File:Our national parks (1909) (14782525852).jpg

Identifier: ournationalparks1909muir (find matches)
Title: Our national parks
Year: 1909 (1900s)
Authors: Muir, John, 1838-1914 author
Subjects: National parks and reserves
Publisher: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Company
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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and there,sprinkled in the gray gravel like daisies in asod; but in others half or more is made up ofcrystals, and the glow of the imbedded or looselystrewn gems and their colored gleams and glint-ings at different times of the day when the sunis shining might well exhilarate the flowers thatgrow among them, and console them for beingso completely outshone. These radiant sheets and belts and dome-en-circling rings of crystals are the most beautifulof all the Sierra soil-beds, while the huge talusesranged along the walls of the great canons arethe deepest and roughest. Instead of beingslowly weathered and accumulated from thecliffs overhead like common taluses, they wereaU formed suddenly and simultaneously by anearthquake that occurred at least three centuriesago. Though thus hurled into existence at asingle effort, they are the least changeable anddestructible of all the soil formations in therange. Excepting those which were launcheddirectly into the channels of rivers, scarcely one
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A YOSEMITE CANON CLIFF (EL CAPITAN) i WILD GARDENS OF THE YOSEMITE PARK 141 of their wedged and interlocked boulders hasbeen moved since the day of their creation, andthough mostly made up of huge angular blocksof granite, many of them from ten to fifty feetcube, trees and shrubs make out to live andthrive on them, and even delicate herbaceousplants, — draperia, coUomia, zauschneria, etc., —soothing their rugged features with gardens andgroves. In general views of the Park scarce ahint is given of its floral wealth. Only by pa-tiently, lovingly sauntering about in it will youdiscover that it is all more or less flowery, theforests as well as the open spaces, and the moun-tain tops and rugged slopes around the glaciersas well as the sunny meadows. Even the majestic canon cliffs, seemingly ab-solutely flawless for thousands of feet and neces-sarily doomed to eternal sterility, are cheeredwith happy flowers on invisible niches and ledgeswherever the slightest grip for a root can befo

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