Creator

John Muir

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Circa Date

circa 1887

Transcription

140

[Some are] mere stumps with a few tufted [branches] [of 4000 feet more. These] brown thick pillars [set] on [the shining] bare pavements [ ] [ ] [ ] [fringe of underbrush have a very picturesque effect, each one] with plenty of elbow room & a clear view in every direction. [The] On good moraine soil it reaches a height of 40 to 60 feet with massive gray foliage & [branches] [The] The annual wood rings of the trunk are very thin in some of the specimens I examined [close together 30 or 40 being in some cases required for an inch of diameter] Those ten feet in diameter must be very old. Thousands of years. I wish I could live like these junipers on rain & snow & land beside them [could stand in one place] on the shore of Lake Tenaya for a thousand years. How much I would see & how delightful it would be. Everything in the mountains would come to me & everything from the heavens like light.

The Lake was named for one of the chiefs of the Yosemite Indian Tribes. But the Indian name meaning shining rock [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] to the glacier [ ] [ ] Old Tenaya is said to have been a good Indian to his tribe. When a company of soldiers followed his [a] band into [the] Yosemite [Valley] to punish them for cattle stealing & other crimes they [Indians] fled to the lake by a trail that leads out of the upper end of the valley [on the north side as far as this lake,] while the snow was still deep but being pursued they lost heart & surrendered. A fine monument the Old Man has in this bright

Date Occurred

1869

Resource Identifier

MuirReel31 Notebook07 Img074.jpg

Contributing Institution

Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library

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