 a fluid or outflowing condi 

 tion of the growth aboveground, such as one usually 

 sees in the roots of trees so that it tended to en- 



1 I have since observed the same trait in the oaks in Georgia 

 probably a characteristic of this tree in southern latitudes. 

 78 



