The Mountains of CaliforniaCentury Company, 1894 - 381 pages |
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alpine argali avalanches basin beautiful bees belt beneath birds bloom branches California cañon cascades chaparral coast mountains color cones conifer curves dark deer Douglas Douglas squirrel Dwarf Pine elevation fall feet high floods flowers foot foot-hills forest glacial glacier glorious granite grasses gray ground groves growing head height High Sierra inches Indians King's River lake lakelets landscape larvæ leaves light meadows melting miles Mono Moraine Lake moraines moun Mount Ritter Mount Shasta mountain Mountain Pine nearly névé never noble Ouzel panicles pass peaks plain portion precipices purple rain range region ridges rise rocks rocky seeds seemed seen Sequoia side Silver Fir sing slopes smooth snow snowy soil species specimens spray Spruce squirrels storm streams Sugar Pine summer summit sunshine surface tains trees tributaries trunk Tuolumne wall warm wild sheep wind winter woods yellow Yosemite Valley
Popular passages
Page 148 - I laid my gun at my feet on the ground and waved my hand for him to come to me, which he did with great caution. I made him place his bow and quiver beside my gun, and then struck a light and gave him to smoke and a few beads.
Page 3 - ... bathing in its glorious floods of light, seeing the sunbursts of morning among the icy peaks, the noonday radiance on the trees and rocks and snow, the flush of the alpenglow, and a thousand dashing waterfalls with their marvelous abundance of irised spray, it still seems to me above all others the Eange of Light, the most divinely beautiful of all the mountain-chains I have ever seen.
Page 244 - The madronos in the dells, with their red bark and large glossy leaves tilted every way, reflected the sunshine in throbbing spangles like those one so often sees on the rippled surface of a glacier lake. But the Silver Pines were now the most impressively beautiful of all. Colossal spires 200 feet in height waved like supple goldenrods chanting and bowing low as if in worship, while the whole mass of their long, tremulous foliage was kindled into one continuous blaze of white sun-fire. The force...
Page 186 - ... on the contrary, the grove is the cause of the water being there. Drain off the water and the trees will remain, but cut off the trees, and the streams will vanish.
Page 63 - ... to have been gotten ready to be launched below. But the strange influx of strength I had received seemed inexhaustible. I found a way without effort, and soon stood upon the topmost crag in the blessed light. How truly glorious the landscape circled around this noble summit! — giant mountains, valleys innumerable, glaciers and meadows, rivers and lakes, with the wide blue sky bent tenderly over them all. But in my first hour of freedom from that terrible shadow, the sunlight in which I was...
Page 291 - Territories; for it never fails to engage the attention of naturalists in a very particular manner. Such, then, is our little cinclus, beloved of every one who is so fortunate as to know him. Tracing on strong wing every curve of the most precipitous torrents from one extremity of the Sierra to the other; not fearing to follow them through their darkest gorges and coldest snowtunnels; acquainted with every waterfall, echoing their divine music ; and throughout the whole of their beautiful lives interpreting...
Page 62 - After gaining a point about halfway to the top, I was suddenly brought to a dead stop, with arms outspread, clinging close to the face of the rock, unable to move hand or foot either up or down. My doom appeared fixed. I must fall. There would be a moment of bewilderment, and then a lifeless rumble down the one general precipice to the glacier below.
Page 63 - I seemed suddenly to become possessed of a new sense. The other self, bygone experiences, Instinct, or Guardian Angel, — call it what you will, — came forward and assumed control. Then my trembling muscles became firm again, every rift and flaw in the rock was seen as through a microscope, and my limbs moved with a positiveness and precision with which I seemed to have nothing at all to do. Had I been borne aloft upon wings, my deliverance could not have been more complete.
Page 331 - Mints, gilias, nemophilas, castilleias, and innumerable composite were so crowded together that, had ninety-nine per cent. of them been taken away, the plain would still have seemed to any but Californians extravagantly flowery. The radiant, honeyful corollas, touching and overlapping, and rising above one another, glowed in the living light like a sunset sky — one sheet...
Page 149 - ... right hand. Further testimony of their intentions was unnecessary. To save myself by flight was impossible, so, without hesitation, I stepped back about five paces, cocked my gun, drew one of the pistols out of my belt, and holding it in my left hand and the gun in my right, showed myself determined to fight for my life.