CHAPTER XVIII.

Waterfalls-Yosemite falls-Creeks-Rivers-Mirror lake-Bridal Vail-Earthquakes.

THERE are few countries in the world so well supplied with water as California. She abounds in vast lakes, expansive bays, and swift rivers. The Coast Range of mountains pours innumerable streams of crystal water from its sides, cutting their way through its ridges to the ocean on the west, or coursing down its eastern side to water the fertile valleys below. In this range there are many beautiful cañons, glens, and valleys, through which these streams leap in sparkling cascades, affording tempting and cheap motive power for the wheels of industry, and this power the growing

necessities of the times will demand.

Almost two hundred miles to the east of this chain of mountains are the famed Sierras, stretching for four hundred and fifty miles along the eastern line of the State, with their numerous lakes and dashing rills fed by the eternal snows of their mountain tops, and pouring their liquid streams into the parched valleys below. The myriads of bounding streams which course from the western slope of this range have many features of wild beauty and utility. Besides supplying the miner and agriculturist with water, their foaming, leaping tides, pouring through deep chasms thousands of feet below, over the frowning, precipitous walls of rocks, the rugged hill-sides, and through the tall trees, must, like the waters of the Coast Range, at no distant day

NEAR VIEW OF THE YO-SEMITE FALLS.-2,634 FEET IN HEIGHT. (First Fall 1,600 Feet. Second Fall 600 Feet. Third Fall 434 Feet.)

supply the busy scenes of skilled industry with sufficient motive power. But whether or no the hand of science and industry shall tame the wild current of the Yosemite, its natural beauty must hold supreme sway over all the great wonders of California.

YOSEMITE FALLS.

One hundred and forty miles due east from San Francisco, and one hundred and eighty-two miles by the nearest line of travel, on the head waters of the Merced river and in the extreme eastern part of Mariposa county, forty-five miles west of the eastern State line, in a gorge of the Sierras, are the famed Yosemite falls and valley, one of the most picturesque spots in the world.

The valley with the surroundings of this scene of marvellous beauty stands about 4,060 feet above the sea, is about eight miles in length and one in width, swelling in the centre to about three miles. It is reached by a descent of over two thousand feet down the rugged sides of the mountains by which it is surrounded. This beautiful valley, through the centre of which meanders in graceful curves a silver stream, upon whose sides is a green carpet of grass bespangled with delicately tinted flowers and studded with stately pines, presents in the deep forest a picture of unsurpassed beauty. The atmosphere, so pure, perfumed, buoyant, and invigorating, with the mellow sunlight flooding down upon this charming spot, makes it most attractive, and induces feelings of serene composure and good will toward men.

Entering the valley at the west by a precipitous

descent, the green vale is brought suddenly to a termi nation by the closing in of the walls of a steep cañon; threading up this valley, frowning walls of granite of from three thousand to four thousand feet completely surround it, until the beholder is standing in the midst of the wildest, most terribly grand, and awe-inspiring natural architectural splendor on the globe. Casting his eyes upward, he beholds the grandest scene of nature, before which the majesty of the pyramids of Egypt, the frigid walls of Iceland's mountains, the glaciers of Lapland, and the stately grandeur of the Andes pale. No scene so grand can be found in the gorges of Switzerland: neither the rugged face of Via Mala, the frowning pass of Tete Noir, nor the precipice over which the Staubbach pours its foam, can present such wild beauty. The cleft walls and lofty turrets of the Himalayas fail to equal the stern, imposing perpendicular walls of smooth granite, rearing their massive, clean sides, for almost a mile, sheer and stern. Nor can the wild roar and dashing tide of the Niagara equal the grand march of the crystal fountains leaping from their granite imprisonment and bounding headlong in reckless glee over and through these precipitous walls for 2,700 feet. feet. Looking heavenward, the beholder views the soft-shaded drab sides of two perpendicular walls, rising almost a mile in height, and so close that, should either fall over, it would tumble against the other. Seeking in vain for the lost mass of rock which once filled the chasm, the conclusion is arrived at that the bottom must have dropped out, and the molten mass in the bowels of the earth received as a sweet morsel the millions of tons of granite once a part of