Kneeland.] 42 [February 21, 
rock is disintegrated four inches deep, and no ice marks could we ex- 
pect to find except upon hard quartz, or under a protecting boulder. 
Though he has not yet found the glacial strie, the fact of its exist- 
ence is fully proved by the moraines, and meadows, and valley 
grooves, characteristic of glacial action here; its smooth and lake- 
like basin has fine forests of firs, (Picea amabilis and P. grandis) 
growing upon moraines leveled by overflowing waters. 
Next west of this, on the north side, he explored the Cascade basin, 
and in it he soon found a large patch of the old glacier bed, polished 
and striated, with the direction of the flow clearly indicated as 
South 40° West. At the head of the Cascade meadows he discovered 
a well defined terminal moraine, and the ends of both ridges which 
formed the banks of the ice are broken and precipitous, indi- 
cating great pressure. Following up one of the tributaries some 
miles, he found throughout the entire length many polished surfaces, 
moraines, and striz, giving as clear and unmistakable evidence of gla- 
cial action as can be found anywhere in the Alps. ? 
Still farther to the west is the Tamarack basin, which had its gla- 
cier opening into the cafion of the Merced below the Yosemite valley, 
and still others for more than twenty miles west of the valley proper, 
which he intends to explore hereafter. 
On the south side of the valley was also a glacier of immense 
extent and thickness, coming down from the Obelisk or Mt. Clark 
group, overtopping Mt. Starr King, the main stream flowing in a 
westerly and northerly direction—-entering the valley of the Mlilou-. 
ette or South cafion, one of its great sheets scoring and polishing the 
Sentinel Dome and Glacier Point. Farther to the west, on the south 
side, was -also the Pohono glacier, in the basin where now flows the 
stream of that name, pouring into the valley under the name of the 
‘¢ Bridal Veil” fall, nine hundred feet in height. 
While the Sentinel Rock and the Cathedral Rocks on the south 
side were fashioned by glaciers, so the Washington Column, North 
Dome, and the Three Brothers mark the action of the ice stream on 
the north side; the depressions between these peaks being so many 
glacier grooves or valleys, modifications, doubtless, of previously ex- 
isting cafions or gorges. 
Judging from what has already been discovered, it is altogether 
probable that future investigation will demonstrate the former exist- 
ence of an immense glacier in this portion of the Sierra Nevada, 
larger even than Mr. Muir supposes, extending quite to the foot hills 
