My First Summer 



diagonal cleavage joints of the metamorphic 

 slates, now contracted and out of sight, now 

 leaping from ledge to ledge in filmy sheets 

 through which the sunbeams sift. And on 

 the main Canon Creek, to which all these 

 are tributary, is a series of small falls, cas- 

 cades, and rapids extending all the way down 

 to the foot of the canon, interrupted only by 

 the lakes in which the tossed and beaten 

 waters rest. One of the finest of the cascades 

 is outspread on the face of a precipice, its 

 waters separated into ribbon-like strips, and 

 woven into a diamond-like pattern by trac- 

 ing the cleavage joints of the rock, while 

 tufts of bryanthus, grass, sedge, saxifrage 

 form beautiful fringes. Who could imagine 

 beauty so fine in so savage a place? Gardens 

 are blooming in all sorts of nooks and hol- 

 lows, at the head alpine eriogonums, eri- 

 gerons, saxifrages, gentians, cowania, bush 

 primula ; in the middle region larkspur, 

 columbine, orthocarpus, castilleia, harebell, 

 epilobium, violets, mints, yarrow ; near the 



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