THE GLACIEKS 31 



to wall, and fitted closely down into all the spiky ir 

 regularities of the summits. Then, after a long fire 

 side rest and a glance at my note-book, I cut a few 

 leafy branches for a bed, and fell into the clear, 

 death-like sleep of the tired mountaineer. 



Early next morning I set out to trace the grand 

 old glacier that had done so much for the beauty 

 of the Yosemite region back to its farthest foun 

 tains, enjoying the charm that every explorer feels 

 in Nature's untrodden wildernesses. The voices of 

 the mountains were still asleep. The wind scarce 

 stirred the pine-needles. The sun was up, but it 

 was yet too cold for the birds and the few burrow 

 ing animals that dwell here. Only the stream, cas 

 cading from pool to pool, seemed to be wholly awake. 

 Yet the spirit of the opening day called to action. 

 The sunbeams came streaming gloriously through 

 the jagged openings of the col, glancing on the 

 burnished pavements and lighting the silvery lakes, 

 while every sun-touched rock burned white on its 

 edges like melting iron in a furnace. Passing round 

 the north shore of my camp lake I followed the cen 

 tral stream past many cascades from lakelet to 

 lakelet. The scenery became more rigidly arctic, 

 the Dwarf Pines and Hemlocks disappeared, and the 

 stream was bordered with icicles. As the sun rose 

 higher rocks were loosened on shattered portions of 

 the cliffs, and came down in rattling avalanches, 

 echoing wildly from crag to crag. 



The main lateral moraines that extend from the 

 jaws of the amphitheater into the Illilouette Basin 

 are continued in straggling masses along the walls 

 of the amphitheater, while separate boulders, hun- 



