Studies in the Sierra 



YOSEMITE CREEK GLACIER 



The broad, many-fountained glacier to which the basin of 

 Yosemite Creek belonged, was about fourteen miles in length 

 by four in width, and in many places was not less than a thou- 

 sand feet in depth. Its principal tributaries issued from lofty 

 amphitheatres laid well back among the northern spurs of the 

 Hoffmann range. These at first pursued a westerly course; 

 then, uniting with each other and absorbing a series of small 

 affluents from the Tuolumne divide, the trunk thus formed 

 swept round to the south in a magnificent curve, and poured its 

 ice into Yosemite in cascades two miles wide. This broad gla- 

 cier formed a kind of wrinkled ice-cloud. As it grew older, it 

 became more regular and riverlike ; encircling peaks overshad- 

 owed its upper fountains, rock islets rose at intervals among 

 its shallowing currents, and its bright sculptured banks, no- 

 where overflowed, extended in massive simplicity all the way 

 to its mouth. As the ice-winter drew near a close, the main 

 trunk, becoming torpid, at length wholly disappeared in the sun, 

 and a waiting multitude of plants and animals entered the new 

 valley to inhabit the mansions prepared for them. In the mean- 

 time the chief tributaries, creeping slowly back into the shelter 

 of their fountain shadows, continued to live and work indepen- 

 dently, spreading moraine soil for gardens, scooping basins for 

 lakelets, and leisurely completing the sculpture of their foun- 

 tains. These also have at last vanished, and the whole basin is 

 now full of light. Forests flourish luxuriantly over all its broad 

 moraines, lakes and meadows nestle among its domes, and a 

 thousand flowery gardens are outspread along its streams. 



HOFFMANN GLACIER 



The short, swift-flowing Hoffmann Glacier offered a striking 

 contrast to the Yosemite Creek, in the energy and directness of 

 its movements, and the general tone and tendencies of its life. 

 The erosive energy of the latter was diffused over a succession 

 of low boulderlike domes. Hoffmann Glacier, on the contrary, 

 moved straight to its mark, making a descent of 5000 feet in 

 about five miles, steadily deepening and contracting its current, 

 and finally thrusting itself against the upper portion of Yosem- 

 ite in the form of a wedge of solid ice, six miles in length by 



