My First Summer 



while fine striae, seen clearly through a lens, 

 indicated the direction in which the ice had 

 flowed. On some of the sloping polished 

 pavements abrupt steps occur, showing that 

 occasionally large masses of the rock had 

 given way before the glacial pressure, as well 

 as small particles ; moraines, too, some scat- 

 tered, others regular like long curving em- 

 bankments and dams, occur here and there, 

 giving the general surface of the region a 

 young, new-made appearance. I watched the 

 gradual dwarfing of the pines as I ascended, 

 and the corresponding dwarfing of nearly all 

 the rest of the vegetation. On the slopes of 

 Mammoth Mountain, to the south of the 

 pass, I saw many gaps in the woods reaching 

 from the upper edge of the timber-line down 

 to the level meadows, where avalanches of 

 snow had descended, sweeping away every 

 tree in their paths as well as the soil they 

 were growing in, leaving the bed-rock bare. 

 The trees are nearly all uprooted, but a few 

 that had been extremely well anchored in 



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