FOUNTAINS AND STREAMS 259 



through the chaparral-clad canons of the foot- 

 hills and across the golden California plain, to 

 their confluence with the San Joaquin, where, 

 after all their long wanderings, they are only 

 about ten miles apart. 



The main canons are from fifty to seventy 

 miles long, and from two to four thousand feet 

 deep, carved in the solid flank of the range. 

 Though rough in some places and hard to travel, 

 they are the most delightful of roads, leading 

 through the grandest scenery, full of life and 

 motion, and offering most telling lessons in earth 

 sculpture. The walls, far from being unbroken, 

 featureless cliffs, seem like ranges of separate 

 mountains, so deep and varied is their sculp- 

 ture ; rising in lordly domes, towers, round- 

 browed outstanding headlands, and clustering 

 spires, with dark, shadowy side canons between. 

 But, however wonderful in height and mass and 

 fineness of finish, no anomalous curiosities are 

 presented, no " freaks of nature." All stand 

 related in delicate rhythm, a grand glacial rock 

 song. 



Among the most interesting and influential 

 of the secondary features of canon scenery are 

 the great avalanche taluses, that lean against the 

 walls at intervals of a mile or two. In the mid- 

 dle Yosemite region they are usually from three 

 to five hundred feet high, and are made up of 

 huge, angular, well-preserved, unshifting boul- 



