OUR NATIONAL PARKS. 27 



light is striking. In. certain slants of light, the Phantom Ship sud- 

 denly disappears — a phantom indeed. 



Another experience full of interest is a visit to Wizard Island. One 

 can climb its sides and descend into its little crater. 



Geologists find Crater Lake of special interest because of the way 

 nature made it. Many volcanoes have had their tops blown of!. 

 Mount Rainier was one of these. But no other in the United States 

 has fallen in, like Mount Mazama. 



The evidence of this process is quite conclusive. The lava found 

 on the slopes that remain was not blown there from an exploding 

 summit, but ran, hot and fluid, from a crater many thousands of feet 

 higher. The pitch of these outer slopes enables the scientist to tell 

 with reasonable probability how high the volcano originally was. 



VIII. 



THE YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK. 



Special Characteristics: Sensationally Beautiful Valley and Spectacular 



Waterfalls 



THE Yosemite National Park lies near the crest of the Sierra 

 Nevadas in western central California. Its 1,100 square miles 

 contain scenic features of beauty so unusual and variety so wide 

 that adequate description reads like romance. 



The famous Yosemite Valley is a small part of this extraordinary 

 holiday garden — a mere crack in its granite mountains seven miles 

 long by less than a mile wide. 



For the rest, the park includes, in John Muir's words, "the head- 

 waters of the Tuolumne 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 canyons, the brightest crystalline pavements, and 

 snowy mountains soaring into the sky twelve and thirteen thousand 

 feet, arrayed in open ranks and s t piry pinnacled groups partially sepa- 

 rated by tremendous canyons and amphitheaters; 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 completing 

 their sculptures; new-born lakes at their feet, blue and green, free or 

 encumbered with drifting icebergs like miniature Arctic Oceans, 

 shining, sparkling, calm as stars." 



This land of enchantments is a land of enchanted climate. Its 

 summers are warm, but not too warm; dry, but not too dry; its 

 nights cold and marvelously starry. 



