Creator

John Muir

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Circa Date

circa 1887

Transcription

76

Thus it appears that everything here is marching to music & the harmonies are all so simple & young they are easily apprehended by those who will keep still & listen & look, however far these harmonies may extend beyond our powers, they are simple enough on the surface

The meadows between the groves are of course growing smaller year by year, from the gradual encroachment of the dry soil-beds from the ordinary action of weathering agents. annual & spring floods

Since coming to Sunnyside the snow mantle has become thin & broken on the N [North] side the valley wasting like a cloud. But a strip still remains unbroken on the S. side beneath the main shadows of the walls.

The 1st [first] stream on Sunnyside toward Indian Canon is a broad white sheet in the spring when the snow is melting 80 or 90 feet as it rushes down the cliff. It is now quite small, full of whistling trills & warbles like birdsong. It has two small pools [lakelets], a fine fernery, close to the wall & rushes across Sunnyside Bench in quick glancing cascades

77

2d [Second] stream on Sunnyside is still broader coming down the cliff in 7 strips & [breaking a way for itself] [across] crosses sunnyside through laurels & live-oaks & thickets of penstemons.

3d [Third] also wide & shallow, runs through fine garden of ferns brown purple & green on the east side, & through thickets of purple-stemmed willows, grapevine-tangle over most of surface, most luxuriant at the head of the garden where they climb over the rocks + bushes.

Garden

The finest grove of live-oaks is here on the East side of the garden & just beyond it a grove of Libocedrus with undergrowth of smaller oaks Laurel rhamnus etc + penstemons mints bahias rock cresses ferns mosses honeysuckles guaphalium & applopappus [Haplopappus]

Here is the finest scenery of Sunnyside itself & also glorious views [of all the rest] of the valley

Avalanches. Rock Earthquake

Alt [Altitude] of earthquake talus [avalanche] back of Hutchings Hotel 470 feet

Average slope 31° [degrees] Extreme slope where [it] material has been spouted down narrow slot 36° [degrees]

[sketch: Extreme slopes Sand & smaller stones here; Heavier slopes sorted out by [ ]]

The avalanches that are thus shot down narrow & rough-walled slots are ground

Date Occurred

1872-1874

Resource Identifier

MuirReel32 Notebook01 Img041.Jpeg

Contributing Institution

Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library

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