118 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOENIA 



and wander at will. In inany places the current is 

 less than a fourth of an inch deep, and flows with 

 so little friction it is scarcely visible. Sometimes 

 there is not a single foam-bell, or drifting pine- 

 needle, or irregularity of any sort to manifest its 

 motion. Yet when observed narrowly it is seen to 

 form a web of gliding lacework exquisitely woven, 

 giving beautiful reflections from its minute curv 

 ing ripples and eddies, and differing from the water- 

 laces of large cascades in being everywhere trans 

 parent. In spring, when the snow is melting, the 

 lake-bowl is brimming full, and sends forth quite a 

 large stream that slips glassily for 200 yards or so, 

 until it comes to an almost vertical precipice 800 

 feet high, down which it plunges in a fine cataract ; 

 then it gathers its scattered waters and goes 

 smoothly over folds of gently dipping granite to its 

 confluence with the main canon stream. During 

 the greater portion of the year, however, not a single 

 water sound will you hear either at head or foot 

 of the lake, not even the whispered lappings of 

 ripple-waves along the shore; for the winds are 

 fenced out. But the deep mountain silence is 

 sweetened now and then by birds that stop here to 

 rest and drink on their way across the canon. 



LAKE STAKE KING 



A BEAUTIFUL variety of the bench-top lakes occurs 

 just where the great lateral moraines of the main 

 glaciers have been shoved forward in outswelling 

 concentric rings by small residual tributary glaciers. 



