The Fountains and Streams of the Yosemite National Park
“Come let’s to the fields, the meads, and the mountains,
The forests invite us, the streams and the fountains.”
Carlyle, _Translations_, vol. iii.
The joyful, songful streams of the Sierra are among the most famous and
interesting in the world, and draw the admiring traveler on and on
through their wonderful cañons, year after year, unwearied. After long
wanderings with them, tracing them to their fountains, learning their
history and the forms they take in their wild works and ways throughout
the different seasons of the year, we may then view them together in
one magnificent show, outspread over all the range like embroidery,
their silvery branches interlacing on a thousand mountains, singing
their way home to the sea: the small rills, with hard roads to travel,
dropping from ledge to ledge, pool to pool, like chains of sweet-toned
bells, slipping gently over beds of pebbles and sand, resting in lakes,
shining, spangling, shimmering, lapping the shores with whispering
ripples, and shaking over-leaning bushes and grass; the larger streams
and rivers in the cañons displaying noble purity and beauty with
ungovernable energy, rushing down smooth inclines in wide foamy sheets
fold over fold, springing up here and there in magnificent whirls,
scattering crisp clashing spray for the sunbeams to iris, bursting with
hoarse reverberating roar through rugged gorges and boulder dams,
booming in falls, gliding, glancing with cool soothing murmuring,
through long forested reaches richly embowered,—filling the grand
cañons with glorious song, and giving life to all the landscape.
The present rivers of the Sierra are still young, and have made but
little mark as yet on the grand cañons prepared for them by the ancient
glaciers. Only a very short geological time ago they all lay buried
beneath the glaciers they drained, singing in low smothered or silvery
ringing tones in crystal channels, while the summer weather melted the
ice and snow of the surface or gave showers. At first only in warm
weather was any part of these buried rivers displayed in the light of
day; for as soon as frost prevailed the surface rills vanished, though
the streams beneath the ice and in the body of it flowed on all the
year.
When, toward the close of the glacial period, the ice mantle began to
shrink and recede from the lowlands, the lower portions of the rivers
were developed, issuing from cavelike openings on the melting margin
and growing longer as the ice withdrew; while for many a century the
tributaries and upper portions of the trunks remained covered. In the
fullness of time these also were set free in the sunshine, to take
their places in the newborn landscapes; each tributary with its smaller
branches being gradually developed like the main trunks, as the
climatic changes went on. At first all of them were muddy with glacial
detritus, and they became clear only after the glaciers they drained
had receded beyond lake basins in which the sediments were dropped.
This early history is clearly explained by the present rivers of
southeastern Alaska. Of those draining glaciers that discharge into
arms of the sea, only the rills on the surface of the ice, and
upboiling, eddying, turbid currents in the tide water in front of the
terminal ice wall, are visible. Where glaciers, in the first stage of
decadence, have receded from the shore, short sections of the trunks of
the rivers that are to take their places may be seen rushing out from
caverns and tunnels in the melting front,—rough, roaring,
detritus-laden torrents, foaming and tumbling over outspread terminal
moraines to the sea, perhaps without a single bush or flower to
brighten their raw, shifting banks. Again, in some of the warmer cañons
and valleys from which the trunk glaciers have been melted, the main
trunks of the rivers are well developed, and their banks planted with
fine forests, while their upper branches, lying high on the snowy
mountains, are still buried beneath shrinking residual glaciers;
illustrating every state of development, from icy darkness to light,
and from muddiness to crystal clearness.
Now that the hard grinding sculpture work of the glacial period is
done, the whole bright band of Sierra rivers run clear all the year,
except when the snow is melting fast in the warm spring weather, and
during extraordinary winter floods and the heavy thunderstorms of
summer called cloud-bursts. Even then they are not muddy above the
foothill mining region, unless the moraines have been loosened and the
vegetation destroyed by sheep; for the rocks of the upper basins are
clean, and the most able streams find but little to carry save the
spoils of the forests,—trees, branches, flakes of bark, cones, leaves,
pollen dust, etc.,—with scales of mica, sand grains, and boulders,
which are rolled along the bottom of the steep parts of the main
channels. Short sections of a few of the highest tributaries heading in
glaciers are of course turbid with finely ground rock mud, but this is
dropped in the first lakes they enter.
On the northern part of the range, mantled with porous fissured
volcanic rocks, the fountain waters sink and flow below the surface for
considerable distances, groping their way in the dark like the draining
streams of glaciers, and at last bursting forth in big generous
springs, filtered and cool and exquisitely clear. Some of the largest
look like lakes, their waters welling straight up from the bottom of
deep rock basins in quiet massive volume giving rise to young rivers.
Others issue from horizontal clefts in sheer bluffs, with loud
tumultuous roaring that may be heard half a mile or more. Magnificent
examples of these great northern spring fountains, twenty or thirty
feet deep and ten to nearly a hundred yards wide, abound on the main
branches of the Feather, Pitt, McCloud, and Fall rivers.
The springs of the Yosemite Park, and the high Sierra in general,
though many times more numerous, are comparatively small, oozing from
moraines and snowbanks in thin, flat irregular currents which remain on
the surface or near it, the rocks of the south half of the range being
mostly flawless impervious granite; and since granite is but slightly
soluble, the streams are particularly pure. Nevertheless, though they
are all clear, and in the upper and main central forest regions
delightfully lively and cool, they vary somewhat in color and taste as
well as temperature, on account of differences, however slight, in
exposure, and in the rocks and vegetation with which they come in
contact. Some are more exposed than others to winds and sunshine in
their falls and thin plumelike cascades; the amount of dashing, mixing,
and airing the waters of each receive varies considerably; and there is
always more or less variety in the kind and quantity of the vegetation
they flow through, and in the time they lie in shady or sunny lakes and
bogs.
[Illustration: “Fountain Snow” on the High Sierras (Mt. Lyell Group).]
The water of one of the branches of the north fork of Owens River, near
the southeastern boundary of the Park, at an elevation of ninety-five
hundred feet above the sea, is the best I ever found. It is not only
delightfully cool and bright, but brisk, sparkling, exhilarating, and
so positively delicious to the taste that a party of friends I led to
it twenty-five years ago still praise it, and refer to it as “that
wonderful champagne water;” though, comparatively, the finest wine is a
coarse and vulgar drink. The party camped about a week in a pine grove
on the edge of a little round sedgy meadow through which the stream ran
bank full, and drank its icy water on frosty mornings, before
breakfast, and at night about as eagerly as in the heat of the day;
lying down and taking massy draughts direct from the brimming flood,
lest the touch of a cup might disturb its celestial flavor. On one of
my excursions I took pains to trace this stream to its head springs. It
is mostly derived from snow that lies in heavy drifts and avalanche
heaps on or near the axis of the range. It flows first in flat sheets
over coarse sand or shingle derived from a granite ridge and the
metamorphic slates of Red Mountain. Then, gathering its many small
branches, it runs through beds of moraine material, and a series of
lakelets and meadows and frosty juicy bogs bordered with heathworts and
linked together by short bouldery reaches. Below these, growing strong
with tribute drawn from many a snowy fountain on either side, the glad
stream goes dashing and swirling through clumps of the white-barked
pine, and tangled willow and alder thickets enriched by the fragrant
herbaceous vegetation usually found about them. And just above the
level camp meadow it is chafed and churned and beaten white over and
over again in crossing a talus of big earthquake boulders, giving it a
very thorough airing. But to what the peculiar indefinable excellence
of this water is due I don’t know; for other streams in adjacent cañons
are aired in about the same way, and draw traces of minerals and plant
essences from similar sources. The best mineral water yet discovered in
the Park flows from the Tuolumne soda springs, on the north side of the
Big Meadow. Mountaineers like it and ascribe every healing virtue to
it, but in no way can any of these waters be compared with the Owens
River champagne.
It is a curious fact that the waters of some of the Sierra lakes and
streams are invisible, or nearly so, under certain weather conditions.
This is noticed by mountaineers, hunters, and prospectors, wide-awake,
sharp-eyed observers, little likely to be fooled by fine whims. One of
these mountain men, whom I had nursed while a broken leg was mending,
always gratefully reported the wonders he found. One, returning from a
trip on the head waters of the Tuolumne, he came running eagerly,
crying: “Muir, I’ve found the queerest lake in the mountains! It’s high
up where nothing grows; and when it isn’t shiny you can’t see it, and
you walk right into it as if there was nothing there. The first you
know of that lake you are in it, and get tripped up by the water, and
hear the splash.” The waters of Illilouette Creek are nearly invisible
in the autumn; so that, in following the channel, jumping from boulder
to boulder after a shower, you will frequently drag your feet in the
apparently surfaceless pools.
Excepting a few low, warm slopes, fountain snow usually covers all the
Yosemite Park from November or December to May, most of it until June
or July, while on the coolest parts of the north slopes of the
mountains, at a height of eleven to thirteen thousand feet, it is
perpetual. It seldom lies at a greater depth than two or three feet on
the lower margin, ten feet over the middle forested region, or fifteen
to twenty feet in the shadowy cañons and cirques among the peaks of the
Summit, except where it is drifted, or piled in avalanche heaps at the
foot of long converging slopes to form perennial fountains.
The first crop of snow crystals that whitens the mountains and
refreshes the streams usually falls in September or October, in the
midst of charming Indian summer weather, often while the goldenrods and
gentians are in their prime; but these Indian summer snows, like some
of the late ones that bury the June gardens, vanish in a day or two,
and garden work goes on with accelerated speed. The grand winter storms
that load the mountains with enduring fountain snow seldom set in
before the end of November. The fertile clouds, descending, glide about
and hover in brooding silence, as if thoughtfully examining the forests
and streams with reference to the work before them; then small flakes
or single crystals appear, glinting and swirling in zigzags and
spirals; and soon the thronging feathery masses fill the sky and make
darkness like night, hurrying wandering mountaineers to their winter
quarters. The first fall is usually about two to four feet deep. Then,
with intervals of bright weather, not very cold, storm succeeds storm,
heaping snow on snow, until from thirty to fifty or sixty feet has
fallen; but on account of heavy settling and compacting, and the waste
from evaporation and melting, the depth in the middle region, as stated
above, rarely exceeds ten feet. Evaporation never wholly ceases, even
in the coldest weather, and the sunshine between storms melts the
surface more or less. Waste from melting also goes on at the bottom
from summer heat stored in the rocks, as is shown by the rise of the
streams after the first general storm, and their steady sustained flow
all winter.
In the deep sugar-pine and silver-fir woods, up to a height of eight
thousand feet, most of the snow lies where it falls, in one smooth
universal fountain, until set free in the streams. But in the lighter
forests of the two-leaved pine, and on the bleak slopes above the
timber line, there is much wild drifting during storms accompanied by
high winds, and for a day or two after they have fallen, when the
temperature is low, and the snow dry and dusty. Then the trees, bending
in the darkening blast, roar like feeding lions; the frozen lakes are
buried; so also are the streams, which now flow in dark tunnels, as if
another glacial period had come. On high ridges, where the winds have a
free sweep, magnificent overcurling cornices are formed, which, with
the avalanche piles, last as fountains almost all summer; and when an
exceptionally high wind is blowing from the north, the snow, rolled,
drifted, and ground to dust, is driven up the converging northern
slopes of the peaks and sent flying for miles in the form of bright
wavering banners, displayed in wonderful clearness and beauty against
the sky.
The greatest storms, however, are usually followed by a deep, peculiar
silence, especially profound and solemn in the forests; and the noble
trees stand hushed and motionless, as if under a spell, until the
morning sunbeams begin to sift through their laden spires. Then the
snow, shifting and falling from the top branches, strikes the lower
ones in succession, and dislodges bossy masses all the way down. Thus
each tree is enveloped in a hollow conical avalanche of fairy fineness,
silvery white, irised on the outside; while the relieved branches
spring up and wave with startling effect in the general stillness, as
if moving of their own volition. These beautiful tree avalanches,
hundreds of which may be seen falling at once on fine mornings after
storms, pile their snow in raised rings around corresponding hollows
beneath the trees, making the forest mantle somewhat irregular, but
without greatly influencing its duration and the flow of the streams.
The large storm avalanches are most abundant on the Summit peaks of the
range. They descend the broad, steep slopes, as well as narrow gorges
and couloirs, with grand roaring and booming, and glide in graceful
curves out on the glaciers they so bountifully feed.
Down in the main cañons of the middle region broad masses are launched
over the brows of cliffs three or four thousand feet high, which, worn
to dust by friction in falling so far through the air, oftentimes hang
for a minute or two in front of the tremendous precipices like gauzy
half-transparent veils, gloriously beautiful when the sun is shining
through them. Most of the cañon avalanches, however, flow in regular
channels, like the cascades of tributary streams. When the snow first
gives way on the upper slopes of their basins a dull muffled rush and
rumble is heard, which, increasing with heavy deliberation, seems to
draw rapidly nearer with appalling intensity of tone. Presently the
wild floods comes in sight, bounding out over bosses and sheer places,
leaping from bench to bench, spreading and narrowing and throwing off
clouds of whirling diamond dust like a majestic foamy cataract.
Compared with cascades and falls, avalanches are short-lived, and the
sharp clashing sounds so common in dashing water are usually wanting;
but in their deep thunder tones and pearly purple-tinged whiteness, and
in dress, gait, gestures, and general behavior, they are much alike.
Besides these common storm avalanches there are two other kinds, the
annual and the century, which still further enrich the scenery, though
their influence on fountains is comparatively small. Annual avalanches
are composed of heavy compacted snow which has been subjected to
frequent alternations of frost and thaw. They are developed on cañon
and mountain sides, the greater number of them, at elevations of from
nine to ten thousand feet, where the slopes are so inclined that the
dry snows of winter accumulate and hold fast until the spring thaws sap
their foundations and make them slippery. Then away in grand style go
the ponderous icy masses, adorned with crystalline spray without any
cloudy snow dust; some of the largest descending more than a mile with
even, sustained energy and directness like thunderbolts. The grand
century avalanches, that mow wide swaths through the upper forests,
occur on shady mountain sides about ten to twelve thousand feet high,
where, under ordinary conditions, the snow accumulated from winter to
winter lies at rest for many years, allowing trees fifty to a hundred
feet high to grow undisturbed on the slopes below them. On their way
through the forests they usually make a clean sweep, stripping off the
soil as well as the trees, clearing paths two or three hundred yards
wide from the timber line to the glacier meadows, and piling the
uprooted trees, head downward, in windrows along the sides like lateral
moraines. Sears and broken branches on the standing trees bordering the
gaps record the side depth of the overwhelming flood; and when we come
to count the annual wood rings of the uprooted trees, we learn that
some of these colossal avalanches occur only once in about a century,
or even at still wider intervals.
Few mountaineers go far enough, during the snowy months, to see many
avalanches, and fewer still know the thrilling exhilaration of riding
on them. In all my wild mountaineering I have enjoyed only one
avalanche ride; and the start was so sudden, and the end came so soon,
I thought but little of the danger that goes with this sort of travel,
though one thinks fast at such times. One calm, bright morning in
Yosemite, after a hearty storm had given three or four feet of fresh
snow to the mountains, being eager to see as many avalanches as
possible, and gain wide views of the peaks and forests arrayed in their
new robes, before the sunshine had time to change or rearrange them, I
set out early to climb by a side cañon to the top of a commanding ridge
a little over three thousand feet above the valley. On account of the
looseness of the snow that blocked the cañon I knew the climb would be
trying, and estimated it might require three or four hours. But it
proved far more difficult than I had foreseen. Most of the way I sank
waist-deep, in some places almost out of sight; and after spending the
day to within half an hour of sundown in this loose, baffling snow
work, I was still several hundred feet below the summit. Then my hopes
were reduced to getting up in time for the sunset, and a quick,
sparkling home-going beneath the stars. But I was not to get top views
of any sort that day; for deep trampling near the cañon head; where the
snow was strained, started an avalanche, and I was swished back down to
the foot of the cañon as if by enchantment. The plodding, wallowing
ascent of about a mile had taken all day, the undoing descent perhaps a
minute.
When the snow suddenly gave way, I instinctively threw myself on my
back and spread my arms, to try to keep from sinking. Fortunately,
though the grade of the cañon was steep, it was not interrupted by step
levels or precipices big enough to cause outbounding or free plunging.
On no part of the rush was I buried. I was only moderately imbedded on
the surface or a little below it, and covered with a hissing
back-streaming veil of dusty snow particles; and as the whole mass
beneath or about me joined in the flight I felt no friction, though
tossed here and there, and lurched from side to side. And when the
torrent swedged and came to rest, I found myself on the top of the
crumpled pile, without a single bruise or scar. Hawthorne says that
steam has spiritualized travel, notwithstanding the smoke, friction,
smells, and clatter of boat and rail riding. This flight in a milky way
of snow flowers was the most spiritual of all my travels; and, after
many years, the mere thought of it is still an exhilaration.
In the spring, after all the avalanches are down and the snow is
melting fast, it is glorious to hear the streams sing out on the
mountains. Every fountain swelling, countless rills hurry together to
the rivers at the call of the sun,—beginning to run and sing soon after
sunrise, increasing until toward sundown, then gradually failing
through the cold frosty hours of the night. Thus the volume of the
upper rivers, even in flood time, is nearly doubled during the day,
rising and falling as regularly as the tides of the sea. At the height
of flood, in the warmest June weather, they seem fairly to shout for
joy, and clash their upleaping waters together like clapping of hands;
racing down the cañons with white manes flying in glorious exuberance
of strength, compelling huge sleeping boulders to wake up and join in
the dance and song to swell their chorus.
Then the plants also are in flood; the hidden sap singing into leaf and
flower, responding as faithfully to the call of the sun as the streams
from the snow, gathering along the outspread roots like rills in their
channels on the mountains, rushing up the stems of herb and tree,
swirling in their myriad cells like streams in potholes, spreading
along the branches and breaking into foamy bloom, while fragrance, like
a finer music, rises and flows with the winds.
[Illustration: A Mountain Stream in June (Merced Creek and Vernal
Falls, Yosemite).]
About the same may be said of the spring gladness of blood when the red
streams surge and sing in accord with the swelling plants and rivers,
inclining animals and everybody to travel in hurrahing crowds like
floods, while exhilarating melody in color and fragrance, form and
motion, flows to the heart through all the quickening senses.
In early summer the streams are in bright prime, running crystal clear,
deep and full, but not overflowing their banks,—about as deep through
the night as the day, the variation so marked in spring being now too
slight to be noticed. Nearly all the weather is cloudless sunshine, and
everything is at its brightest,—lake, river, garden, and forest, with
all their warm, throbbing life. Most of the plants are in full leaf and
flower; the blessed ousels have built their mossy huts, and are now
singing their sweetest song on spray-sprinkled ledges beside the
waterfalls.
In tranquil, mellow autumn, when the year’s work is about done, when
the fruits are ripe, birds and seeds out of their nests, and all the
landscape is glowing like a benevolent countenance at rest, then the
streams are at their lowest ebb,—their wild rejoicing soothed to
thoughtful calm. All the smaller tributaries whose branches do not
reach back to the perennial fountains of the Summit peaks shrink to
whispering, tinkling currents. The snow of their basins gone, they are
now fed only by small moraine springs, whose waters are mostly
evaporated in passing over warm pavements, and in feeling their way
from pool to pool through the midst of boulders and sand. Even the main
streams are so low they may be easily forded, and their grand falls and
cascades, now gentle and approachable, have waned to sheets and webs of
embroidery, falling fold over fold in new and ever changing beauty.
Two of the most songful of the rivers, the Tuolumne and Merced, water
nearly all the Park, spreading their branches far and wide, like
broad-headed oaks; and the highest branches of each draw their sources
from one and the same foundation on Mount Lyell, at an elevation of
about thirteen thousand feet above the sea. The crest of the mountain,
against which the head of the glacier rests, is worn to a thin blade
full of joints, through which a part of the glacial water flows
southward, giving rise to the highest trickling affluents of the
Merced; while the main drainage, flowing northward, gives rise to those
of the Tuolumne. After diverging for a distance of ten or twelve miles,
these twin rivers flow in a general westerly direction, descending
rapidly for the first thirty miles, and rushing in glorious apron
cascades and falls from one Yosemite valley to another. Below the
Yosemites they descend in gray rapids and swirling, swaying reaches,
through the chaparral-clad cañons of the foothills and across the
golden California plain, to their confluence with the San Joaquin,
where, after all their long wanderings, they are only about ten miles
apart.
The main cañons are from fifty to seventy miles long, and from two to
four thousand feet deep, carved in the solid flank of the range. Though
rough in some places and hard to travel, they are the most delightful
of roads, leading through the grandest scenery, full of life and
motion, and offering most telling lessons in earth sculpture. The
walls, far from being unbroken, featureless cliffs, seem like ranges of
separate mountains, so deep and varied is their sculpture; rising in
lordly domes, towers, round-browed outstanding headlands, and
clustering spires, with dark, shadowy side cañons between. But, however
wonderful in height and mass and fineness of finish, no anomalous
curiosities are presented, no “freaks of nature.” All stand related in
delicate rhythm, a grand glacial rock song.
Among the interesting and influential of the secondary features of
cañon scenery are the great avalanche taluses, that lean against the
walls at intervals of a mile or two. In the middle Yosemite region they
are usually from three to five hundred feet high, and are made up of
huge, angular, well-preserved, unshifting boulders, overgrown with gray
lichens, trees shrubs, and delicate flowering plants. Some of the
largest of the boulders are forty or fifty feet cube, weighing from
five to ten thousand tons; and where the cleavage joints of the granite
are exceptionally wide apart a few blocks may be found nearly a hundred
feet in diameter. These wonderful boulder piles are distributed
throughout all the cañons of the range, completely choking them in some
of the narrower portions, and no mountaineer will be likely to forget
the savage roughness of the roads they make. Even the swift,
overbearing rivers, accustomed to sweep everything out of their way,
are in some places bridled and held in check by them. Foaming, roaring,
in glorious majesty of flood, rushing off long rumbling trains of
ponderous blocks without apparent effort, they are not able to move the
largest, which, withstanding all assaults for centuries, are left at
rest in the channels like islands, with gardens on their tops, fringed
with foam below, with flowers above.
[Illustration: A Sierra Cañon (King’s River Cañon from Lookout Peak).]
On some points concerning the origin of these taluses I was long in
doubt. Plainly enough they were derived from the cliffs above them, the
size of each talus being approximately measured by a scar on the wall,
the rough angular surface of which contrasts with the rounded,
glaciated, unfractured parts. I saw also that, instead of being slowly
accumulated material, weathered off, boulder by boulder, in the
ordinary way, almost every talus had been formed suddenly, in a single
avalanche, and had not been increased in size during the last three or
four centuries; for trees three or four hundred years old were growing
on them, some standing at the top close to the wall, without a bruise
or broken branch, showing that scarcely a single boulder had fallen
among them since they were planted. Furthermore, all the taluses
throughout the range seemed, by the trees and lichens growing on them,
to be of the same age. All the phenomena pointed straight to a grand
ancient earthquake. But I left the question open for years, and went on
from cañon to cañon, observing again and again; measuring the heights
of taluses throughout the range on both flanks, and the variations in
the angles of their surface slopes; studying the way their boulders
were assorted and related and brought to rest, and the cleavage joints
of the cliffs from whence they were derived, cautious about making up
my mind. Only after I had seen one made did all doubt as to their
formation vanish.
In Yosemite Valley, one morning about two o’clock, I was aroused by an
earthquake; and though I had never before enjoyed a storm of this sort,
the strange, wild thrilling motion and rumbling could not be mistaken,
and I ran out of my cabin, near the Sentinel Rock, both glad and
frightened, shouting, “A noble earthquake!” feeling sure I was going to
learn something. The shocks were so violent and varied, and succeeded
one another so closely, one had to balance in walking as if on the deck
of a ship among the waves, and it seemed impossible the high cliffs
should escape being shattered. In particular, I feared that the
sheer-fronted Sentinel Rock, which rises to a height of three thousand
feet, would be shaken down, and I took shelter back of a big pine,
hoping I might be protected from outbounding boulders, should any come
so far. I was now convinced that an earthquake had been the maker of
the taluses, and positive proof soon came. It was a calm moonlight
night, and no sound was heard for the first minute or two save a low
muffled underground rumbling and a slight rustling of the agitated
trees, as if, in wrestling with the mountains, Nature were holding her
breath. Then, suddenly, out of the strange silence and strange motion
there came a tremendous roar. The Eagle Rock, a short distance up the
valley, had given way, and I saw it falling in thousands of the great
boulders I had been studying so long, pouring to the valley floor in a
free curve luminous from friction, making a terribly sublime and
beautiful spectacle,—an arc of the fifteen hundred feet span, as true
in form and as steady as a rainbow, in the midst of the stupendous
roaring rock storm. The sound was inconceivably deep and broad and
earnest, as if the whole earth, like a living creature, had at last
found a voice and were calling to her sister planets. It seemed to me
that if all the thunder I ever heard were condensed into one roar it
would not equal this rock roar at the birth of a mountain talus. Think,
then, of the roar that arose to heaven when all the thousands of
ancient cañon taluses throughout the length and breadth of the range
were simultaneously given birth.
The main storm was soon over, and, eager to see the new-born talus, I
ran up the valley in the moonlight and climbed it before the huge
blocks, after their wild fiery flight, had come to complete rest. They
were slowly settling into their places, chafing, grating against one
another, groaning, and whispering; but no motion was visible except in
a stream of small fragments pattering down the face of the cliff at the
head of the talus. A cloud of dust particles, the smallest of the
boulders, floated out across the whole breadth of the valley and formed
a ceiling that lasted until after sunrise; and the air was loaded with
the odor of crushed Douglas spruces, from a grove that had been mowed
down and mashed like weeds.
Sauntering about to see what other changes had been made, I found the
Indians in the middle of the valley, terribly frightened, of course,
fearing the angry spirits of the rocks were trying to kill them, The
few whites wintering in the valley were assembled in front of the old
Hutchings Hotel, comparing notes and meditating flight to steadier
ground, seemingly as sorely frightened as the Indians. It is always
interesting to see people in dead earnest, from whatever cause, and
earthquakes make everybody earnest. Shortly after sunrise, a low blunt
muffled rumbling, like distant thunder, was followed by another series
of shocks, which, though not nearly so severe as the first, made the
cliffs and domes tremble like jelly, and the big pines and oaks thrill
and swish and wave their branches with startling effect. Then the
groups of talkers were suddenly hushed, and the solemnity on their
faces was sublime. One in particular of these winter neighbors, a
rather thoughtful, speculative man, with whom I had often conversed,
was a firm believer in the cataclysmic origin of the valley; and I now
jokingly remarked that his wild tumble-down-and-engulfment hypothesis
might soon be proved, since these underground rumblings and shakings
might be the forerunners of another Yosemite-making cataclysm, which
would perhaps double the depth of the valley by swallowing the floor,
leaving the ends of the wagon roads and trails three or four thousand
feet in the air. Just then came the second series of shocks, and it was
fine to see how awfully silent and solemn he became. His belief in the
existence of a mysterious abyss, into which the suspended floor of the
valley and all the domes and battlements of the walls might at any
moment go roaring down, mightily troubled him. To cheer and tease him
into another view of the case, I said: “Come, cheer up; smile a little
and clap your hands, now that kind Mother Earth is trotting us on her
knee to amuse us and make us good.” But the well-meant joke seemed
irreverent and utterly failed, as if only prayerful terror could
rightly belong to the wild beauty-making business. Even after all the
heavier shocks were over, I could do nothing to reassure him. On the
contrary, he handed me the keys of his little store, and, with a
companion of like mind, fled to the lowlands. In about a month he
returned; but a sharp shock occurred that very day, which sent him
flying again.
The rocks trembled more or less every day for over two months, and I
kept a bucket of water on my table to learn what I could of the
movements. The blunt thunder-tones in the depths of the mountains were
usually followed by sudden jarring, horizontal thrusts from the
northward, often succeeded by twisting, upjolting movements. Judging by
its effects, this Yosemite, or Inyo earthquake, as it is sometimes
called, was gentle as compared with the one that gave rise to the grand
talus system of the range and did so much for the cañon scenery.
Nature, usually so deliberate in her operations, then created, as we
have seen, a new set of features, simply by giving the mountains a
shake,—changing not only the high peaks and cliffs, but the streams. As
soon as these rock avalanches fell every stream began to sing new
songs; for in many places thousands of boulders were hurled into their
channels, roughening and half damming them, compelling the waters to
surge and roar in rapids where before they were gliding smoothly. Some
of the streams were completely dammed, driftwood, leaves, etc., filling
the interstices between the boulders, thus giving rise to lakes and
level reaches; and these, again, after being gradually filled in, to
smooth meadows, through which the streams now silently meander; while
at the same time some of the taluses took the places of old meadows and
groves. Thus rough places were made smooth, and smooth places rough.
But on the whole, by what at first sight seemed pure confusion and
ruin, the landscapes were enriched; for gradually every talus, however
big the boulders composing it, was covered with groves and gardens, and
made a finely proportioned and ornamental base for the sheer cliffs. In
this beauty work, every boulder is prepared and measured and put in its
place more thoughtfully than are the stones of temples. If for a moment
you are inclined to regard these taluses as mere draggled, chaotic
dumps, climb to the top of one of them, tie your mountain shoes firmly
over the instep, and with braced nerves run down without any haggling,
puttering hesitation, boldly jumping from boulder to boulder with even
speed. You will then find your feet playing a tune, and quickly
discover the music and poetry of rock piles,—a fine lesson; and all
nature’s wildness tells the same story. Storms of every sort, torrents,
earthquakes, cataclysms, “convulsions of nature,” etc., however
mysterious and lawless at first sight they may seem, are only
harmonious notes in the song of creation, varied expressions of God’s
love.