The Writings of John Muir: The mountains of CaliforniaHoughton Mifflin, 1917 |
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alpine ancient glaciers avalanches bark basin beautiful belt beneath birds bloom branches California cañon cascades color cones conifer curves Douglas squirrel dwarf pine elevation fall feet high feet in diameter flood flowers forest glacial glorious grand granite grasses gray ground groves growing head height High Sierra hundred feet Indians King's River lakelets landscapes leaves light Mariposa Grove meadow melting mer de glace Merced miles Mono Mono Lake Moraine Lake moraines Mount Ritter Mount Shasta mountain mountain pine nearly needles névé noble panicles pass peaks photograph by Herbert portion purple rain range region ridges ripe rise rocks rocky seemed seen sequoia shores side silver fir slender slopes snow soil species specimens sprays spruce storm stream sugar pine summer summit sunshine thousand feet tion trees tributaries trunk Tuolumne vanished wall warm waves wild wind winter woods yellow Yosemite Valley
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Página 163 - 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.
Página 246 - I ever saw,— a fiery, sputtering little bolt of life, luxuriating in quick oxygen and the woods' best juices. One can hardly think of such a creature being dependent, like the rest of us, on climate and food. But, after all, it requires no long acquaintance to learn he is human, for he works for a living. His busiest time is in the Indian summer. Then he gathers burs and hazelnuts like a plodding farmer, working continuously every day for hours; saying not a word; cutting off the ripe cones at...
Página 66 - I became all the more anxious concerning the developments to be made above, and began to be conscious of a vague foreboding of what actually befell; not that I was given to fear, but rather because my instincts, usually so positive and true, seemed vitiated in some way, and were leading me astray. At length, after attaining an elevation of about 12,800 feet, I found myself at the foot of a sheer drop in the bed of the avalanche channel I was tracing, which seemed absolutely to bar further progress....
Página 275 - Sierra, the fact is sometimes published with flying snow-banners a mile long. Those portions of the winds thus embodied can scarce be wholly invisible, even to the darkest imagination. And when we look around over an agitated forest, we may see something of the wind that stirs it, by its effects upon the trees. Yonder it descends in a rush of water-like ripples, and sweeps over the bending pines from hill to hill. Nearer, we see detached plumes and leaves, now speeding by on level currents, now whirling...
Página 271 - ... on a shelving shore. The quantity of light reflected from the bent needles was so great as to make whole groves appear as if covered with snow, while the black shadows beneath the trees greatly enhanced the effect of the silvery splendor. Excepting only the shadows there was nothing somber in all this wild sea of pines. On the contrary, notwithstanding this was the winter season, the colors were remarkably beautiful. The shafts of the pine and libocedrus were brown and purple, and most of the...
Página 271 - I felt sure of its elastic temper, having seen others of the same species still more severely tried — bent almost to the ground indeed, in heavy snows — without breaking a fiber. I was therefore safe, and free to take the wind into my pulses and enjoy the excited forest from my superb outlook. The view from here must be extremely beautiful in any weather. Now my eye roved over the piny hills and dales as over fields of waving grain, and felt the light running in ripples and broad swelling undulations...
Página 271 - ... forward, round and round, tracing indescribable combinations of vertical and horizontal curves, while I clung with muscles firm braced, like a bobolink on a reed. In its widest sweeps my tree-top described an arc of from twenty to thirty degrees, but I felt sure of its elastic temper, having seen others of the same species still more severely tried — bent almost to the ground indeed, in heavy snows — without breaking a fiber. I was therefore safe, and free to take the wind into my pulses...
Página 165 - ... to preserve my coolness; and thus we stood looking at one another without making any movement or uttering a word for perhaps ten minutes, when one, at last, who seemed the leader, gave a sign that they wished for some tobacco: this I signified that they should have, if they fetched me a quantity of cones. They went off immediately in search of them, and no sooner were they all out of sight, than I picked up my three cones and some twigs of the trees, and made the quickest possible retreat, hurrying...