fiend had worked his will, erosive ice, at a much later epoch, cut and slashed and plowed, and rasped and filed the already deeply wrinkled earth, as the glacier pressed onward with the resistless momentum of its ponderous weight.

But while the savage grandeur of this Alpine scenery is so impressive and sobers us with its silent assertion of our littleness and insignificance, the picturesqueness of the views delights us. As peaks and crests are successively touched by the sun rays, they glow with golden halos; and as the valleys and cañons become cañons become illumined, their dark and neutral tints give place to shades of bright green

and brown and indigo, while the mountains are gorgeous with the splendor of deep, rich colors and innumerable hues and tints.

Rapt in contemplation of the landscape, carried back in thought to the time when the young planet, during the hot passionate struggles of its childhood, raised itself from the low condition of a sphere of reeking, slimy mud to the high grade of a globe of beauty, I was suddenly brought back to self and self's inability to endure what is beyond the narrow conditional limits of man's comfort and existence. The cold was asserting itself, for we were standing on the névé of a glacier.

Here had stood in October, 1871,

Mr. John Muir, the discoverer of the Sierra Nevada glaciers, who, a year later, in company with Professor Joseph Le Conte, visited the High Sierra, and examined very carefully these relics of the glacial epoch. Strange to say, Professor J. D. Whitney, ten years later, in his work on "Climatic Changes of Later Geological Time" states that "there are no glaciers at all in the Sierra Nevada proper." Mr. King in his report of the exploration of the fortieth parallel, also ignores Mr. Muir's observations, and it was not until Mr. Israel C. Russell, after his visit to this region, in the summer of 1883, accompanied by Mr. G. K. Gilbert, that justice was done to these pioneer investigators.

Mr. Russell followed the footsteps of Muir and Le Conte, and makes special mention of the work done by his "companion and assistant," Mr. Willard D. Johnson, who made topographical surveys of Mounts Conness, McClure and Ritter.

Few scenes are more impressive and conducive to thought of the past than looking upon these last remnants of a physical power that has been one of the great fabricators of food-supplying valleys and artistic adorners of Earth's surface. Carried back in imagination, I thought that I could see the icemass of the glacial period creep onward to its death in the warmer regions below; and seemed to watch its slow process of cañon-cutting and cliffpolishing, carrying with it, the while, fragmentary rocks and depositing its moraine.

Grouped about Lake Mono are many high mountain peaks, and Mt. Dana is but one of numerous prominent points in the High Sierra. Near him stand his companions, Mt. Conness, Mt. McClure, Mt. Lyell and Mt. Ritter, almost his equals in altitude. Nestling below them lies the lake, looking like a mirror in this little-frequented region. Beneath us, belts of silver-fir gird with bands of fringe the stony waists of the hoaryheaded giants.

In the mountains of the Sierra Nevada you can look upon much that is rare and much that is very beautiful. Rare, because you are a spectator at a final scene in one of Nature's great dramas seldom exhibited elsewhere in the United States; and beautiful, because there are spread before us panoramas of scenery, that, with their multitudinous shades of coloring, their exceptional diversity of cañon tracery, cannot be surpassed. These scenes, so near to San Francisco, so well within the limit of a short trip, are visited by comparatively few per

sons.

Those who wish to pass beyond the boundary-line of commonplace excursion and spend a week in the mountains of California will carry back with them reminiscences that will gladden their after life.

The glaciers in the High Sierra are not large-the Mt. Lyell glacier, when visited by Mr. Muir in 1872, not being more than a mile in length and about the same measurement in width--and they are wanting in medial moraines. Their terminal moraines, however, are noticeable for their comparatively large size, and in other respects they assert their title to rank with true glacial formations. Not the least interesting are the stone tables of Parker Creek Glacier, supported on their pedestals of ice. Mr. Russell, in 1883, saw one of these curiosities, thirty-four feet long by twenty-three feet wide and ten feet thick, this enormous slab being supported by a column of ice eight feet high and from six feet to eight feet thick. Another curious formation is seen on Mt. Lyell Glacier, on the lower portion of which occur numerous ice-pyramids, varying in height from a few inches to fully three feet. These pyramidal structures are caused by the presence of pebbles and small pieces of granite on the glacier, which, becoming heated by the sun, melt the ice beneath them, and the water thus formed, being frozen again, forms harder ice more capable of resisting the heat than the porous quality of

the glacier-ice, which, thawing more rapidly, is surmounted by these cunningly-wrought pyramids. The pebbles are invariably found lying on the north sides of the pyramids, and by referring to the illustration it will be observed that the structure is concave on the side on which the stone lies.

Passing down Dana Creek we arrived at the Tuolumne River; and up the valley of that stream is the best route to Mt. Lyell. As we stand at the head of the cañon and gaze upon the majestic mountain before us, we acknowledge that our toil and labor is well repaid. The gentle grade along which we have been pursuing our way terminates in a succession of steep obstacles. Terrace after terrace, each with its swampy meadow-ground above, has to be climbed, forming a great stairway to the mountain's summit.

Having threaded our way up the beautiful valley of the head-waters of the Tuolumne, and surmounted, cliff after cliff, the stepping-stones to the giant's throne, we reach the ice and can appreciate the happiness felt by the first discoverers, the pioneers of geological examination of the structure of the Pacific Coast. Cradled on his lofty brow the glacier lies, moving downward with imperceptible pace to the borderland of its metempsychosis. It is difficult to realize the tremendous force of glaciers when we can see no movement in them. It is only by practical contrivance long continued that their motion can be detected. Mr. Muir, in August, 1872, by adopting the method of planting stakes in the Mt. McClure Glacier, and by patient investigation, proved that its maximum pace near its center was not more than forty-seven inches in fortysix days. Standing on one of these ice-streams, and knowing, without being able to perceive, that you are moving, you are led to compare this infinitesimally slow motion with the speed of a comet. I left the ground trodden by Muir, Le Conte and Russell, better able to realize their satis

faction when they knew that they were opening another leaf of the book wherein Nature records her work.

Shortly afterward I took the train to Sisson, which lies at the foot of Mount Shasta. Three distinct belts begird this mountain, which is truly a spectacle of imposing grandeur and domination. For scores of miles stretch wild-flower gardens around his base, pansied with their many hues and dotted here and there with dark bunches of coniferous arborage.

Leaving this zone of chaparral, we enter the fir belt, almost exclusively made up of the silver-fir. Then comes the Alpine zone, marked by its fringe of storm-beaten pines, dwarfed and stunted. We have left below us square miles of wild-rose beds, big patches gorgeous with the rhododendron, larkspur and columbine, and have reached the limit of vegetable life.

Mount Shasta may truly be described as glacier-crowned, inasmuch as besides several smaller glaciers, there are five ice-streams which invite especial attention. especial attention. With the exception of the Whitney Glacier, which was named in honor of the State Geologist of California, all have received Indian names, to wit: Bolan, meaning great; Hotlum, steep rock; Wintun, the Indian tribal name, and Konwakiton, mud-glacier. Clarence King furnishes the earliest account of the Mount Shasta ice-streams, having ascended the peak in 1870, and published his description of them in the American Journal of Science in the following year. Speaking of what is now known as the Whitney Glacier, he writes: "Its entire length in view was not less than three miles, its width opposite our station about four thousand feet, the surface here and there terribly broken in cascades.” Continuing their explorations, he and his party discovered a system of three considerable glaciers, the largest about four miles and a half in length and two or three miles wide. Mr. King remarks that an east-and-west line divides the mountain into glacier