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Circa Date
circa 1887
Transcription
18 10-11
The finest reach on the river in 2nd Yosemite is at the head first below the rapids.
The noblest sugar pines lean to each other over the swift white churning water, mingling with grand firs whose level fronded boughs wave always to the pulses of thin life giving streams.
The bouldery banks on either sides are flowered to rich garden softness with boundless wealth of Azaleas & dogwoods that at the same time enrich the gnarled fallen logs, and fringe the bulging insteps of the trees.
The Azaleas are rather past prime (July 27th) 1873 So are the gilias that throng in countless [hostas] the [warm] sunny flats of the north side.
Eriogonums are glorious now, so are the Madias and all those [shady under & inter] grove gardens where moisture & shade abounds. The grasses are going to seed and next years cones on the p. contorta are a quarter of an inch long, (already too prickly to be called flowers). A month ago they were crimson flowers. Today I observed a young p. contorta not thicker than my finger abundantly clustered with staminate flowers - (11.)
The best general view of 2nd Yosemite is from the flat topped portion of the South wall
19 11 & 12
opposite the [cone of] Starr King Dome. From there not only its rocks, but the greater portion of its groves & meadows can be seen, splendid combinations.
The walls of the valley in a scientific sense reach back to the top of the ridge [below] between South Dome & Clouds Rest on the north, and to the top of the ridge between Mt. Clark and Starr King on the south but in a narrow and special[izing] sense they are composed of rocks which abut close upon the flat bottom of the valley. These rocks are sufficiently near to form [a] pretty well defined walls [and are very] noble in form & size and also in sculpture and adorning of trees, shrubs etc.
All of these rocks show glacial action in a marked degree on the north side. The first rock that properly belongs to the valley is a low dome that is so compact in structure that (12.) it looks like a half sunken boulder. (It owes its existence to its hardness & seamlessness.) the dazzling brightness of its striated surface attesting the greatness
Date Occurred
1873
Resource Identifier
MuirReel32 Notebook02 Img012.Jpeg
Contributing Institution
Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library
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