Summering in the Sierra. John Muir's Description of a Wonderful Region. Owens Valley and Its Lava Floods-The Conflict Between Frost and Fire-Mono Valley-Dead Lakes-A Mountain Character. (Special Correspondence of the Bulletin.) Yosemite Valley,.
Summering in the Sierra John Muir's Description of a Won- ferful Region. Gwens Valley and Its Lava Floods—The Conflict JSeitweea Frost asid Fire— Slono Valley—iead Iakcs—A MoiiEtaia f;fiaraetei\ JSFECIAL COEHESPONEENCE OP THE BULLETIN.] Yosemite Valley, September, 1875. In every country Hie mou...
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Scholarly Commons
1875
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| Online Access: | https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/31 https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1030&context=jmb |
| Summary: | Summering in the Sierra John Muir's Description of a Won- ferful Region. Gwens Valley and Its Lava Floods—The Conflict JSeitweea Frost asid Fire— Slono Valley—iead Iakcs—A MoiiEtaia f;fiaraetei\ JSFECIAL COEHESPONEENCE OP THE BULLETIN.] Yosemite Valley, September, 1875. In every country Hie mountains arc fountains, not only of rivers but of" men. There [ore we all are born mountaineers, the offspring of rock and sunshine; and, although according to ordinary commercial melhods of computation it may seem a long way down through lichen ami jpinetree to God-like human beings, yet measured by othar standard's the distance becomes scarcely apore- elable. POET INDEPENDENCE. In a few hours after leaving the summit of Mount Whitney we found ourselves in the middle j I of a cluster of beautiful homes, where, instead of the company of marmots and mountain sheep, we en j oyed the rare luxury of meeting cultured men and women, living bravely and beautifully in an oasis of flowery verdure out in the gray hot sage plains of Owens Valley. This was at Sort independence, three miles 16 the north of tbe village of that name. The old adobe buildings of the past were east down during the memorable earthquake of of March 28, 187a, acd have been replaced by wooden structures, with a view to future shocks iu this volcasic rsgiou. The buildings oeeupied by the officers, besirjes being commodious and substantial, show rare taste in their proportions and finish, the redwood and pice of which they are built having their contrasting colors and their grain beautifully brought out is ths paiseled walls. We arrived here on one of the best of those lovely purple afternoons for which the dry desert regions lying to the east of ihe Sierra are remarkable, fee-cooied breezes from the mountains oozed soiily through an embankment of shade trees, flooding the hails and verandah* with delicious tempered air. Boses bloomed profusely around the wails, and numerous ftute- vo'.etd streamlets flowed thioiKh gardens filled with showy exotics, and fields of biue alfalfa all in bloom, producing dreamy Oriental impressions, as if one were seated in a Damascus rose garden reading Arabian Eights. Kuch are the homes to which a bevy of . reiieed ladies and gentlemen bade us welcome on descending from the icy recesses of the Sierra, notwithstanding our bandit clothing and accoutrements. Our eiuthiug was by this time considerably coroded and covered with strange camp Stains,-colored like Alpine lichens, a:;d with here and there a patch of gum and rosin ia which weri imbedded samples of every rock and soil from ail the various geological regions we had visited. OWENS VALLEY—LAVA FLOOD. Gladly we would have lingered, but our work drove ns od, and ihe next suariseeaw us tracing a dusty track through the gray levels of Owens Vailc-y. Onward we rode northward along the base of the range, which for many a mile, as far as the eye could reach, stretched unbrokenly like a wall, topped with towers and giant casties. A few miles ahead we observe a weird black flood of lava interrupting the sober gray of the plain, and so fresh-looking and unaltered that it ieems to be flowing, and we easily trace it to its source, in a smoothly.tapered volcano, up against the granite bosses of the mountains. Soon we approach the outermost of its strange currents, and make our way over their flinty frozen surfaces, marking where the rocky flood flowed deepest, when it was a glowing molten mass, and where, in cooling, its contractions threw it iuto jagged folds and hillocks. We see hollows and chasms filled with cinders and scoiire, the entire surface being wholly uichanged, save where an ancient water flood I from the canyon-heaped gravel along its sides. Crossing this strange fire-field we again find ourselves on the gray sandy levels, but speedily eome upon another stream of frozen lava, black and vesicular like the first, and post-glacial in age, having been outpoured at a comparatively recent date, sir.ee the Sierra received its present conformation. Beyond in this mysterious land of fire we behold yet another lava-flood curving j down into the plain, but this time from the east, i the volcanoes from which it poured being con- j spieuously located on the lower slopes of the Inyo ! range. At Bishop's Creek, we some upon a fine fertile I sheet of alluvium deposited by the mountain I streams in a glacier lake basin, now dotted with i houses aud fields of hay and wheat. Holding our j way still northward we reach a wall of basaltic j bluffs stretching entirely across the head of j Owens Valley trorn the Sierra to the Inyo range. | This is the erodcr edge ot a massive tableland* of i rose-corored lava, dividiug ihe Mono and i Owens River Basins and as we traverse its canyons and gorges, and note how its surface is ' strewn with slate and granite bowlders from the CI. ."ia aiSS grooved with glacier canyons, we iearn I that this lava is far more ancient—thai'it ispre- glacial in age, and flowed from voleanoesTnot now visible, perhaps destroyed during the glacial epoch. A PLEASANT CHANGE—LONO VALLEY. Winding tbrongh'.ihe rocl;y defiles and waterless hollows of this ancient lava field we suddenly emerge upon the.green, boggy flats of Long Valley, dotted with thousands of horned cattle and veined with mazy streams shining in the sun like strips of silver. The valley is about twelve miles long and lies at an elevation of 7,500 feet above the sea, and foims one of the most important summer pastures of tbis remarbabie region. ranged around the base of lava bluffs that bound 1 the valley on tbe north. Here, too, the wild landscapes are indescribably sublime. The Sierra on the left, Inyo Mountains on the right, a purple table-land between, with lofty volcanic cones rising beyond, colored red and blue and ashy gray, and in the foreground the green meadow, level as a lake. | Yonder looms the commanding form of Mount i Bitter the noblest mountain of the range, standing King in the heart of the California'Alps, the Switzerland of the Sierra. Riding around this splendid mountain lawn we pass many a granite buttress, that comes plucgiog down abruptly and plant their feet iu the valley level, like headlands standing out into the sea, and many a bright-dashing stream-feeder of' Owens river, the longest tributary of which has its sources in the glaciers of Hitter and the Minarets. MONO VALLEY—DEAD LAKES. Crossing over to Mono, we ride along the bottom acd around the shores of many a dead lake, now made into gardens, and filled with delicate wild flowers. The yellow pine is planted over ail this streamless wilderness, maintaining a vigorous growth, and ripening its large purple cones upon dry lava rocks, seemingly as much at home as wben'growing with the sugar pine on rich and well watered moraines. Here we noticed thousands of trees that were encircled with shallow tiesches dug by the Pah Ute Indians, for the capture i f large green worms, the larvae of a species of silk worm which they use as food. MOKE VOLCANOES. Just before descending into the Mono basin we come upon a magnificent cluster of volcanoes, so perfect in form and fresh-lookinsr we haif expect to see fire rushing from their rounded craters. The loftiest of the group rises about 2,700 feet above the level of Mono Lake. They are all post-glacial, having been erupted from what was once the bottom of the south end of Mono Lake through stratified glacial drift, and have scattered during their nurnerious periods of activity showers ct ashes and cinders over all the adja- -eent glacier canyons and mountain-tops within a radius of twenty or thirty miles. To the westward of tbe cones fine sections occur in the ancient lavas belonging to the tableland extending to Owens Valley, wherein the trap formation is beautifully developed. MONO LAKE—A LOVELY SCENE. Coming out in full view of the Lake, the landscape becomes exquisitely beautiful, notwith- | standing the general impression of arid barren- ( ness. The Lake, though bitter as the Dead Sea, is yet translucent as Tahoe, 3Dd ia calms mirrors the colors of its shores and the massive cumuli that i ile themselves in the purple sky above it as no fresh water lake ever can. And the Mono Desert is a desert of flowers the beauty, of which the most loving pen will never describe. ANTAGONISTIC FOECES 03? EIBE AND ICE. Nowhere within the hounds of our wonder- filled land are the antagonistic forces of fire and ice brought so closely and contrastingly together. The volcanic phenomena are so striking we seem to be among the very hearths and firesides of nature, yet standing amid drifting asbes, and turning to the mountains wc behold huge moraines sweeping from the shadowy jaws of canons out into the basin, marking the pathways of scores of glaciers that crawled down the mountain sides and through their icy snouts laden ?.ith debris out into the lake, as they are now descending: into the Greenland seas. Beras were formed here also, floating in grinding drifts, and not a single Arctic character was wanting where now the traveler is scorched and blinded in a glare cf tropic light. But nature never baits. Climates change and run through their courses in appointed times like organized beings the snow-flowers fall less lavishly from the mountain clouds (he glaciers melt in the warmer sunbeams and slowly withdraw into their upper strongholds of shade. The lake has now a free shore, and plants flock to the genial soil. The summers still growing warmer, one by one the glaciers die fewer streams descend into the waning lake, until evaporation equals the inflowing water and it becomes the acrid dead sea of to-day. The terraces around the lake record the fact that some time subsequent to the close of the glacial period the water stood 650 feet higher than tbe present level, and these, successive changes of level are so related to the withdrawal of the glaciers that flowed into the basin as to constitute cause and effect. BLOODY CANYON—MONO JOE. Joe Boler's ranch, at the foot of Bloody Canyon, is the camping centre for all the Mono excursionists from Yosemite, the only habitation for many miles. Mono Joe is a man worth knowing. He came here four years ago, weighing nothing ia the gold scales, but possessed of plenty of Teutonic pluck and energy. He found here a stream and a patch of sage plain, and bringing the two together the irrigation caused the "desert to blossom as the -hay field. He took stock on shares (not mining stock), made butter raised calves and colts, drank nothing stronger than milk or Bloody Canyon water, and is now worth in the gold market $30,000. Here is an example for tradeless young men and complaining Micawbers; so abundant in our streets. BACK TO YOSEMITE—A WOBD TO CALIPOBNI- ANS. From here we return to Yosemite by the old glaual pathway of. Bloody Canyon, thus com-,pleting one of the most perfect mountain excar- i sicns ihat may be made. Californlans are little aware of the grandeur of their own land, as is manilested by their leaving it for foreign excursions whenever they become able—leaving the wonders cf our unrivalled plains and mountains wholly unrecognized. One mile traveled in a vertical direction is equivalent to a thousand in the direction of the poles. HTe I have Laplands and Labradors of oar own, 85d ! alps rivaling-all that Switzerland can boast, and streams irom glaeier-eaves, rivers of mercy' ! sacred as the Himalaya-born Ganges. We have j our Shasta Vesuvius also, and Bay of Naples, I and over here among onv inland plains are Ai- 1 riean Saharas, Death Valleys'and deserts, with ! sand storms aid green oases where congregate | the travelers, coming in long caravans, tbo'tra- der with his gold and the Pah Uto Indian wiih his weapons—ihe Bedouin of the California deserts. John Mcts. The Deckeass of Forests in Etjsope.—Judging from statistics recently published, the time is not far distant when France, Holland and Belgium will begin drawing upon this country for their supply of oak simber. In the former country, notwithstanding the diminution of the area devoted to forests, the consumption of oak timber has doubled within ihe past fifty years. For the manufacture of wine-casks alone 15.000,000 cubic feet are annually required, whilst'for building purposes 600,000 cubic feci and in railway carriage construction 150,000 cubic feet are used per annum, in 1852 $4,000,000 worth of staves were imported, which figure had grown, to 830,000,000 in 1874. Belgium and Holland, although not as large consumers or timber as France, have no forest's to draw upon, and have to look to other countries for their supply. Italy, too, has out. down almost all her forests, whilst Spain and Greece ore almost woodless. Of ihe Other European countries Austria has but few forests remaining, and North Germany, although better provided that some of her neighbors in the way . of timber, has, -nevertheless, within the last decade begun cutting down her young trees. Norway, Sweden. Switzerland and Russia are at present the thickest timbered of tbe European eofln- tries, in the former one-fourth of her area being in forest: in tbe second one-half, iu the tbird one- sixtb, and in the fourth one-third of tluir •otal'aiea being given up to the growth of timber. From the above four countries ail tbe others in Europe will have to draw their supplies, and it would seem as though, notwithstanding all ihe care exorcised in replani'ing asd in forest culture, that at no distant day ttn time-rill arrive when their forests will be exhausted by tne eenstant drain upon them. Then other sources will besought for, and Canada, the northeastern and northwestern sections of rue United States will become the lumber marts ot the world, and from these boundless forests tt e'timfocr necessary for the use cf Eu-ope wili ultimately be taken. Already America is expoi'timr large amounts of timber to Europe, and the export grows every year. https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/1030/thumbnail.jpg |
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