The Writings of John Muir: The mountains of CaliforniaHoughton Mifflin, 1917 |
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avalanches basin beautiful bees beneath birds bloom boulders Bridal Veil camp cañon cascades Cathedral Cathedral Peak chaparral cliff climb clouds color El Capitan excursions flood flowers foot forests Galen Clark gardens glacial Glacier Point glorious gorge grand granite gray groves Half Dome head height Hetch Hetchy Hetch Hetchy Valley High Sierra hives Hoffman honey Illilouette Indians lake landscapes Lyell magnificent mass meadows Merced Merced River miles moraines moun Mount Dana Mount Shasta mountain nearly Nevada Fall ouzel peaks pine plain plants portion precipice rain range region ridges rise river rock sculpture seemed seen Sentinel Shasta side silver fir singing slopes smooth snow species spray storm streams sublime summer summit sunshine tain Tenaya thousand feet trail trees tributaries Tuolumne Tuolumne Meadows upper Vernal Vernal Falls walls waterfalls wind winter wonderful Yosemite Creek Yosemite Fall Yosemite Valley
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Página 131 - ... alike, seemingly aware, yet heedless, of everything going on about them. Awful in stern, immovable majesty, how softly these rocks are adorned, and how fine and reassuring the company they keep: their feet among beautiful groves and meadows, their brows in the sky, a thousand flowers leaning confidingly against their feet, bathed in floods of water, floods of light, while the snow and waterfalls, the winds and avalanches and clouds shine and sing and wreathe about them as the years go by, and...
Página 127 - Sierra, miles in height, and so gloriously colored and so radiant, it seemed not clothed with light, but wholly composed of it, like the wall of some celestial city. Along the top and extending a good way down, was a rich pearl-gray belt of snow...
Página 290 - These temple destroyers, devotees of ravaging commercialism, seem to have a perfect contempt for Nature, and instead of lifting their eyes to the God of the mountains, lift them to the Almighty Dollar."5 "Dam Hetch Hetchy!
Página 285 - Yosemite, the sublime rocks of its walls seem to glow with life, whether leaning back in repose or standing erect in thoughtful attitudes, giving welcome to storms and calms alike, their brows in the sky, their feet set in the groves and gay flowery meadows, while birds, bees, and butterflies help the river and waterfalls to stir all the air into music — things frail and fleeting and types of permanence meeting here and blending, just as they do in Yosemite, to draw her lovers into close and confiding...
Página 23 - I ever saw, odd and novel in design, perfectly fresh and beautiful, and in every way worthy of the genius of the little builder. It is about a foot in diameter, round and bossy in outline, with a neatly arched opening near the bottom, somewhat like an old-fashioned brick oven, or Hottentot's hut. It is built almost exclusively of green and yellow mosses, chiefly the beautiful fronded hypnum that covers the rocks and old drift-logs in the vicinity of waterfalls. These are deftly interwoven, and felted...
Página 77 - The Great Central Plain of California, during the months of March, April, and May, was one smooth, continuous bed of honey-bloom, so marvelously rich that, in walking from one end of it to the other, a distance of more than 400 miles, your foot would press about a hundred flowers at every step.
Página 290 - Their arguments are curiously like those of the devil, devised for the destruction of the first garden — so much of the very best Eden fruit going to waste; so much of the best Tuolumne water and Tuolumne scenery going to waste. Few of their statements are even partly true, and all are misleading. Thus, Hetch Hetchy, they say, is a "low-lying meadow.
Página 20 - ... him, he suddenly plunged into the sludgy current, leaving his song abruptly broken off. After feeding a minute or two at the bottom, and when one would suppose that he must inevitably be swept far downstream, he emerged just where he went down, alighted on the same snag, showered the water-beads from his feathers, and continued his unfinished song, seemingly in tranquil ease as if it had suffered no interruption. The Ouzel alone of all birds dares to enter a white torrent. And though strictly...
Página 128 - ... the flush of the alpenglow, and the irised spray of countless waterfalls, it still seems above all others the Range of Light. In general views no mark of man is visible upon it, nor anything to suggest the wonderful depth and grandeur of its sculpture. None of its magnificent forest-crowned ridges seems to rise much above the general level to publish its wealth. No great valley or river is seen, or group of wellmarked features of any kind standing out as distinct pictures. Even the summit peaks,...
Página 126 - April, 1868, 1 set out afoot for Yosemite. It was the bloom-time of the year over the lowlands and coast ranges; the landscapes of the Santa Clara Valley were fairly drenched with sunshine, all the air was quivering with the songs of the meadow-larks, and the hills were so covered with flowers that they seemed to be painted. Slow indeed was my progress through these glorious gardens, the first of the California flora I had seen. Cattle and cultivation were making few scars as yet, and I wandered...