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Show 158 , WESTERN WILDS. one offset, he fell upon the next flat, with every bone splintered, and his flesh reduced to a jelly. Two hours climbing bring us to the level above the Vernal, and turning a sharp rocky point, we come in sight of Nevada Falls, the largest and highest continuous fall. The approach here is easy, and we are soon at its foot. Rushing down a rocky flume from heights four thousand feet above and miles away ; the Merced comes clear as alcohol to the edge, and takes the first plunge, four hundred feet clear; then dashes against the rocks, re-bounding in comminuted foam of dazzling white; then collecting again to a hundred tiny streams, it is off at last from the rocky face in filmy slanting lines of cloud and foam, transparent mists so delicately flowing downward that one can scarcely say they move. The silvery sheen, like a hanging crystal- web, is lifted by the wind, swaying now against the rocks, and now far out over the valley; then, in a mo-mentary calm, falls back to break into a thousand transparent fluted sections, gliding downward over the rocks in ever unfolding, ever re-newing liquid lawn. Suddenly the howitzer is fired from the Mountain House across the gulch. The echo breaks sharply upon us from our side, and returns from Cloud's Rest on the north ; then seems to die away amid peaks and hollows, but suddenly breaks again upon the startled ear; then repeats in slow declining reports from peak, cliff, and point, again to renew and again die away in a thousand repetitions of splintered sound. The effect of these sights upon different persons is a curious study. The noisy are still, the garrulous silent, and even the least profound are awed to a solemn reverence with something akin to fear. After a frugal dinner at the Mountain House every thing has to be carried thither on mules we come down by the hand- rail beside Vernal Falls, while Brightman returns the mules by the other route as far as Registry Rock, the first point where we can meet him. Piwyack " cataract of diamonds" as the Indians call it, well de-serves the name ; though known by the whites as Vernal Falls, from the beautiful emerald tints it displays. It consists of one clear fall of three hundred and fifty feet, and is accessible at more points than any other fall in the valley. The water starts from the cliff in two great rocky flumes, twenty feet wide, and perhaps a foot in depth ; but long before reaching the bottom is utterly broken into minutest fragments, and rolled into one great airy sheet of foam ; snow- white and dazzling, bordered apparently by pearl- dust, it seems a column of cloud break-ing upon the rocks to light surf and starry crystals. As the foam floats upward the sky clears suddenly, and the sun pours a flood of |