122 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA 



nestled in glacier wombs. At first sight, they seem 

 pictures of pure bloodless desolation, miniature 

 arctic seas, bound in perpetual ice and snow, and 

 overshadowed by harsh, gloomy, crumbling preci 

 pices. Their waters are keen ultramarine blue in 

 the deepest parts, lively grass-green toward the shore 

 shallows and around the edges of the small bergs 

 usually floating about in them. A few hardy 

 sedges, frost-pinched every night, are occasionally 

 found making soft sods along the sun-touched por 

 tions of their shores, and when their northern banks 

 slope openly to the south, and are soil-covered, no 

 matter how coarsely, they are sure to be brightened 

 with flowers. One lake in particular now comes to 

 mind which illustrates the floweriness of the sun- 

 touched banks of these icy gems. Close up under 

 the shadow of the Sierra Matterhorn, on the 

 eastern slope of the range, lies one of the iciest of 

 these glacier lakes at an elevation of about 12,000 

 feet. A short, ragged-edged glacier crawls into it 

 from the south, and on the opposite side it is em 

 banked and dammed by a series of concentric ter 

 minal moraines, made by the glacier when it en 

 tirely filled the basin. Half a mile below lies a 

 second lake, at a height of 11,500 feet, about as cold 

 and as pure as a snow-crystal. The waters of the 

 first come gurgling down into it over and through 

 the moraine dam, while a second stream pours into 

 it direct from a glacier that lies to the southeast. 

 Sheer precipices of crystalline snow rise out of deep 

 water on the south, keeping perpetual winter on that 

 side, but there is a fine summery spot on the other, 

 notwithstanding the lake is only about 300 yards 



