208 
NOTES OF AN AMERICAN TOUR. 
NOTES OF AN AMERICAN TOUR. 
BY W. P. MARSHALL, M.I.C.E. 
(Continued, from page 182.) 
The great Yosemite Valley was next visited, going north 
by train to Madeira Station on the way to San Francisco, and 
then by ninety miles of coach drive, that took a day and a 
half, stopping for a night at an hotel that is established on 
the way, in the midst of the woods. This was a remarkable 
drive, starting 2,000 feet above the sea, and passing over 
a ridge 5,500 feet high into the Yosemite Valley, which 
is 4,000 feet above the sea, with many intervening ascents 
and descents. The road is mostly either up or down 
very steep hills, many of great length, crossing many streams 
with sudden sharp bends, and the road nearly axle deep in 
dust or in mud, according to the weather. The journey was 
by a six-horse coach with capital driver and first-rate horses, 
and was very enjoyable, with the numerous fine views over¬ 
looking great wooded valleys that ran down towards the 
coast; but the ride would have been very different in wet 
weather. The driver cannot reach the leaders of his team 
with the whip on account of the road lying so much through 
forests, and indeed the whip is but little used, and the horses 
are mainly driven by the voice and a private store of small 
pebbles kept at the back of the driver’s seat to touch up the 
leaders occasionally. 
A fascinating sight of the great Yosemite Valley is obtained, 
bursting suddenly into view on emerging from the forest at a 
turn of the road 1,000 feet in height above the valley, that 
commands a view of two-thirds of the length of the valley. 
This wonderful valley exceeds all expectation in the reality, 
formed on each side by extraordinary granite cliffs that are 
more than half a mile vertical height from the valley, and 
extending for a length of eight miles. From the floor of the 
valley you climb up a height as great as Ben Nevis, our highest 
mountain, to reach the top of the valley sides, and the floor 
of the valley itself is as high as the top of Ben Nevis above 
the sea. Most lovely views of the valley are obtained during 
the ascent, and the clearness and transparency of the air is 
quite misleading, making the distances appear so much less 
than they really are. 
This Yosemite Valley is situated on the western slope of 
of the Sierra Nevada range of mountains, and is one of the 
transverse clefts of these mountains, running from east to 
west towards the Pacific. The valley is eight miles long, and 
