WILD GARDENS OP THE YOSEMITE PARK 165 



are often upheaved about noon, their shady hol- 

 lows tinged with purple ineffably fine, their 

 snowy sun-beaten bosses glowing against the 

 sky, casting cooling shadows for an hour or two, 

 then dissolving in a quick washing rain. But 

 for days in succession there are no clouds at all, 

 or only faint wisps and pencilings scarcely 

 discernible. 



Toward the end of August the sunshine grows 

 hazy, announcing the coming of Indian summer, 

 the outlines of the landscapes are softened and 

 mellowed, and more and more plainly are the 

 mountains clothed with light, white tinged with 

 pale purple, richest in the morning and evening. 

 The warm, brooding days are full of life and 

 thoughts of life to come, ripening seeds with 

 next summer in them or a hundred summers. 

 The nights are unspeakably impressive and calm ; 

 frost crystals of wondrous beauty grow on the 

 grass, — each carefully planned and finished as if 

 intended to endure forever. The sod becomes 

 yellow and brown, but the late asters and gen- 

 tians, carefully closing their flowers at night, do 

 not seem to feel the frost ; no nipped, wilted 

 plants of any kind are to be seen ; even the 

 early snowstorms fail to blight them. At last 

 the precious seeds are ripe, all the work of the 

 season is done, and the sighing pines tell the 

 coming of winter and rest. 



Ascending the range you find that many of 



