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Show 156 WESTERN WILDS. perfect this work? Can the mind with utmost stretch revert to a period when all was ethereal, gaseous ; when earth was a nebulous mass ; when Cosmos first had being then the time required for it to become a molten mass ; the ages thence to solidity the first crust the shrinking, the ridging, the upheaval ; then the earthquake wave which rent these cliffs asunder; then the convulsions lasting through millions of years, and ending in the mighty subsidence in the bottom of this fissure crevice! Then came the age of erosion, the glaciers successively writing their history on these rocky tablets ; the ages of wear required to polish smooth these granite walls, and symmetrize the facings of the cliffs. At last came the age of disintegration, of mold, of soil, of growth, of animals, and last of all man the last by all reasoning the shortest. The next day is set for the great excursion to Mirror Lake and Nevada and Vernal Falls; and, after a hasty breakfast, we are off for the most toilsome and yet most enjoyable day to be spent in the valley. Saddles are carefully set, and mules " cinched " with these mountain girths, eight inches wide, until it seems they can scarcely breathe ; for we are to have perils of water and mountain perils by the way. We cross the crystal Merced, of deceitful depth it looks four feet and is really ten and lively with mountain trout, in front of the hotel, and take our way eastward up the valley, with the Royal Arches to our left. In some convulsions past, the granite has fallen from the north side in successive sections in such shape as to form the likeness of five great arches, one within the other, half a mile long from west to east, and rising in the center 1,500 feet. Standing on the northern shore of Mirror Lake, we view, reflected in the lake from right to left, South Dome, Old Man of the Mount-ains, Cloud's Rest, Mount Watkins, and the Watch Eye, all notable and noble peaks upon the south side, rising from 2,000 to 4,000 feet above the cliffs that bound the valley. Crossing in a skiff to the south side, we see, reflected from the north, Mount Washington, Mount Calhoun, and the far- reaching wall of the lower valley. The lake is a great crystal map of all the adjacent hills and cliffs, beau-tiful only because of beautiful surroundings, not remarkable in itself, but dazzling by reflection of greater glories. From Mirror Lake we come back on the same trail a little way, then straight south across the valley till we are directly under the southern cliff, which, instead of being perpendicular, here overhangs, and seems momentarily to threaten destruction ; then eastward up what may be called the main branch of the Merced to the head of |
