78 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



and Merced rivers, two of the most songful 

 streams in the world; innumerable lakes and 

 waterfalls and smooth silky lawns ; the noblest 

 forests, the loftiest granite domes, the deepest 

 ice-sculptured canons, the brightest crystalline 

 pavements, and snowy mountains soaring into 

 the sky twelve and thirteen thousand feet, ar- 

 rayed in open ranks and spiry pinnacled groups 

 partially separated by tremendous canons and 

 amphitheatres; gardens on their sunny brows, 

 avalanches thundering down their long white 

 slopes, cataracts roaring gray and foaming in 

 the crooked rugged gorges, and glaciers in their 

 shadowy recesses working in silence, slowly com- 

 pleting their sculpture ; new-born lakes at their 

 feet, blue and green, free or encumbered with 

 drifting icebergs like miniature Arctic Oceans, 

 shining, sparkling, calm as stars. 



Nowhere will you see the majestic operations 

 of nature more clearly revealed beside the frail- 

 est, most gentle and peaceful things. Nearly 

 all the park is a profound solitude. Yet it is 

 full of charming company, full of God's thoughts, 

 a place of peace and safety amid the most exalted 

 grandeur and eager enthusiastic action, a new 

 song, a place of beginnings abounding in first 

 lessons on life, mountain-building, eternal, invin- 

 cible, unbreakable order ; with sermons in stones, 

 storms, trees, flowers, and animals brimful of 

 humanity. During the last glacial period, just 



