THE SNOW 41 



lanche heaps leaning back against the mountains 

 look like small glaciers. The frontal cliffs are in 

 some instances quite picturesque, and with the berg- 

 dotted waters in front of them lighted with sun 

 shine are exceedingly beautiful. It often happens 

 that while one side of a lake basin is hopelessly 

 snow-buried and frozen, the other, enjoying sun 

 shine, is adorned with beautiful flower-gardens. 

 Some of the smaller lakes are extinguished in an in 

 stant by a heavy avalanche either of rocks or snow. 

 The rolling, sliding, ponderous mass entering on 

 one side sweeps across the bottom and up the op 

 posite side, displacing the water and even scraping 

 the basin clean, and shoving the accumulated rocks 

 and sediments up the farther bank and taking full 

 possession. The dislodged water is in part ab 

 sorbed, but most of it is sent around the front of 

 the avalanche and down the channel of the outlet, 

 roaring and hurrying as if frightened and glad to 

 escape. 



SNOW-BANNERS 



THE most magnificent storm phenomenon I ever 

 saw, surpassing in showy grandeur the most im 

 posing effects of clouds, floods, or avalanches, was 

 the peaks of the High Sierra, back of Yosemite. 

 Valley, decorated with snow-banners. Many of the 

 starry snow-flowers, out of which these banners are 

 made, fall before they are ripe, while most of those 

 that do attain perfect development as six-rayed 

 crystals glint and chafe against one another in their 

 fall through the frosty air, and are broken into 



