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Show 415. "a wall of light, clear as crystal, and ineffably fine, yet firm as adamant." Yet in such general views there was nothing to suggest the "wonderful depth and grandeur of its sculpture." Was the sculpture the treasure? Yes and no. From a distance, no particular part of the range could "publish its wealth. . . . No great valley or river is seen, or group of well marked features of any kind standing out as distant pictures." So too, first impressions of the range were wrong, the canyons were "not raw, gloomy, jagged walled gorges, savage and inaccessible." In closer views, they became "mostly smooth, open pathways conducting to the summit; mountain streets full of life and light, graded and sculptured by ancient glacier." The light and life, the flora and fauna of the Valley, were essential and destructible treasures. "Yosemite, presenting such stupendous faces of bare granite, is nevertheless imbedded in magnificient forests," Muir pointed out. Without the light and life of forests and meadows, the Sierra would be desolate. So the preservation of Yosemite required that men care for the flora of the canyons, and protect the watershed: For the branching canons and valleys of the basins of the streams that pour into Yosemite are as closely related to it as are the fingers to the palm of the hand as the branches, foliage, and flowers of a tree to the trunk. Therefore, very naturally, all the fountain region above Yosemite, with its peaks, canons, snow fields, glaciers, forests, and streams, should be included in the park to make it an harmonious unit instead of |