216 Adventures in Scenery 



the dome-shaped granite slope as much as 1,000 feet. That the 

 ice rode over the hard sparsely jointed rock with only slight 

 plucking and quarrying is shown by the smoothly curving 

 shield-like hump of Turtleback Dome. The direction of 

 movement of the ice over the hard granite rock is clearly shown 

 by striae and other glacial markings on the rock slope. 



Most strangely modeled is the valley head of Yosemite 

 Gorge. It is squared off at right angles to the sides by a high 

 straight wall of rock a mile in length. At the north end of 

 this wall is the broad U-shaped mouth of Tenaya Canyon. At 

 the south end opens the narrow tortuous gorge through which 

 the Merced River descends from the Little Yosemite. The 

 head of the valley is thus marked, but for the two openings 

 mentioned, by continuous massive cliffs. The cliffs rise almost 

 sheer from the valley floor. 



The most remarkable rock forms cluster about the head of 

 the Yosemite Valley. Most impressive of all for height and 

 verticality is the famous cliff at Glacier Point. It is a straight 

 wall a quarter of a mile long and 1,000 feet high. It is really 

 vertical. It is this absolute verticality of the rock face that 

 permits the "fire fall" which customarily is produced every 

 night during the tourist season by pushing the glowing embers 

 of a bonfire from the edge of the platform above, to descend 

 through space untrammeled, deploying gradually like a water- 

 fall of the Yosemite type. At the extreme top of the preci- 

 pice, which is 3,200 feet above the valley floor, there projects 

 a large rough slab, the famous "overhanging rock of Glacier 

 Point." 



Standing on Glacier Point the view is one to be remembered. 

 The panorama is probably unique in all the world. Directly 

 opposite are the Royal Arches, a series of natural arches carved 

 in the hard granite. Near by is the Washington Column, a 

 colossal pillar standing upright to a height of 1,700 feet. Sur- 

 mounting these is North Dome, a smoothly rounded helmet- 

 shaped mass of bare granite that rises to a height of 3,530 feet 



