Preview
Circa Date
circa 1887
Transcription
23
Flowers flocked to their places in many a garden spot the trees took up their lines of march to the moraine soil prepared for them & all the flood of happy life rejoiced in their new-made homes & a thousand lakes & falling foaming streams [began to] sing & shine together as if created simultaneously in all their present glory [in the beginning of time].
In the early glacial history of Yosemite nothing more strikingly beautifully occurred than the birth of the happy singing streams that flowing from the retreating edges of the retiring ice-sheet leaped the polished rim of the valley close together like [a bright] silken fringes & disappeared in the blue [icy] caves of the main valley glacier from below.
Formation of Yo. Val [Yosemite Valley]
It was not when the gls [glaciers] formed one continuous sheet that most of the deeper graving was accomplished but rather in the breaking up of the ice period when the waning ice formed separate glaciers.
8 large pines (Yel [Yellow]) on as many sq [square] rods
Douglas spruce is the principal tree about the Mirror Lake
The largest opp. [opposite] Washington Column 27 ft [feet] 8 inches in circum. [circumference] – Branch 14 yrs [years] old 3 ft [feet] 9 inches long.
24
Clouds Rest
is a wave shaped crest worn thin forming the highest point of a ridge beginning with a group of peaks, the Cathedral Group, & extending to the S [South] Dome in Yo [Yosemite].
In several places low gaps [appear] occur where glaciers broke over from the NE [northeast] in the earlier days of the ice period. The widest of these gaps occurs a few miles E [East] of Clouds Rest
Another gap wh [which] seems to have been made by the meeting of the Tenaya & Lyell gls [glaciers] occurs between the S. [South] Dome & Clds [Clouds] Rest.
[sketch of vertical section of South Dome and Clouds Rest: SD / 1600 ft / Clds R / ab sea lowest portion of gap]
[sketch of bird’s-eye view of South Dome and Clouds Rest: Tenaya gl / SD / Clds R. / gap / Lyell gl]
The south 7700 ft [feet] of Clouds Rest [is sloping] slopes gently & forested but forms one continuous sheet of steep sloping precipice on the N [north]. Fine avas [avalanches] here in spring time
Light
I know not a single word fine enough for Light
its currents pour, but this is a heavy material word not applicable to holy, beamless, bodyless [bodiless], inaudible floods of Light.
Gods Love May 1872
All the world floats safe & warm in [the love of] God’s heart
The unvarying upshot of all storms is Love
Earthquakes avalanches tempests of volcanic fire or [loud] roaring water. All storms of the sky above us, of the earth beneath us are only the various expressions of Gods endearing love.
Date Occurred
1871-1874
Resource Identifier
MuirReel31 Notebook11 Img015.jpg
Contributing Institution
Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library
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