A NEAR VIEW OF THE HIGH SIERRA 55 



middle region and the yellow lowlands far in the 

 west. Beyond the range I saw the so-called Mono 

 Desert, lying dreamily silent in thick purple light 

 a desert of heavy sun-glare beheld from a desert 

 of ice-burnished granite. Here the waters divide, 

 shouting in glorious enthusiasm, and falling east 

 ward to vanish in the volcanic sands and dry sky 

 of the Great Basin, or westward to the Great Val 

 ley of California, and thence through the Bay of 

 San Francisco and the Golden Gate to the sea. 



Passing a little way down over the summit until 

 I had reached an elevation of about 10,000 feet, I 

 pushed on southward toward a group of savage 

 peaks that stand guard about Bitter on the north 

 and west, groping my way, and dealing instinctively 

 with every obstacle as it presented itself. Here a 

 huge gorge would be found cutting across my path, 

 along the dizzy edge of which I scrambled until 

 some less precipitous point was discovered where I 

 might safely venture to the bottom and then, se 

 lecting some feasible portion of the opposite wall, 

 reascend with the same slow caution. Massive, 

 flat-topped spurs alternate with the gorges, plunging 

 abruptly from the shoulders of the snowy peaks, 

 and planting their feet in the warm desert. These 

 were everywhere marked and adorned with charac 

 teristic sculptures of the ancient glaciers that swept 

 over this entire region like one vast ice- wind, and 

 the polished surfaces produced by the ponderous 

 flood are still so perfectly preserved that in many 

 places the sunlight reflected from them is about as 

 trying to the eyes as sheets of snow. 



God's glacial-mills grind slowly, but they have 



