SIERRA THUNDER-STORMS 273 



dome, over meadow, over forest, over garden and 

 grove ; lingering with cooling shadows, refreshing 

 every flower, and soothing rugged rock-brows with 

 a gentleness of touch and gesture wholly divine. 



The most beautiful and imposing of the summer 

 storms rise just above the upper edge of the Silver 

 Fir zone, and all are so beautiful that it is not easy 

 to choose any one for particular description. The 

 one that I remember best fell on the mountains 

 near Yosemite Valley, July 19, 1869, while I was 

 encamped in the Silver Fir woods. A range of 

 bossy cumuli took possession of the sky, huge 

 domes and peaks rising one beyond another with 

 deep canons between them, bending this way and 

 that in long curves and reaches, interrupted here 

 and there with white upboiling masses that looked 

 like the spray of waterfalls. Zigzag lances of light 

 ning followed each other in quick succession, and 

 the thunder was so gloriously loud and massive it 

 seemed as if surely an entire mountain was being 

 shattered at every stroke. Only the trees were 

 touched, however, so far as I could see, a few 

 firs 200 feet high, perhaps, and five to six feet in 

 diameter, were split into long rails and slivers 

 from top to bottom and scattered to all points of 

 the compass. Then came the rain in a hearty 

 flood, covering the ground and making it shine 

 with a continuous sheet of water that, like a trans 

 parent film or skin, fitted closely down over all the 

 rugged anatomy of the landscape. 



It is not long, geologically speaking, since the 

 first raindrop fell on the present landscapes of the 

 Sierra ; and in the few tens of thousands of years 



