A Thousand-Mile Walk 



lava to the sea. What horizons of flame! What 

 atmospheres of ashes and smoke ! 



The conglomerates and lavas of this region 

 are readily denuded by water. In the time 

 when their parent sea was removed to form 

 this golden plain, their regular surface, in great 

 part covered with shallow lakes, showed little 

 variation from motionless level until torrents 

 of rain and floods from the mountains gradu 

 ally sculptured the simple page to the present 

 diversity of bank and brae, creating, in the sec 

 tion between the Merced and the Tuolumne, 

 Twenty Hill Hollow, Lily Hollow, and the 

 lovely valleys of Cascade and Castle Creeks, 

 with many others nameless and unknown, seen 

 only by hunters and shepherds, sunk in the 

 wide bosom of the plain, like undiscovered gold. 

 Twenty Hill Hollow is a fine illustration of a 

 valley created by erosion of water. Here are 

 no Washington columns, no angular El Capi- 

 tans. The hollow canons, cut in soft lavas, are 

 not so deep as to require a single earthquake at 

 the hands of science, much less a baker s dozen 

 [ 196] 



