The wagon roads now opened, are calculated to avoid the deep snow that delays the use of higher trails, or roads, until later in the season; but one traveling by these routes, loses some of the grandest views to be had of the High Sierras and western ranges of hills and mountains; on the old Coultersville Trail, or by way of the old Mariposa Trail. In winter or early spring, in order to avoid the snow, visitors are compelled to take the route of the lowest altitude. The route by Hite’s cove is called but thirty-two miles from Mariposa to the valley; while that by Clark’s, on the South Fork, has been usually rated at about forty-two miles. Where the time can be spared, I would suggest that what is called “the round trip” be made; that is, go by one route and return by another; and a “Grand Round” trip will include a visit to the “High Sierra:” going by onedivideand returning by another.
As to guides and accommodating hosts, there will always be found a sufficient number to meet the increasing wants of the public, and the enterprise of these gentlemen will suggest a ready means of becoming acquainted with their visitors. Soon, no doubt, a railroad will be laid into the valley, and when the “iron horse” shall have ridden over all present obstacles, a new starting point for summer tourists will be built up in the Yosemite; that the robust lovers of nature may view the divine creations that will have been lost to view in a Pullman. The exercise incident to a summerloungein the “High Sierras,” will restore one’s vigor, and present new views to the eyes of the curious; while those with less time or strength at their disposal, will content themselves with the beauties and pleasures of the valley.
The passes and peaks named in Prof. Whitney’s guide-book are only the more prominent ones; for turn the eyes along the course of the Sierra Nevada in a northerly orsoutherly direction at the head of Tuolumne, Merced, San Joaquin, King’s, Kah-we-ah or Kern rivers, and almost countless peaks will be seen, little inferior in altitude to those noted in his table.
The highest of these peaks, Mount Whitney, is, according to Prof. Whitney, at least 200 feet higher than any measured in the Rocky Mountains by the topographers of the Hayden survey. A writer in the Virginia (Nevada)Enterprisesays: “Whitney stands a lordly creation amid a rugged and grand company of companion peaks, for his nearest neighbor, Mount Tyndall, rises 14,386 feet, and Mount Kah-we-ah, but a few miles off, is 14,000 feet.” Whitney affords “the widest horizon in America; a dome of blue, immeasurable, vast sweeps of desert lowlands, range on range of mighty mountains, grand and eloquent; grace, strength, expansion, depth, breadth, height, all blended in one grand and awful picture. And as the eye takes in these features, a sense of soaring fills the mind, and one seems a part of the very heavens whose lofty places he pierces. The breadth and compass of the world grows upon the mind as the mighty distances flow in upon the view like waves of the sea....The best that can be said or written but suggests; the eye alone can lead the mind up to a true conception of so mighty and marvelous a group of wonders.”
It is true that one standing upon the dividing ridges of the Rio Grande, Arkansas, Colorado or Platte, is charmed by the views presented of far reaching plains and noble mountains, but it is doubtful if any one view can be found in North America so grand and thrillingly sublime as may be seen in the Sierra Nevadas. The scenery of the Yellow Stone and of the Colorado canyon have characteristic wonders that aresui generis; but those localities are not desirable for continuous occupation.
The many inquiries that the author has received concerning his views upon the gold deposits of California, has induced him to add this chapter to his work.
It has been said by an earnest and astute observer, that “The cooled earth permits us no longer to comprehend the phenomena of the primitive creation, because the fire which pervaded it is extinguished,” and again that “There is no great foundation (of truth), which does not repose upon a legend.” There has been a tradition among the California Indians, that the Golden Gate was opened by an earthquake, and that the waters that once covered the great plain of the Sacramento and San Joaquin basins were thus emptied into the ocean. This legendary geology of the Indians is about as good and instructive as some that has been taught by professors of the science, and as scarcely any two professors of geology agree in their theories of the origin and distribution of the gold in California, I have thought it probable that a fewunscientificviews upon the subject will interest my readers.
The origin of the gold found in California seems to me to have been clearly volcanic. The varying conditions under which it is found may be accounted for by the varying heat and force of the upheaval, the different qualities of the matrix or quartz that carried the gold and filled thefissures of the veins or lodes, the influence that resistance of the inclosing walls may have exerted when it was slight or very great, and finally the disintegrating influences of air, water, frost and attrition of the glaciers, and the deposition in water.
The theories of aqueous deposit (in the lodes) and of electrical action, do not satisfy my understanding, and I go back in thought to the ten years of observation and practical experience in the gold mines, and to the problems that were then but partially solved. Looking at California as it is to-day, it will be conceded that its territory has been subjected to distinct geological periods, and those periods greatly varying in their force in different parts of the State. Within the principal gold-bearing region of California, and especially along the line of or near the Carson vein or lode, coarse gold has been found, and in such large masses, free of quartz, as to force the conviction upon the mind that the gold so found had been thrown outthroughandbeyondits matrix into a bed of volcanic ashes, very nearly assuming the appearance that lead might assume when melted and thrown in bulk upon an ash heap. Where the resistance was great, as when thrown through wall rocks of gneiss, or green stone, the liquefaction of the quartz seems to have been more complete, and the specific gravity of the gold being so much greater than that of the quartz, its momentum, when in large quantities, carried it out beyond its matrix, leaving the more diffused particles to be held suspended in the fast cooling quartz, or to settle into “pockets,” or small fissures.
Prof. Le Conte says: “The invariable association of metaliferous veins with metamorphism demonstrates the agency of heat.” Experiments of Daubre and others prove that water at 750° Fahr. reduces to a pasty condition nearly all rocks. Deposits of silica in a gelatinous form, thathardens on cooling, may be seen at some of the geysers of the Yellowstone; the heat, no doubt, being at a great depth. Quartz, like glass and lava, cools rapidlyexternallywhen exposed to air, or a cool surface, and would very readily hold suspended any substancevolatilized, or crudely mixed into its substance. Its difficultsecondaryfusion is no obstacle to a belief in the capacity of heat under great pressure, to account for the phenomena that may be observed in the gold mines. Ashes derived from lavas have been found rich in crystalline substances. Crystals and microliths, and pyrites in cubes are, no doubt, of volcanic origin. The eruptions of moderate character seem to be the result of igneous fusion, while those of an explosive type are probably aquæ-igneous.
It is altogether probable from experiments tried by Stanislas Muenier and others, that the sudden removal of pressure is a sufficient cause of superheated water and mineral substances flashing into steam and lava. The geysers are evidently formed by varying temperature and interruption of flow by removal of pressure. Mr. Fanques, in an article in thePopular Science Monthlyfor August, 1880, says: “Discovery of microliths enclosed in volcanic rocks is a proof of immediate formation of crystals.”
The phenomena attending the recent eruptions in Java demonstrate the incredible force and chemical effects of superheated steam. Modern researches and experiments in mechanical and chemical forces have greatly modified the views once entertained by geologists, and I think that it will now be conceded that repeated volcanic disturbances, taken in connection with the action of glaciers, will account for most, if not all, the phenomena discoverable in the gold fields and mountains of California. As a rule, gold-bearing veins in clay or talcose slates have the gold more evenly diffused than those found in the harder rocks, wherepockets of crystals, pyrites and gold will most likely be found. If gold is found in seams or masses it will be very free from impurities, and the quartz itself will be most likely white and vitreous. When gold is found in or near to a lode that has been decomposed, it will be found porous and ragged, but if it has been deposited some distance from its source it will be more or less rounded and swedged by contact with the stones and gravel that were carried with it by the stream of water or ice that conveyed it to its placer. In the beds of the ancient and more modern rivers the gold is much more worn than that found in the ravines or gulches, and the coarser gold will be found at the bottom, the scale gold in the gravel above, and the fine or flour gold in the mixture of clay, gravel and sand nearer the surface. The scale gold, no doubt, has been beaten by repeated blows of stones brought in contact with it while moving in the bed of the stream, and the flour gold is that reduced by the continual attrition of the moving mass upon the gold.
Prof. Le Conte says: “There are in many parts of California two systems of river beds—an old and a new....The old, or dead, river system runs across the present drainage system in a direction far more southerly; this is especially true of northern members of the system. Farther south the two systems are more nearly parallel, showing less movement in that region. These old river beds are filled with drift gravel, and often covered with lava.” The lava referred to is relatively of modern origin, and the molten streams have in many instances covered the ancient streams, and in others cut them in twain. The “Blue Lead” is a very old river bed that has been the principal source of supply of the placer gold of the northern mines, and it must have existed as a river long anterior to the more modern upheavals that disturbed its course by formingmountain torrents to rend its barriers and cut across its channel. That channel crosses some of the present tributaries of the Sacramento and San Joaquin and contains fossil remains of trees, plants and fruits not now indigenous to California.
The well rounded boulders and pebbles found in the beds of these ancient rivers render it probable that they were of considerable length, and that they may have been the channels of very ancient glaciers. It is also probable that the region covered by glaciers at different epochs is much more extensive than has been generally supposed. To me it appears probable, that during some of the eras of formation, they may have stretched across the entire continent. I have not space to give in detail the evidences of glacial action, but will simply state thatremainsof glaciers may be seen by an observing eye at intervals from the Atlantic to the Pacific; in Minnesota and in the Rocky Mountains, they are especially abundant. Prof. Le Conte says: “The region now occupied by the Sierra range was a marginal sea bottom, receiving abundant sediments from a continent to the east. At the end of the Jurassic, this line of enormously thick off-shore deposits yielded to horizontal thrust, was crushed together and swollen up into the Sierra range. All the ridges, peaks and canyons, all that constitutes the grand scenery of these mountains are the result of an almost inconceivable subsequent erosion.”
I have no doubt of the truth of this theory of formation as it relates to the Sierra Nevada ranges as they exist to-day, for the intrusion of the granite into the slate formations suggests a force far greater than can be ascribed to volcanic action alone. Thepreviouscondition of the “continental mass” can not be so well imagined; yet reasoning from what we know of the present condition of the Sierras we may with propriety assume that great changes had occurredin the territory embracing the Sierras Nevada long prior to their upheaval. The changes that have occurred since are too abundant and enduring to require more than a reference to the localities. The “glacier pavements” of the Sierras are so conspicuous that, as Mr. John Muir says: “Even dogs and horses gaze wonderingly at the strange brightness of the ground, and smell it, and place their feet cautiously upon it, as if afraid of falling or sinking.” These glacier-smoothed rocks “are simply flat or gently undulating areas of solid granite which present the unchanged surface upon which the ancient glaciers flowed, and are found in the most perfect condition in the sub-alpine region, at an elevation of from 8,000 to 9,000 feet. Some are miles in extent, only interrupted by spots that have given way to the weather, while the best preserved portions are bright and stainless as the sky, reflecting the sunbeams like glass, and shining as if polished every day, notwithstanding they have been exposed to corroding rains, dew, frost and snow for thousands of years.”
This statement of Mr. Muir will especially apply to the “glistening rocks” at the sources of the Merced and Tuolumne rivers, in view on this trail through the Mono Pass. The evidences of past glacial action in polishing the domes, mountains and valleysabovethe Yosemite valley, are too undeniable for controversy, but how much of the Yosemite itself may have been produced by glacial action will probably always remain a theme for discussion among geologists.
Prof. Samuel Kneeland, the well known author of “Wonders of the Yosemite,” in a letter to me upon the subject, says: “I think there can be no doubt that the valley was filled, and 1,000 feet above, by ice—that while themass above, moved, that in the valley, conforming to its configuration, was comparatively stationary, lasting much longerthan the first, gradually melting to a lake, now represented by the Merced river.
“I agree with Prof. Whitney that the valley was the result of a subsidence, long anterior to the glacial epoch, and that the valley itself, except upon its edges and upper sides, has not been materially modified by the glacier movement.” Prof. J. D. Whitney, in his geological report says: “The Yosemite valley is a unique and wonderful locality; it is an exceptional creation;...cliffs absolutely vertical, like the upper portions of the Half Dome and El Capitan, and of such immense height as these, are, so far as we know, to be seen nowhere else....How has this unique valley been formed, and what are the geological causes which have produced its wonderful cliffs, and all the other features which combine to make this locality so remarkable? These questions we will endeavor to answer, as well as our ability to pry into what went on in the deep-seated regions of the earth in former geological ages will permit.” Mr. Whitney explicitly states his belief that most of the great canyons and valleys have resulted from aqueous denudation and erosion and cites the cutting through the lava of Table Mountain at Abbey’s Ferry on the Stanislaus river as proof, and, continuing, to the exception, says: “It is sufficient to look for a moment at the vertical faces of El Capitan and the Bridal Veil Rock turned down the valley, or away from the direction in which the eroding forces must have acted, to be able to say that aqueous erosion could not have been the agent employed to do any such work....Much less can it be supposed that the peculiar form of the Yosemite is due to the erosive action of ice....Besides, there is no reason to suppose, or at least no proof, that glaciers have ever occupied the valley, or any portion of it....So that this theory, based on entire ignorance of the whole subject, may be dropped without wasting any more time upon it.
“The theory of erosion not being admissible to account for the formation of the Yosemite valley, we have to fall back on some one of those movements of the earth’s crust to which the primal forms of mountain valleys are due. The forces which have acted to produce valleys are complex in their nature, and it is not easy to classify the forms, which have resulted from them, in a satisfactory manner.” After describing the generally received theories of mountain and valley formations, Mr. Whitney says: “We conceive that, during the process of upheaval of the Sierra, or possibly at some time after that had taken place, there was at the Yosemite a subsidence of a limited area, marked by lines of ‘fault’ or fissure crossing each other somewhat nearly at right angles. In other and more simple language, the bottom of the valley sank down to an unknown depth, owing to its support being withdrawn from underneath, during some of those convulsive movements which must have attended the upheaval of so extensive and elevated a chain, no matter how slow we may imagine the process to have been. Subsidence over extensive areas of portions of the earth’s crust is not at all a new idea in geology, and there is nothing in this peculiar application of it which need excite surprise. It is the great amount of vertical displacement for the small area implicated which makes this a peculiar case; but it would not be easy to give any good reason why such an exceptionable result should not be brought about amid the complicated play of forces which the elevation of a great mountain chain must set in motion. By the adoption of the subsidence theory for the formation of the Yosemite, we are able to get over one difficulty which appears insurmountable to any other. This is the very small amount of debris at the base of the cliffs, and, even at a few points, its entire absence.” In the space allotted to this chapter, I am able only to quote a few passages from Prof.Whitney, but refer the curious to his recent work, “Climatic Changes of Later Geological Times.”
In contrast to the conclusions arrived at by Prof. Whitney, I extract from Prof. Le Conte’s Elements of Geology, pages 526 and 527, the following: “1st. During the epoch spoken of (the glacial) a great glacier, receiving its tributaries from Mount Hoffman, Cathedral Peaks, Mount Lyell and Mount Clark groups, filled Yosemite valley, and passed down Merced canyon. The evidences are clear everywhere, but especially in the upper valleys, where the ice action lingered longest. 2nd. At the same time tributaries from Mount Dana, Mono Pass, and Mount Lyell met at the Tuolumne meadows to form an immense glacier which, overflowing its bounds a little below Soda springs, sent a branch down the Ten-ie-ya canyon to join the Yosemite glacier, while the main current flowed down the Tuolumne canyon and through the Hetch-Hetchy valley. Knobs of granite 500 to 800 feet high, standing in its pathway, were enveloped and swept over, and are now left round and polished and scored in the most perfect manner. This glacier was at least 40 miles long and 1,000 feet thick, for its stranded lateral-moraines may be traced so high along the slopes of the bounding mountains.” In an article by John Muir, published in the New YorkTribune, and kindly furnished me by Prof. Kneeland, will be seen views differing from those of Prof. Whitney, but Mr. Muir has spent long years of study upon the glacial summits of the Sierras, and if an enthusiast, is certainly a close student of nature. The paper was written to his friend Prof. Kunkle, of Boston, who had views similar to his own. Mr. Muir says: “I have been over my glacial territory, and am surprised to find it so small and fragmentary. The work of ancient ice which you and I explored, and which we were going to christen ‘Glacial System of the Merced’is only a few tiny topmost branches of one tree, in a vast glacial forest.
“All of the magnificent mountain truths that we read together last Autumn are only beginning sentences in the grand Sierra Nevada volume. The Merced ice basin was bounded by the summits of the main range and by the spurs which once reached to the summits, viz.: the Hoffman and Obelisk ranges. In this basin not one island existed; all of its highest peaks were washed and overflowed by the ice—Starr King, South Dome and all. Vast ice currents broke over into the Merced basin, and most of the Tuolumne ice had to cross the great Tuolumne canyon.
“It is only the vastness of the glacial pathways of this region that prevents their being seen and comprehended at once. A scholar might be puzzled with the English alphabet if it was written large enough, and, if each letter was made up of many smaller ones. The beds of those vast ice rivers are veiled with forests and a network of tiny water channels. You will see by the above sketch that Yosemite was completely overwhelmed with glaciers, and they did not come squeezing, groping down to the main valley by the narrow, angular, tortuous canyons of the Ten-ie-ya, Nevada or South canyons, but they flowed grandly and directly above all of its highest domes, like a steady wind, while their lower currents went mazing and swedging down in the crooking and dome-blocked channels of canyons.
“Glaciers have made every mountain form of this whole region; even the summit mountains are only fragments of their pre-glacial selves.
“Every summit wherein are laid the wombs of glaciers is steeper on its north than its south side, because of the depth and duration of sheltered glaciers, above those exposed to the sun, and this steepness between the north and south sides of summits is greater in the lower summits, asthose of the Obelisk group. This tells us a word of glacial climate. Such mountains as Starr Ring, Cloud’s Rest, and Cathedral Peak do not come under this general law because their contours were determined by the ice which flowed about and above them, but even among these inter-basin heights we frequently find marked difference of steepness between their north and south sides, because many of the higher of these mountains and crests extending east and west, continued to shelter and nourish fragmentary glacierets long after the death of the main trunk to which they belonged.
“In ascending any of the principal streams of this region, lakes in all stages of decay are found in great abundance, gradually becoming younger until we reach the almost countless gems of the summits with basins bright as their crystal waters. Upon the Nevada and its branches, there are not fewer than a hundred of these lakes, from a mile to a hundred yards in diameter, with countless glistening pondlets about the size of moons. Both the Yosemite and the Hetch-Hetchy valleys are lake basins filled with sand and the matter of morains easily and rapidly supplied by their swift descending rivers from upper morains. The mountains above Yosemite have scarce been touched by any other denudation but that of ice. Perhaps all of the post glacial denudation of every kind would not average an inch in depth for the whole region.
“I am surprised to find that water has had so little to do with the mountain structure of this region. None of the upper Merced streams give record of floods greater than those of to-day. The small water channel, with perpendicular walls, is about two feet in depth a few miles above the Little Yosemite. The Nevada here, even in flood, never was more than four or five feet in depth. Glacial striæ and glacial drift, undisturbed on banks of streams but littleabove the present line of high water mark, is sufficient proof.”
The views entertained by Mr. Muir are, for the most part, in consonance with my own. That the valley was originally formed as supposed by Prof. Whitney I do not doubt, but to suppose that the vast bodies of ice, stated by Mr. Whitney to have existed at the sources of the Merced river, could have halted in their glacial flow down the steep declivities of its canyons, seems as absurd as to suppose one entertaining opposite views “ignorant of the whole subject.” As a matter susceptible of eternal proof, I will state that in the canyon below the Yosemite there are existing to-day, large, well rounded bowlders that I think a geologist would say had been brought from above the valley; and if so, water alone could scarcely have brought them over the sunken bed of the valley, or if filled to its present level of about thirty-five feet descent to the mile, the laws that govern aqueous deposits would have left those huge masses of rock far above their present location in the canyon. Some of the bowlders referred to will weigh twenty tons or more, and, in connection with flat or partially rounded rocks fallen, probably, from the adjacent cliff, form waterfalls in the middle of the canyon, of from fifty to one hundred feet of perpendicular height. The fall through the canyon averages over two hundred feet to the mile. Well rounded bowlders of granite and other hard stones may be seen for long distances below the Yosemite, on hillsides and flats far above the present bed of the river, and, in some instances, deposited with those bowlders, have been found well rounded and swedged masses of gold. The experiments and observations of Agassiz, Forbes and others, render it probable that the valley of the Yosemite was filled with ice, but that the upper surface moved more rapidly, carrying down most of the material brought from mountainsabove the valley. The observations of Prof. Tyndall render it almost certain that a glacier does not move as a rigid mass or on its bed, but as a plastic substance, as asphalt for instance.
Partial liquefaction by pressure would enable a glacier in the Yosemite to conform to the inequalities of its configuration, and regelation would perhaps retard its flow sufficiently to enable the more rapid moving surface and center of the glacier to carry its burden on from above without marking the lower portion of the inclosing walls, as for instance, may be seen at Glacier Point. It has been suggested that “the immense weight of ice that once filled the Yosemite had an important part in the formation of it.” This idea is untenable, because the valley must have already been formed, in order for space to have existed for “the immense weight of ice;” and unless the earth’s crust under the valley was previously broken as suggested in the able theory of Prof. Whitney, no possible weight of any kind could exert a depressing influence upon the surface.
If it were possible, for the reconciliation of geologists, to believe that the subsidence in the valley occurred at about the close of the glacial flow, thereby changing the appearance of the inclosing walls, yet still leaving material to fill the chasm, a great part of the mystery that will always remain as one of the “Wonders of the Yosemite,” would then disappear. As it is, we are compelled to believe, not in miracles, but that the glacier that flowed over the Yosemite was so great in depth as to leave, like some deep sea or ocean, its bottom undisturbed by the tumultuous aerial strife upon its surface.
Now, those glacial heights have, at times, a solitude unutterly profound! Not a bird or beast to break the stillness, nor disturb the solemn charm. Nor does the Indian, even, loiter on his way, but hastens on down to his mountainmeadows or wooded valleys. There, if anywhere, the poet’s idea can be realized, that:
“Silence is the heart of all things; sound the fluttering of its pulse,Which the fever and the spasm of the universe convulse.Every sound that breaks the silence only makes it more profound,Like a crash of deafening thunder in the sweet, blue stillness drownedLet thy soul walk softly in thee, as a saint in heaven unshod,For to be alone with silence, is to be alone with God.”
“Silence is the heart of all things; sound the fluttering of its pulse,Which the fever and the spasm of the universe convulse.Every sound that breaks the silence only makes it more profound,Like a crash of deafening thunder in the sweet, blue stillness drownedLet thy soul walk softly in thee, as a saint in heaven unshod,For to be alone with silence, is to be alone with God.”
BIG TREE(Height, 325 feet; circumference, 100 feet.)
BIG TREE
(Height, 325 feet; circumference, 100 feet.)
Big Trees of California or Sequoia Gigantea—Their Discovery and Classification.
In speaking of the discovery of the “Big Trees” of Calavaras, Mr. Hutchings, in his “Scenes of Wonder and Curiosity,” says that: “In the spring of 1852 Mr. A. T. Doud, a hunter, was employed by the Union Water Company of Murphy’s camp, Calavaras county, to supply the workmen with fresh meat from the large quantity of game running wild on the upper portion of their works. Having wounded a bear, and while industriously following in pursuit, he suddenly came upon one of those immense trees that have since become so justly celebrated throughout the civilized world.
“So incredulous were Doud’s employers and companions, when told of his discovery, that a ruse had to be resorted to, to get men to go and view the trees.”
Big trees in Mariposa county, werefirstdiscovered by Maj. Burney, of North Carolina, first sheriff of Mariposa county (after its organization), John Macauly of Defiance, Ohio, and two others, whose names I have now forgotten. The discovery was made in the latter part of October, 1849, while in pursuit of some animals stolen by the Indians.
The trees seen and described by Major Burney and his party, were only a few scattering ones on the Fresno and South Fork divide. The major spoke of the trees as a newvariety of cedar, and when he gave the measurements that he claimed the party had made with their picket-ropes tied together, his auditors thought he was endeavoring to match some “big yarns” told around our camp fire at the mouth of the Merced river. Afterwards, while sheriff, the Major indicated the locality and size of the trees, in reply to some one’s description of the big yellow pine that lay prostrate on what became the Yosemite trail, and when rallied a little for his extravagance of statement, declared that though true, he should not speak of the big trees again, for it was unpleasant to be considered an habitualjoker, or something worse.
I asked the major, seriously, about the trees he had described, and he as seriously replied that he measured the trees as stated, but did not regard them as very remarkable, for he had seen accounts of even taller ones, if not larger, that were growing in Oregon.20In referring to these large trees, they were spoken of as being on the ridge known to us afterwards as the Black Ridge. The big trees of the Kah-we-ah and Tu-le river regions, were first noticed by a party of miners returning from the “White River” excitement of 1854, but as these men were uncultured, and the Calavaras grove was already known, no notice was taken by “The Press” of the reports of these miners, who were regarded by their friends as entirely truthful.
It has been thought strange that no member of the “Mariposa battalion” should have discovered any of the big trees, but they did not.
Among forests of such very large pines, cedar and fir trees, as grow adjacent to and among the sequoia, an unusually large tree would not probably have attracted much attention. Had a grove of them, however, been discovered, the fact would have been spoken of in the battalion. As the species was not known to any of us at the time, even had any beenseen, and even the pendant character of their branches noticed, doubtless they would have been classed and spoken of as “cedar.” I do not believe, however, that any of the battalion evernoticedthese trees, for the reason that strict orders were given against straggling, and our explorations were, for the most part, in the mountainsabovethe line of growth of the sequoia. While hunting for game, during our first expeditions, the depth of snow forced the hunt below.
A few of the Mariposa big trees were first brought into notice by the discoveries of Mr. Hogg in the summer of 1855. The year previous, Mr. Hogg was in the employ of Reynolds, Caruthers and myself, and proving an able assistant and expert hunter, he was employed by our successors, the “South Fork Ditch Company,” to supply them with game. During one of his hunting expeditions, Mr. Hogg discovered some sequoia on a branch of “Big Creek,” and relating his discoveries to Mr. Galen Clark, Mr. Mann and others, the exact locality was indicated, and became known. During the autumn of this year (1855), other trees were discovered by Mr. J. E. Clayton, while exploring and testing, by barometrical measurements, the practicability of bringing water from the branches of the San Joaquin to increase the supply from the South Fork of the Merced. Upon Mr. Clayton’s second visit, a few days later, I accompanied him, and was shown his discoveries.
About the first of June, 1856, Galen Clark and Milton Mann discovered what has now become famous as the “Mariposa Grove.” The next season Mr. Clark came upon two smaller groves of sequoia in the near vicinity of the big grove. Not long after, he discovered quite a large collection at the head of the Fresno. This grove was visited two days after its discovery by L. A. Holmes, of the “Mariposa Gazette,” and Judge Fitzhugh, while hunting; and afterwardsby Mr. Hutchings in 1859, accompanied by the discoverer, Mr. Clark.
The groves of big trees on the North and South Tule rivers, said to contain thousands, were discovered in 1867, by Mr. D’Henreuse, of the State Geological Survey. From the foregoing statement concerning theSequoia, or Big Trees, and the well known fact of their easy propagation and distribution over the whole civilized world, it is no longer feared that the species is in anyimmediatedanger of becoming extinct.
Upon the tributaries of the Kah-we-ah river, these trees are converted by the mills into lumber, which is sold about as cheap as pine. The lumber is much like the famous red-wood of California, and is equally durable, though perhaps not so easily worked. Although of the same genus as the red-wood, thespeciesis distinct, the “Big Trees” being known as the Sequoia Gigantea, while the California red-wood is known as the Sequoia Sempervirens. This statement may seem unnecessary to the botanist, but the two species are so frequently confounded in respectable eastern periodicals, that the statement here is deemed proper. Besides this, absurd fears have been expressed by those uninformed of the facility with which these trees have been cultivated in Europe and in this country, that the species will soon become extinct.21Professor Whitney says: “It is astonishing how little that is really reliable is to be found in all that has been published about big trees. No correct statement of their distribution or dimensions has appeared in print; and if their age has been correctly stated in one or two scientific journals, no such information ever finds its way into the popular descriptions of this tree, which are repeated over and over again in contributions to newspapers and in books of travel....No other plant ever attracted so much attention or attained such a celebritywithin so short a period....Seed were first sent to Europe and to the Eastern States in 1853, and since that time immense numbers have found their way to market. They germinate readily, and it is probable that hundreds of thousands of the trees (millions it is said) are growing in different parts of the world from seed planted. They flourish with peculiar luxuriance in Great Britain, and grow with extraordinary rapidity....The genus were named in honor of Sequoia or Sequoyah, a Cherokee Indian of mixed blood, better known as George Guess, who is supposed to have been born about 1770, and who lived in Wills Valley, in the extreme northeastern part of Alabama, among the Cherokees. He became known to the world by his invention of an alphabet and written language for his tribe....
The big tree is extremely limited in its range, even more so than its twin brother, the red-wood. The latter is strictly a coast-range or sea-board tree; the other, inland or exclusively limited to the Sierra. Both trees are also peculiarly Californian. A very few of the red-wood may be found just across the border in Oregon, but the big tree has never been found outside of California, and probably never will be.” In a note Prof. Whitney says:
“There are severalfossilspecies of thegenus sequoia.” Also, “that the Calavaras Grove contains, as will be seen in the table on page 125 (Whitney’s Yosemite Guide Book), four trees over 300 feet high, the highest one measured in the Mariposa Grove being 272 feet. The published statements of the heights of these trees are considerably exaggerated, as will be noticed, but our measurements can be relied on as being correct. The Keystone State has the honor of standing at the head, with 325 feet as its elevation, and this is the tallest tree yet measured on this continent, so far as our information goes.”
“When we observe how regularly and gradually the trees diminish in size from the highest down, it will be evident that the stories told of trees having once stood in this grove over 400 feet in height, are not entitled to credence. It is not at all likely that any one tree should have overtopped all the others by seventy-five feet or more. The same condition of general average elevation and absence of trees very much taller than any of the rest in the grove will be noticed among the trees on the Mariposa grant, where, however, there is no one as high as 300 feet.”
The average height of the Mariposa trees is less than that of the Calavaras Grove, while the circumference of the largest is greater. Prof. Whitney measured the annual growths of one of the largest of the Calavaras group that had been felled, which he made out to be only about 1,300 years old. The Professor says:
“The age of the big trees is not so great as that assigned by the highest authorities to some of the English yews. Neither is its height as great, by far, as that of an Australian species, theeucalyptus amygdalina, many of which have, on the authority of Dr. Müller, the eminent government botanist, been found to measure over 400 feet; one, indeed, reaches the enormous elevation of 480 feet, thus overtopping the tallest sequoia by 155 feet.
“There are also trees which exceed the big trees in diameter, as, for instance, the baobab (adansonia digitata), but this species is always comparatively low, not exceeding sixty or seventy feet in height, and much swollen at the base.”
Mr. Whitney concludes his chapter on the sequoia by saying:
“On the whole, it may be stated, that there is no known tree which approaches the sequoia in grandeur; thickness and height being both taken into consideration, unless it betheeucalyptus. The largest Australian tree yet reported, is said to be eighty-one feet in circumference at four feet from the ground. This is nearly, but not quite, as large as some of the largest of the big trees of California.”
RIDING THROUGH THE TREE TRUNK.
RIDING THROUGH THE TREE TRUNK.
Prof. Whitney gives the measurement of the largest tree in the Mariposa Grove as ninety-three feet seven inches, at the ground, and sixty-four feet three inches at eleven feet above. This tree is known as the “Grizzly Giant;” its two diameters were, at the base, as near as could be measured, thirty and thirty-one feet. This tree has been very much injured by fire, no allowance for which was made. It is probable that could the tree—and others like it—have escaped the fires set by the Indians, to facilitate the gathering of their annual supplies and the pursuit of game, exact measurements would show a circumference of over 100 feet. But, even as large as it is, its size does not at once impress itself upon the understanding.
There are nine or ten separate groves of “Big Trees,” in California, and all lie upon the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada at an altitude of from five to seven thousand feet above the sea. Mr. A. B. Whitehall has given a very interesting account of these in the ChicagoTribune, from which I extract such portions as will best serve to interest my readers.
“The wood is soft, light, elastic, straight grained, and looks like cedar. The bark is deeply corrugated, longitudinally, and so spongy as to be used for pin cushions. The branches seldom appear below 100 feet from the ground, and shoot out in every direction from the trunk. The leaves are of two kinds—those of the younger trees and the lower branches of the larger set in pairs opposite each other on little stems, and those growing on branches which have flowered, triangular in shape, and lying close down to the stem. The cones are remarkable for their diminutive size,being not much larger than a hen’s egg, while the cones of much smaller conifers are larger than pine-apples. The seeds are short and thin as paper....The magnificent proportions of the trees and the awful solitude of the forest gives an almost sublime grandeur to this part of the Sierra. The Tuolumne grove is situated almost due north of the Merced, and is on the Big Oak Flat trail to the Yosemite. There are about thirty trees in the group, and they are excellent representatives of the sequoia family. The Siamese Twins, growing from the same root and uniting a few feet above the base, are thirty-eight feet in diameter and 114 feet in circumference at the base. A unique piece of road making is here seen. In the construction of the highway for coaches and wagons to the Yosemite, the engineers suddenly found themselves face to face with one of these monster trees, and not choosing to build around it, they cut through it, thus forming a tunnel, the like of which can only be found in the Mariposa grove. The diameter of the tree being over thirty feet, there remained an abundance of material on each side of the cut to retain the tree in a standing position, and the hole ten feet high and twelve feet wide is sufficiently large to allow the passage of any coach or team.”
“In the South Park and Calaveras groves there are some remarkable trees. One tree in the South Park grove will hold forty persons in the hollow of its trunk; another has sheltered sixteen horses. The four highest trees in the Calaveras grove, are the Keystone State, 325 feet high, Gen. Jackson, 319 feet, Mother of the Forest, 315 feet, and the Daniel Webster of 307 feet high. The Husband and Wife are a pair of trees gracefully leaning against each other, 250 feet high, and each sixty feet in circumference. The Hermit is a solitary specimen of great proportions; the Old Maid, a disconsolate looking spinster, fifty-ninefeet around, and the Old Bachelor, a rough, unkempt old fellow nearly 300 feet in height. The Father of the Forest is prostrate, hollow, limbless and without bark; yet across the roots the distance is twenty-eight feet....Into the tree a tourist can ride ninety feet on horseback. One of the largest trees of the Calaveras grove was bored down with pump augurs, and the stump smoothed off and converted into a floor of a dancing hall. Thirty-two persons, or four quadrille sets, have ample room to dance at one time, and yet leave room for musicians and spectators.”
THE TUNNELLED TREE.
THE TUNNELLED TREE.
I can give my readers no better idea of the solemn immensity of the trees, than by again quoting Mr. Whitehall. He says in conclusion: “Although it was then June, yet the eternal snows of the mountains were everywhere around us, and, as the huge banks and drifts stretched away off in the distance, the melting power of heat and the elements was on every side defied. Not a weed or blade of grass relieved the monotony of the view; not the chirping of an insect or the twittering of a bird was heard. The solemn stillness of the night added a weird grandeur to the scene. Now and then a breath of wind stirred the topmost branches of the pines and cedars, and as they swayed to and fro in the air the music was like that of Ossian, ‘pleasant but mournful to the soul.’ There were sequoias on every side almost twice as high as the falls of Niagara; there were pines rivaling the dome of the capitol at Washington in grandeur; there were cedars to whose tops the monument of Bunker Hill would not have reached. There were trees which were in the full vigor of manhood before America itself was discovered; there were others which were yet old before Charlemagne was born; there were others still growing when the Savior himself was on the earth. There were trees which had witnessed the winds and storms of twenty centuries; there were others which would endure long aftercountless generations of the future would be numbered with the past. There were trees crooked and short and massive; there were others straight and tall and slender. There were pines whose limbs were as evenly proportioned as those of the Apollo Belvedere; there were cedars whose beauty was not surpassed in their counterparts in Lebanon; there were firs whose graceful foliage was like the fabled locks of the gods of ancient story. It was a picture in nature which captivated the sense at once by its grandeur and extent; and, as we drove back to Clark’s through six miles of this forest luxuriance, with the darkness falling about us like a black curtain from the heavens, and the mighty canyons of the Sierra sinking away from our pathway like the openings to another world, then it was not power, but majesty, not beauty but sublimity, not the natural but the supernatural, which seemed above us and before us.”
Statistics—Roads and Accommodations—Chapel and Sunday School—Big Farms and Great Resources—A Variety of Products—Long Hoped for Results
Statistics—Roads and Accommodations—Chapel and Sunday School—Big Farms and Great Resources—A Variety of Products—Long Hoped for Results
Records of the number of visitors to the Yosemite down to and inclusive of 1875, show that in 1852 Rose and Shurban were murdered by the savages, while their companion, Tudor, though wounded, escaped. The next year, 1853, eight men from the North Fork of the Merced, visited the valley, returning unharmed. Owing to murders of Starkey, Sevil and Smith, in the winter of 1853-’4, as it was believed, by the Yosemites, no visitors entered the valley during the summer of 1854. In 1855 Messrs. Hutchings, Ayers, Stair and Milliard, visited it without being disturbed by the sight of any of the original proprietors, either Indians or grizzlies. Mr. Hutchings, on his return to San Francisco, began to draw the attention of the public to the Yosemite, through his magazine and otherwise. Notwithstanding the ample means afforded by his magazine, and his facilities as a writer, Mr. Hutchings found it difficult to bring the valley into prominent and profitable notice, and few Californianscould be induced to make it a visit. A peculiarity of those days was a doubt of the marvelous, and a fear of being “sold.” Any statements of travelers or of the press, that appeared exaggerated, were received by the public with extreme caution. Not more than twenty-five or thirty entered during that year, though Mr. Hutchings’ efforts were seconded by reports of other visitors.
The following season, 1856, it was visited by ladies from Mariposa and San Francisco, who safely enjoyed the pleasures andinconveniencesof the trip; aroused and excited to the venture, no doubt, by their traditional curiosity. The fact being published that ladies could safely enter the valley, lessened the dread of Indians and grizzlies, and after a fewbrave reportshad been published, this fear seemed to die away completely.
From this time on to 1864, a few entered every season; but during these times California had awonderand interest in its population and their enterprises, greater than in any of its remarkable scenery. Everything was at high pressure, and the affairs of business and the war for the Union were all that could excite the common interest. In 1864, there were only 147 visitors, including men, women and children. The action of Congress this year, in setting the Yosemite and big trees apart from the public domain as national parks, attracted attention to them. The publicity given to the valley by this act, was world-wide, and since 1864 the number visiting it has steadily increased.
According to theMariposa Gazette, an authentic record shows that in the season of 1865 the number was 276, in 1866, 382, in 1867, 435, in 1868, 627, and increasing rapidly; in 1875 the number for that year had reached about 3,000. The figures are deemed reliable, as they were obtained from the records of toll-roads and hotels. They are believed to be very nearly correct.
TheGazette“estimates the proportion of eastern and European in the total number to be at least nine-tenths,” and says: “It is safe to place the Atlantic and European visitors for the next ten years at 2,000 per annum.”
I have no doubt the number has been greater even than was estimated, for improved facilities for entering the valley have since been established. Seven principalrouteshave been opened, and a post office, telegraph and express offices located. A large hotel has been built by the State, the trails have been purchased and made free, and the management is now said by travelers to be quite good. There is no reason why still further improvements should not be made. A branch railroad from the San Joaquin Valley could enter the Yosemite by way of the South Fork, or by the Valley of the Merced river. Mineral ores and valuable lumber outside and below the valley and grant, would pay the cost of construction, and no defacement of the grand old park or its additions would be required, nor should be allowed.
With cars entering the valley, thousands of tourists of moderate wealth would visit it; and then on foot, from the hotels, be able to see most of the sublime scenery of the mountains.
If horses or carriages should be desired, for the more distant points of interest, they may readily be obtained in the valley at reasonable rates. At present, the expense of travel by stage, carriage and horseback, is considerable, and many visiting California, do not feel able to incur the extra expense of a visit to the Yosemite.
Visitors intending to see both the big trees and the Yosemite Valley, should visit the trees first, as otherwise the forest monarchs will have lost a large share of their interest and novelty.
The hotel charges are not much higher than elsewhere in the State, and the fare is as good as the average in cities. If extras are required, payment will be expected as in all localities. There is more water falling in the spring months, but the water-falls are but fractions of the interest that attaches to the region. Yosemite is always grandly beautiful; even in winter it has attractions for the robust, but invalids had better visit it only after the snow has disappeared from the lower levels, generally, from about the first of May to the middle of June.
From that date on to about the first of November, the valley will be found a most delightful summer resort, with abundant fruits and vegetables of perfect growth and richest flavor.
All modern conveniences and many luxuries of enlightened people are now to be found, gathered in full view of the great fall and its supporting scenery. The hotels, telegraph, express and post offices are there, and a Union Chapel dedicated at a grand gathering of the National Sunday School Union, held during the summer of 1879, is regularly used for religious services. Those who may wish to commune with Nature’s God alone while in the Yosemite, will be in the very innermost sanctuary of all that is Divine in material creation for the valley is a holy Temple, and if their hearts are attuned to the harmony surrounding them, “the testimony of the Rocks” will bring conviction to their souls.
The unique character of Mirror Lake will leave its indelible impressions upon the tourist’s mind, and residents of the Yosemite will gladly inform him of the varying proper time in the morning when its calm stillness will enable one to witness its greatest charm, the “Double Sunrise.” That phenomena may be ascribed to the lake’ssheltered closeness to the perpendicular wall of the Half Dome (nearly 5,000 feet high), and the window-like spaces between the peaks East and South, looked through by the sun in his upward, westward flight.
As a matter of fact, differing according to the seasons of the year, “sunrise on the lake” may be seen in its reflections two or more times in the same morning, and, if the visitor be at the lake when the breeze first comes up on its daily appearance from the plains, shattering the lake mirror into fragments, innumerable suns will appear to dazzle and bewilder the beholder.
The wonderful scenery and resources of California are becoming known and appreciated. A large addition has been made to, and surrounding the Yosemite and Big Tree Parks, which in time may become one (see map); and another very large National Park has been established in Tulare County, to be known as theSequoiaPark, which includes most of the Big Trees of that entire region; but it is not so generally known in the Eastern States that there are such vast landed estates, such princely realms of unbroken virgin soil awaiting the developments of industry. Official reports of the California State Board of Equalization show that there are 122 farms of 20,000 acres each and over. Of these there are 67 averaging 70,000 acres each, and several exceed 100,000 acres.
These figures are published as official, and were well calculated to make the small farmers of the east open their eyes; they will yet open the eyes of the land owners themselves to the importance of bringing their estates under successful and remunerative cultivation. This will have to be done in order that these acres may be made to pay a just taxation. Thousands of acres that are of little use to the owners or the public—of no value to the state—can, by thejudicious introduction of water, be made to pay well for the investment. Irrigating ditches or canals from the Merced, one on the north side and the other on the south, a short distance above Snelling, in Merced county, were located by the writer, and soon after completion, the arid and dusty land was transformed into blooming gardens and fertile vineyards. These were the first irrigating ditches of any considerable magnitude, constructed in Mariposa or Merced counties, though irrigation was common enough in other parts of the state. The advance that has since been made in California agriculture is wonderful. New methods adapted to the peculiarities of soil and climate have been introduced, and new machinery invented and applied that cheapen the cost of production and lessen manual labor to a surprising degree: for instance, machinery that threshes and cleans ready for the market, over 5,000 bushels of wheat to the machine per day. Capital is still being largely invested in railroads, and in reclaiming the Tule (Bull Rush) lands.
These lands are among the richest in the world. They grow cotton, tobacco, rice and other southern staples, equal to the best of the Southern States, with much less danger from malaria. The valleys of the San Joaquin and Sacramento, which are simplylocaldivisions of the same great valley, produce according to altitude, moisture and location, all the cereals, fruits and vegetables of a temperate clime, as well as those of semi-tropical character; even the poorest hill-side lands grow the richest wine and raisin grapes. The yield is so astonishing, as to appear incredible.
The raisins grown and cured in California are said to be equal to the best Malaga; while the oranges, lemons, olives, figs, almonds, filberts and English walnuts, command the highest prices in the market. Peaches, pears, grapes and honey, are already large items in her trade; and her wheatcrops now reach a bulk that is simply enormous.
The grade of horses, cattle, swine, sheep and wool, are being brought to a high degree of perfection; for the climate is most salubrious and invigorating. Her gifts of nature are most bountiful and perfect. No wonder, then, that the Californian is enthusiastic when speaking of his sublime scenery, salubrious climate and surprising products.
But I must no longer dwell upon my theme, nor tell of the fruitful Fresno lands, redeemed from savage barbarity. Those scenes of beauteous enchantment I leave to those who may remain to enjoy them. And yet—