In the Sierra 



In an hour or two we came to Yosemite 

 Creek, the stream that makes the greatest 

 of all the Yosemite falls. It is about forty 

 feet wide at the Mono Trail crossing, and 

 now about four feet in average depth, flow- 

 ing about three miles an hour. The distance 

 to the verge of the Yosemite wall, where it 

 makes its tremendous plunge, is only about 

 two miles from here. Calm, beautiful, and 

 nearly silent, it glides with stately gestures, 

 a dense growth of the slender two-leaved 

 pine along its banks, and a fringe of willow, 

 purple spirea, sedges, daisies, lilies, and col- 

 umbines. Some of the sedges and willow 

 boughs dip into the current, and just out- 

 side of the close ranks of trees there is a 

 sunny flat of washed gravelly sand which 

 seems to have been deposited by some an- 

 cient flood. It is covered with millions 

 of erethrea, eriogonum, and oxytheca, with 

 more flowers than leaves, forming an even 

 growth, slightly dimpled and ruffled here 

 and there by rosettes of Spraguea umbellata. 

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