86 LAKES OF NORTH AMERICA. 



forming conical piles with gracefully sweeping outlines. Several of these 

 now silent volcanoes rival Vesuvius in heiglit and beauty, but from our 

 elevated stations we can look down upon the depressions in their summits, 

 and the entire range, although two niiles in length, with peaks rising 

 three thousand feet alcove the lake that bathes its feet, is but a minor 

 feature in the extended landscape. 



Northwest and southeast from the summit of Mt. Dana the crest line 

 of the Sierras is marked by mountain after mountain as far as the eye can 

 reach. Turning south v,'e have in view a fine examjjle, though not the 

 very finest, of the wild and rugged High Sierras. At the western base of 

 the ^Nlount Dana there is a deep, picturesque valley, dotted with lakes 

 and traced by gleaming streams. Like nearly all of the more pronounced 

 depressions in the High Sierras, tins valley owes its origin principally to 

 stream erosion, and is a relic of an ancient drainage system, but lias 

 been enlarged and its minor features modified l)y ice abrasion. At one 

 time it was occupied 1)y a glacier, Avhich formed a part of a great system of 

 ice fields that covered all of the High Sierras and sent many ice streams 

 both to the east and west, through precipitous gorges to the valleys 

 below. 



The rocks forming the nearer slopes as one looks toward the more 

 rugged portion of the range are of varied character and rich in color ; Ijut 

 farther within the heart of the mountains the monotonous gray coloring 

 of granite is but partiality concealed by the scanty forests in the caiions 

 and valleys, or by the mosses and lichens on the higher summits. Near 

 at hand, but across a • deep intervening A'alley, rises Mt. Conness, bare, 

 rugged, and grand. Twelve miles to the south, across a fragment of 

 deeply eroded table-land, named the Kuna crest, are the spire-like peaks 

 of ]Mts. Lyell and Kitter. Tliroughout the year their summits are white 

 with snow, and small glaciers can be distinguished in tlie folds of their 

 rugged sides. Returning from this vision of wild magnificence, the eye 

 rests upon a scene humbler in its charms but not less pleasing. Between 

 the naked crags forming the summit from which we have gained our com- 

 manding view, and the highest limit of the pines, all twisted and deformed 

 from unequal struggles with wind and drifting snow, there is a belt of 

 rugged precipices and Aveather-beaten rocks that at certain seasons are 

 Ijright with lichens and fringed with the purple and gold of alpine blos- 

 soms. These charming decorations on the mountain's brow flourish Avith 

 rank luxuriance in ever}" ci-ann}^ and cleft, and not infrequently are in 

 such rich profusion that an entire summit-peak is tinted by them as 



