Studies in the Sierra 



63 



mostly bare, or covered with unstratified glacial and avalanche 

 bowlders. Groves and meadows wanting. 



2. Branching at head, with beveled and heavily abraded lips at 

 foot. Bottom level, meadowed, laked, or groved. Walls usually 

 very high, often interrupted by side canons. Sections as in No. 

 I. To this species belongs the far-famed Yosemite"^ whose origin 

 we will now discuss. 



Yosemite Valley is on the main Merced, in the middle region 

 of the range. It is about seven miles long from east to west, with 

 an average width at bottom of a little more than half a mile, and 

 at the top of a mile and a half. The elevation of the bottom above 

 sea level is about 4,000 feet. The average height of the walls is 

 about 3,000 feet, made up of a series of sublime rock forms, 

 varying greatly in size and structure, partially separated from 

 one another by small side canons. These immense wall-rocks, 

 ranged picturesquely together, do not stand in line. Some ad- 

 vance their sublime fronts far out into the open valley, others 

 recede. A few are nearly vertical, but f^r the greater number 

 are inclined at angles ranging from twenty to seventy degrees. 

 The meadows and sandy flats outspread between support a lux- 

 uriant growth of sedges and ferns, interrupted with thickets of 

 azalea, willow and brier-rose. The warmer sloping ground along 

 the base of the walls is planted with noble pines and oaks, while 

 countless alpine flowers fringe the deep and dark side canons, 

 through which glad streams descend in falls and cascades, on 

 their way from the high fountains to join the river. The life- 

 giving Merced flows down the valley with a slow, stately cur- 

 rent, curving hither and thither through garden and grove, 

 bright and pure as the snow of its fountains. Such is Yosemite, 

 the noblest of Sierra temples, everywhere expressing the work- 

 ing of Divine harmonious law, yet so little understood that it has 

 been regarded as "an exceptional creation," or rather exception- 

 al destruction accomplished by violent and mysterious forces. 

 The argument advanced to support this view is substantially as 

 follows : It is too wide for a water-eroded valley, too irregular 

 for a fissure valley, and too angular and local for a primary 

 valley originating in a fold of the mountain surface during 



* We will henceforth make use of the word Yosemite both as a specific and geo- 

 graphical term. 



