Little Studies in the Yosemite Valley. 



5 



pened, so the theory is not so utterly absurd as at first 

 blush it may seem. On the road to Mirror Lake, for 

 instance, there is a great block of granite on the flat 

 side of which some enterprising individual once 

 painted him an advertisement in bold, glaring type. 

 The true history of the affair may be better known to 

 some of the readers of this journal than to the writer, 

 but he gathers from a casual look that the "ad" was 

 subsequently effaced by a zealous guardian. What- 

 ever material the latter employed to remove the paint, 

 removed the lichens too, running down in vertical, 

 blotchy stripes remarkably similar to those on the 

 Little Yosemite floor. Again, at the site of the "Old 

 Blacksmith Shop," near the foot of the Coulterville 

 Road, a space has been cleared on a huge rock by 

 means of some caustic, and the same streaky effect 

 has been produced. 



But the stripes in the Little Yosemite Valley clearly 

 were not the work of marring man. Besides, the same 

 sort of markings exist in many other places in the 

 Yosemite region, in seldom frequented spots too, as a 

 rule. It was on such a spot, in fact — on the north 

 slope of Liberty Cap — that the writer first found a 

 clue to their mode of origin. A small rock fragment, 

 derived from a disintegrating shell of the great rock 

 hump, had evidently slid here several feet from its 

 place of starting, and, extending from it, pointing up 

 the slope, was a little white path cleared of lichens. 

 Not far away were other fragments each likewise 

 leaving a flaming trail. The width of the stripe pro- 

 duced corresponded in each case to the dimensions of 

 the fragment. A tiny bit of granite, no larger than a 

 thimble, lay at the end of a delicate white ribbon, and 

 an uptorn tree stump had made a dozen markings, one 

 with each of its dragging root tips and a broad swath 

 with its heavy broken end. Surely, here was the key 

 to the enigma! Here were the stripes in process of 

 being made. 



