88 OUR NATIONAL PARKS 



leafy softness upon a bare porphyry pavement, 

 and behold the dome unveiled in all its grandeur. 

 Fancy a nicely proportioned monument, eight or 

 ten feet high, hewn from one stone, standing in 

 a pleasure ground ; magnify it to a height of 

 fifteen hundred feet, retaining its simplicity of 

 form and fineness, and cover its surface with 

 crystals ; then you may gain an idea of the sub- 

 limity and beauty of this ice-burnished dome, one 

 of many adorning this wonderful park. 



In making the ascent, one finds that the curve 

 of the base rapidly steepens, until one is in 

 danger of slipping ; but feldspar crystals, two or 

 three inches long, that have been weathered into 

 relief, afford slight footholds. The summit is 

 in part burnished, like the sides and base, the 

 striae and scratches indicating that the mighty 

 Tuolumne Glacier, two or three thousand feet 

 deep, overwhelmed it while it stood firm like a 

 boulder at the bottom of a river. The pres- 

 sure it withstood must have been enormous. 

 Had it been less solidly built, it would have been 

 ground and crushed into moraine fragments, like 

 the general mass of the mountain flank in which 

 at first it lay imbedded ; for it is only a hard re- 

 sidual knob or knot with a concentric structure 

 of superior strength, brought into relief by the 

 removal of the less resisting rock about it, — an 

 illustration in stone of the survival of the strong- 

 est and most favorably situated. 



