STEEP TRAILS 



white brush of foam. This is a little Yosemite 

 valley. It is about two thousand feet above the 

 level of the main Yosemite, and about twenty- 

 four hundred below Lake Tenaya. 



I found the lake frozen, and the ice was so 

 clear and unruffled that the surrounding motm- 

 tains and the groves that look down upon it 

 were reflected almost as perfectly as I ever 

 beheld them in the calm evening mirrors of 

 simamer. At a little distance, it was difficult 

 to beUeve the lake frozen at all; and when I 

 walked out on it, cautiously stamping at short 

 intervals to test the strength of the ice, I 

 seemed to walk mysteriously, without ade- 

 quate faith, on the surface of the water. The 

 ice was so transparent that I could see through 

 it the beautifully wave-rippled, sandy bottom, 

 and the scales of mica glinting back the down- 

 pouring light. When I knelt down with my 

 face close to the ice, through which the sun- 

 beams were pouring, I was delighted to dis- 

 cover myriads of Tyndall's six-rayed water 

 flowers, magnificently colored. 



A grand old mountain mansion is this Tenaya 

 region! In the glacier period it was a mer de 

 glace, far grander than the mer de glace of 

 Switzerland, which is only about half a mile 

 broad. The Tenaya mer de glace was not less 

 than two miles broad, late in the glacier epoch, 



26 



