Studies in the Sierra 



225 



STUDIES IN THE SIERRA* 



I. Mountain Sculpture 



By John Muir 



In the beginning of the long glacial winter, the lofty Sierra 

 seems to have consisted of one vast undulated wave, in 

 which a thousand separate mountains, with their domes and 

 spires, their innumerable cafions and lake basins, lay con- 

 cealed. In the development of these, the Master Builder 

 chose for a tool, not the earthquake nor lightning to rend 

 and split asunder, not the stormy torrent nor eroding rain, 

 but the tender snow-flowers, noiselessly falling through un- 

 numbered seasons, the offspring of the sun and sea. If we 

 should attempt to restore the range to its pre-glacial un- 

 sculptured condition, its network of profound canons would 

 have to be filled up, together with all its lake and meadow 

 basins ; and every rock and peak, however lofty, would 

 have to be buried again beneath the fragments which the 

 glaciers have broken off and carried away. Careful study 

 of the phenomena presented warrants the belief that the un- 

 glaciated condition of the range was comparatively simple ; 

 yet the double summits about the head of Kern River and 

 Lake Tahoe, and the outlying spurs of Hoffmann and Mer- 

 ced, would appear to indicate the primary existence of con- 

 siderable depressions and elevations. Even these great 

 features, however, may be otherwise accounted for. 



All classes of glacial phenomena are displayed in the 

 Sierra on the grandest scale, furnishing unmistakable proof 

 of the universality of the ice-sheet beneath whose heavy 

 folds all her sublime landscapes were molded. Her ice- 

 winter is now nearly ended, and her flanks are clothed with 

 warm forests ; but in high latitudes, north and south, and in 

 many lofty mountains, it still prevails with variable severity. 

 Greenland and the lands near the south pole are undergoing 



* Reprinted from the Overland Monthly of May, 1874. This is the first of a 

 series of studies published by Mr. Muir more than forty years ago. It is a fine 

 example of the geological pioneer work done by John Muir in the Sierra Nevada. — 

 Editor. 



