Letters to a Friend 



I hoped. Heaven send him light and the good 

 blessing of wildness. How the rains [?] splash 

 and roar! and how the pines wave and pray! 



1419 Taylor St., 



May 4th, 1875. 



Here I am, safe in the arms of Daddy Swett, 

 home again from icy Shasta and richer than 

 ever in dead-river gravel and in snowstorms 

 and snow. The upper end of the main Sacra 

 mento Valley is entirely covered with ancient 

 river drift, and I wandered over many square 

 miles of it. In every pebble I could hear the 

 sound of running water. The whole deposit is 

 a poem whose many books and chapters form 

 the geological Vedas of our glorious State. 



I discovered a new species of hail on the sum 

 mit of Shasta and experienced one of the most 

 beautiful and most violent snowstorms imagin 

 able. 



I would have been with you ere this to tell 

 you about it and to give you some lilies and pine 

 tassels that I brought for you and Mrs. Mo 

 [ 178 ] 



