The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1879-05-15
The Birth Of a Lake.

The MERGED river, as whole, Is re-
markably like an elm tree, and it requires
but little effort on the part of the imagi-
nation,to picture it standing upright, with
all its lakes hanging upon its spreading
branches, the topmost 80 miles in height
Now add all the other lake-bearing rivers
Of the Sierra, each in its place, and you
will have a truly glorious spectacular
avenue the length and width of the range /;
the long, slender gray shafts, the milky
way of arching branches, and the moon
like lakes, all clearly defined and shining
on the blue sky. How excltedly such an
addition to astronomy would be gazed
at! Yet these lakeful rivers are still more
excItingly beautiful and impressive in
their natural positions, to those who have
the eyes to see them, as they lie imbedded
in their meadows and forests and glacier
sculptured rocks. When mountain lake
is bOrn-when, like a young eye, it first
opens to the light-it is An irregular ex-
pressionless crescent, inclosed IN banks of
rock and ice-bare, glaciated rock on the
lower side, the rugged snOut of a glacier
on the upper. In this condition it remains
for many year, until at length, toward
the end of some suspicious cluster of sea
sons, the glacier recedes beyond the upper
margin, leaving it open from shore to
shore, for the first time, thousands of years
after its conception beneath the glacier
that scooped its basin. The landscape,
cold and bare, is reflected in its pure
depths; the winds ruffle its CLASSY sur
face, and the sun fills it with thrObblng
spangles, while its waves begin to lap and
murmur around its leafless shorcs-sun
spangles and stars its only flowers, and
winds and the snow its only visitors.
and numerous rills, still younger than the
lake itself, bring down glacier mud, sand
grains and pebbles, giving rise to margin
rings and plats of soil. To these fresh soil
beds come many a waiting plant First,
a hardy carex, with arching leaves and
spike of brown flowers; then, as the sea
sons grow warmer and the soil beds deeper
and wider, other scdges take their ap-
pointed places. and these are Joined by
blue gentians, 4.lisies, dodecatheOns, viO-
lets, honey worts and many lOwly moss.
Shrubs also hasten in time to the new
gardens-kalmia, with its glossy leaves
and purple flowers, the Arctic willow,
making soft woven carpets, together with.
the healthy bryanthus and cassiope-the
fairest and dearest of them all. Insects
now enrich the air, frogs pipe cheerily in
the shadows, soon followed by the ouzel,
which is the first bird to visit glacier
lake, as the sedge is the first of plants.
So the young lake grows in beauty, be
coming more and more humanity lOvable
from century to century; groves of aspen
spring up, and hardy pines, and the Viii
Hanson spruce, until richly overshadowed
and embowered. But while its shores are
being enriched, the soil beds creep out
with incessant growth, contracting its
area, while the lighter mud particles de-
posted on the bottom cause it to grow
constantly shallower, until at length the
last remnant of the lake vanishes-closed
forever in ripe and natural old age. And
now its feeding stream goes winding on
have taken its place without hating for a
moment.