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34 fall there is a basin where it rests [becomes clear & calm] Advancing over the smooth lip of this basin with abundance of rainbow mist upon its brow it glides swiftly & [ ] [over] adown a smooth slope [apron of] in a sheet about 25 ft in width & so transparent that you see the fine veins & markings in the granite beneath [are clearly visible] though looking down upon it from above at a height of 100 ft.
After gliding like an apron of glass over this glossy sheet of granite rushes white & lace woven [with great] [over] down a [brow] curve of ever increasing steepness making a descent of 175 ft most of wh [which] is free fall This is by far the grandest display our stream has yet made since it groped its way out of the ice cone. It makes this descent with lighting [lightening] rapidity yet the curve is generally so smooth its varying forms
35 of fairy tissue are exquisite in perfection of detail.
The jagged gorge in wh [which] the stream flows here becomes (at a dist [distance] of ab [about] 200 yds from bot [bottom] fall) very deep & is inaccessible I have groped about many a day in the bot [bottom] & sides of the gorge with abundance of [basin] when the stream was almost dry yet I have not been able to pass through it
The W [west] wall of the gorge [on theW [west]] when the stream makes this first grand descent after [being bare] collecting scattered waters from the base of the [cove] & just when a groove in the chan [channel] compels the white waters to leap & bloom in round [form] a small stream pours into it over the beetling wall, producing an [very] effect of rare singular beauty
For this little [side] tributary fall has a character of its own that is by no means common. Its sources are mere threads ramified back through thickets & boulders & fissures
Date Original
1873
Source
Original journal dimensions: 10 x 16.5 cm.
Resource Identifier
MuirReel23Journal11P034-035.tif
Publisher
Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library
Rights Management
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Keywords
John Muir, journals, drawings, writings, travel, journaling, naturalist
