70 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA 



glaciers, seemingly wedged and immovable, are 

 flowing like water and grinding the rocks beneath 

 them. The lakes are lapping their granite shores 

 and wearing them away, and every one of these 

 rills and young rivers is fretting the air into music, 

 and carrying the mountains to the plains. Here 

 are the roots of all the life of the valleys, and here 

 more simply than elsewhere is the eternal flux of 

 nature manifested. Ice changing to water, lakes to 

 meadows, and mountains to plains. And while we 

 thus contemplate Nature's methods of landscape 

 creation, and, reading the records she has carved on 

 the rocks, reconstruct, however imperfectly, the 

 landscapes of the past, we also learn that as these 

 we now behold have succeeded those of the pre- 

 glacial age, so they in turn are withering and van 

 ishing to be succeeded by others yet unborn. 



But in the midst of these fine lessons and land 

 scapes, I had to remember that the sun was wheel 

 ing far to the west, while a new way down the 

 mountain had to be discovered to some point on the 

 timber line where I could have a fire ; for I had not 

 even burdened myself with a coat. I first scanned 

 the western spurs, hoping some way might appear 

 through which I might reach the northern glacier, 

 and cross its snout; or pass around the lake into 

 which it flows, and thus strike my morning track. 

 This route was soon sufficiently unfolded to show 

 that, if practicable at all, it would require so much 

 time that reaching camp that night would be out 

 of the question. I therefore scrambled back east 

 ward, descending the southern slopes obliquely at 

 the same time. Here the crags seemed less f ormid- 



