THE GLACIEB LAKES ' * 121 



tion of about 9000 feet above sea-level they seem to 

 have arrived at middle age, that is, their basins 

 seem to be about half filled with alluvium. Broad 

 sheets of meadow-land are seen extending into them, 

 imperfect and boggy in many places and more 

 nearly level than those of the older lakes below 

 them, and the vegetation of their shores is of course 

 more alpine. Kalmia, ledum, and cassiope fringe 

 the meadow rocks, while the luxuriant, waving 

 groves, so characteristic of the lower lakes, are rep 

 resented only by clumps of the Dwarf Pine and 

 Hemlock Spruce. These, however, are oftentimes 

 very picturesquely grouped on rocky headlands 

 around the outer rim of the meadows, or with still 

 more striking effect crown some rocky islet. 



Moreover, from causes that we cannot stop here 

 to explain, the cliffs about these middle-aged lakes 

 are seldom of the massive Yosemite type, but are 

 more broken, and less sheer, and they usually stand 

 back, leaving the shores comparatively free ; while 

 the few precipitous rocks that do come forward and 

 plunge directly into deep water are seldom more 

 than three or four hundred feet high. 



I have never yet met ducks in any of the lakes 

 of this kind, but the ouzel is never wanting where 

 the feeding-streams are perennial. "Wild sheep and 

 deer may occasionally be seen on the meadows, and 

 very rarely a bear. One might camp on the rugged 

 shores of these bright fountains for weeks, without 

 meeting any animal larger than the marmots that 

 burrow beneath glacier boulders along the edges of 

 the meadows. 



The highest and youngest of all the lakes lie 



