Nature's Notes 



"Oh, Ranger, Ranger !" 



The ranger paused in his talk to a group of Sagebrushers gathered 

 at the upper end of Yosemite Valley. 

 "May I ask a question?" 



"Yes, ma'am," said the ranger, with a twinkle. "Ask me a hard one." 

 "Where is the other half of Half Dome?" 

 Everybody laughed but the ranger. 



"Well, it's a long story," began the Old-Timer. "Everybody sit down 



on the log and I'll tell it. Of course, what 

 I'm telling you happened a long time ago 

 and it is just theory, but so far as I can 

 learn it is as near the truth as anybody has 

 been able to come. Nature leaves her notes 

 to account for everything that has happened in the 

 wilderness, but sometimes it is hard to read them. 



"Do you see that other dome up there, the round 

 one, opposite Half Dome? It is known as North 

 Dome, the perfect dome. Half Dome once looked like 

 that, only much larger. The domes are peculiar to 

 this country. They are solid granite, pushed up 

 through the softer rock. They peel off in layers, be 

 cause of the action of the heat and cold. 

 "The other half of Half Dome was plucked away by the glaciers. 

 "It happened this way, if we read Nature's notes correctly. When 

 the glaciers came in contact with the rock of Yosemite, the rock con 

 tracted under the extreme cold. That cracked enormous pieces of rock 

 loose from the mountain and they were slowly pushed away by the 

 glaciers. That is what happened to half of Half Dome. It was plucked 

 from the mountain, cracked up, and pushed away by the ice. It is scat 

 tered in boulders down the Merced River Canyon." 



The ranger paused for the next "hard one." It was not long in 

 coming. 



"How high is Half Dome ?" asked a Sagebrusher. 

 "It towers about a mile above where we are sitting," he said. 

 "Do you mean to say that a glacier could carry away half of a moun 

 tain a mile high ?" 



"That is the theory, sir. As a matter of fact, there were probably 

 two glaciers that did the work. During the Ice Age, one pushed down 

 Tenaya Canyon and became wedged between Half Dome and North 



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