Letters to a Friend 



singing crystal blood all bright and pure as a 

 sky, yet handling mud and stone like a navvy, 

 building moraines like a plodding Irishman. 

 Here is a cascade two hundred feet wide, half 

 a mile long, glancing this way and that, filled 

 with bounce and dance and joyous hurrah, yet 

 earnest as tempest, and singing like angels 

 loose on a frolic from heaven ; and here are more 

 cascades and more, broad and flat like clouds 

 and fringed like flowing hair, with occasional 

 falls erect as pines, and lakes like glowing eyes; 

 and here are visions and dreams, and a splendid 

 set of ghosts, too many for ink and narrow 

 paper. 



I have not heard anything concerning Le 

 Conte's glacier lecture, but he seems to have 

 drawn all he knows of Sierra glaciers and new 

 theories concerning them so directly from here 

 that I cannot think that he will claim discovery, 

 etc. If he does, I will not be made poorer. 



Professor Kneeland, Secretary Boston Insti 

 tute of Technology, gathered some letters I 

 sent to Runkle and that "Tribune" letter, and 

 [ 134] 



