Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1870-06-22
THE YOSEMITE VALLEY.
Graphic Description Of the Great
Cilasm i'm the Sierra Nevada Noun

Graphic Description of thc Grea
Chasm i'm the Sierra Nevada Noun
tains.
TIL following description of the famou
Yosemite Valley is extracted from re
cent sermon by the Rev. Wayland Hoyt
of Brooklyn, New York:
That valley of the Yo-Semite-hoy
shall l describe it2 There are no human
words capacious enough or exact enough
to hold and disclose its marVels. tn,
valley is chasm between the two ranges
of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. 1t il
1000 feet above the level of the sea
/ 1t is about 100 miles eastward in direc
line from San Francisco. Having ad
vaneed by stage and steamboat to within
about twenty-five miles of the valley,
you must then complete your journey on
horseback. And so up and over a spul
of the Sierra Nevada, youride for twenty.
five miles along narrow forest trail,
winding in and out between columns OF
pine trees rising from one hundred to
two hundred and fifty feet in height. Al
length the ride is nearly done, and you
stop your horse upon a jutting rock and
look over into the mighty mountain
gorge, the upper end of which forms tie
70 Semitic Valley, and through which the
MERGED River rushes and roars and
plunges two thousand feet below you.
You are appalled, and dizzied at the
| spectacle-the deep shadows falling
on the gorges-the sheer rent be-
tween the mountains-here and there
large mountain birds, unterrifed,
wheeling in majestic flight-the river
dashing against the rocks, as though mad
at the distractions in its channel, and
! angrier still that with its utmost strength
it cannot hurl them from its course.
Then, entranced and yet appalled,, you
turn your horse and seek again the mar
row trail. 1t leads you down the noun
tain; the descent is steep and fearful;
often but the narrow footway clinging to
the mountain side-aboye you vast heights
of rock, below you, and right at your
side, the sheer and seemingly measureless
abyss. And so the path goes winding
down. AT last you reach the level, and
find yourself enclosed amid huge piles of
debris wrenched by the frosts from the
mountain side. Then winding out of
these you approach the entrance of the
Valley.
And the first thing which thrusts itself
upon your sight, and will not let you turn
your eyes away from it, is the immense
Ell Caiptan-the captain rock of all,
rightly so named-the great chief of the
valley. 1t is a ponderous mass of gran
ite- unbroken, square, perpendicular,
with 30 smooth front no pine OF moss
can gain foothold on it-lifting its gray
front full quarters of mile direct
into the sky. You have seen nothing
like that in your life before. Probably
there is not in the wide world. anywhere,
such simply ponderous mass. At once
you feel its power. 1t is a complete ty-
rant-it viii compel your gaze, There
arc crowds of wonders around you call
ing for your attention, but ycu are en-
slayed-you can simply gaze, and gaze
again. You can look no otherwhere-
until at last the pressure of its power be-
comes almost insupportable. Your soul
is crushed.
Then, when you may turn away and
pass little further on you are transfxed
and. fascinated by beauty. Opposite the
Ell Captain, and right across the valley,
perhaps two miles away; falls-and yet
it does not fall, it floats, almost as lightly
as the mists do along the mountain
side-foats downward, and waVers to
and fro asthe breeze caresses 1t, changing
it into all fantastic shapes of spray-the
Bridal Veil. 1t is q waterfall nine hun
bred and forty feet in height, so high in
descent, so light and beautiful in sub
stance, that the water, losing companion
ship with sister waters, divides itself into
minute and pearly drops, and glides down
in whitest spray; coming down softly and
lovingly as the feathery snow descends,
when sometimes, On some bright day in
winter, passing cloud scstters below q
few of its shining crystals.
When you are released little from the
fascination of such beauty, you pass on
to behold on the same side of the valley
the solemn masses of the cathedral spires,
of sombre color and Gothic shape, look
ing down upon you from heights averag-
ing two thousand four hundred feet.
just opposite these, on the other side of
the valley, are other pinnacled rocks, four
thousand three hundred feet aloft. So
you pass on along the floor of the valley
as level as the bosom of a lake on some
summer noon when the winds are whist
rich with the greencst grass, and flaming
with myriad flowers, and holding in its
embrace river, now swift and flecked
with foam-then led round into pools
pure and unrufhed as peaceful heart
and on either side of you the sheer and
lofty walls of rock, rising into an aver
age altitude of four thousand feet above
the plain on which you stand.
And now, from behind turn or cor
ner in the valley wall, flashes out upon
you the Falls of the Yo Semitic. 1t is
the loftiest waterfall in the world. The
water shooting over the distant rocky rim
must tumble more than half mile be-
fore it can touch the level plain below.
1t takes one sheer leap of sixteen hundred
feet, then it boils over rocks in cascade
for four hundred, then it rushes on to its
last leap of seven hundred feet. What
power, and yet what lightnessi What
fearful, furious plunge, and yet what ex-
quisiteness of beauty SwayiDg drape-
ries of spray-dOwn-shooting rockets of
silver-the lustrOus CLEAN of the water
against the solemn purple of the smooth
and uplifted rocks.
Yet from this fresh wonder must you
tear yourself, and go onward still. OPP
posite to you, and on the other side of the
valley, is the Sentinel bookkeeping con-
tinual watch above it from its eyrie,
9,270 feet above you. You pause to lift
wondering gaze toward that. But now,
as you pass little onward, you are thrust
into new thraldom by another power; for
right before you, and straight ahead,
tower the majestic Domes of the Yo-
Semitic. Yes, they are domes-domes of
bare granite-domes as absolute and exact
as that of the capital at Washington, or
as that of St. Peters at Rome; only those
in height and size, compared with these,
are but as hillock to an Alp. There
is the North Dome, heaving its rounded
1925 feet into the sky above
you; and right opposite that
on the other side the valley, the wonder
of wonders-as the Indians rightly named
it, the Goddess of the Valley-the South
Dome, piled six thousand feet aloft from
Al.