Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1873-01-17


The diadem for scenic grandeur has here
tofore been won by Yosemite, but late ex-
plorations in the Sierra Nevada have re-
vealed some half dozen contestants for that
honor. Among these may he mentioned
Mount Shasta, the canon of the South Fork
of Kings river lin the shadow of Mount
Whitney,, and the great Tuolumme river
canon. John Muir, the lonely adventur-
Gus explorer and geologist of the Yosemite
Valley, and Galen Clark, State Guardian of
that valley, last month penetrated and ex-
plored the last mentioned canon, which
Professor Whitney and Clarence King did
not enter, the former expressing a doubt,
his State geological report, whether it
was possible TO get into ii at all. Mr.. Muir
reports that this canon lies about eighteen
miles in an almost due northerly direction
from Yosemite Valley. It's beginning or
the main Tuolumme river runs between il.
1t curve in an unbroken line for over for
ty miles, and runs up to and ends in the
very heart of the SUBMITS of the upper 81
ezra Nevada. The uneuphoniously named
Hetch-IIetchy Valley constitutes an ex-
panded portion of the great Tuoumme
canon, which properly begins at the eastern
end of Hetch- Hetchy, and has, from thence
to its head, a length Of twenty miles of
continuous, unbroken, vertical walls of
granite, similarto, hut more clearly cut and
with much greater depth than those of Yo-
semitic Valley.
Yosemite Valley has an average width of
half mile, and is in one place mile wide,
but the Tuolumme canon has nowhere
width exceeding quarter of mile, and is
in some places much narrower than that.
The Tuolumme river which runs through
ii has twice the width of the Merced. The
falls of the Merced- Yosemite surpass those
of Tuolumme canon in unbroken volumes
of descending water; but, in endless vari-
ETY. of cascades end watersheds, the Tuo-
lunme canon is far superior. The great
walls of the canon are scanned by water
worn fissures, down which rivers leap,
churn, thunder, brawl and sing with all
possible varieties and expression of sound.
There is one water-leap 1900 feet high in
the upper Tuolumme canon, but it is not
unbroken like the upper Yosemite, and is
in that respect inferior to the latter. The
upper Yosemite falls are 1900 feet high. In
the spring, when the river is full that fall
tumbles into its great water-worr. rock v
bowl with sound resembling the fall from
the sky of gigantic cannon balls on mas
sive and tightly stretched drums. This
sound closely resembles, yet hardly rises
to the noisy dignity of the loudest peals of
thunder; but the Tuolumme waterfall is
as delfening as the loudest thunder-a
thunder which is brought directly home to
the ears by the narrowness and vast depth
of the great ice-covered fssure and the un-
surpassed facilities it affords for ponderous
echoes.
One of the waterfalls spreads out at first
| like a great iilmy fan of slvery- threaded
water but after descent in this shape OF
| about two hundred feet ii is whirled over,
closed up with lightning-like rapidity,
changed in color, shot down a narrow
groove of ROCKS like an arrow of steam
The great sculpture marks of glacial action
are much newer and more easily read in
the Tuolumme than in the canon, for
though called valley, it is the canon o
the Yosemite. The glacial alphabet by
which the history of the glacial action can
be read is very much blurred in Yosemite
by the subsequent action of rain, snow
sun, winds and earthquakes but in the
Tuolumme canon the page is fresh from
the glacial workshop on the SUBMITS o
mounts Lyell, Dana, Gibbs and Ritter. The
glacier on the latter has a length and widtl
OF about half mile, and depth of abou
eight hundred feet. The glaciers from thest
mountains, Mr.. Muir thinks, at one time
not only filled the great Tuolumme canon
but lavishly overnowed it as a river over
flows its banks in spring time.
Messrs. Muir and Clark had a rough tasI
in exploring the great canon and its sur
roundings. They we,e forced to wade rush
ing, icy torrents, the sides of which brush
ed the foot of perpendicular rocks of gran
ite. They camped one night in their shirt
sleeves aud went supperless to bed. On,
of the walls mentioned is four thousanC
feet high. Those who have come out o
Yosemite by Coul,erville trail will remem
Der what a magnificent view of the Brida
Veil Falls is had from it. Those falls ar
by no means the largest, but they are tn
most beautiful and appropriately named o
all the great falls of the great valley. 1h
wind swings them and dsarranges thei
falling folds and silver threads, just as
would veil of the most gauzy texture
There are many of these bridal veil falls il
Hetch- Hetchy valley and the Tuolumm
canon. There is a greater display and va
riety of water shapes. hues, Ii nts, motion
and expressions in the latter canon than il
Yosemite. One imagines he has seen an
heard all the possible combinations int
which water can enter to awe and deligh
the eye and charm the ear, after a visit t
Yosemite but Mr.. Muir states that the ex
ploration of the Tuolumme canon has re
veaed innumerable new discoveries in thi
respect, even to his eye, which has 10
years been familiar with all the falls of tn
Yosemite region. 1t is evident from thes
and other recent discoveries in the Sierr
Nevada that there is wealth of wonder
there, outside of and in many respects ia
SURPRISING those regions on which the eye
of tourists have heretofore rested.--Sd
| E'TdnciScO BNIiefin