The Osceola times., 1880-12-18
ARKANSAS
AN ALAs KA Y0Si MITE.
Something o. Interest as List Discovered In
that Drfary Pcssf ssion,

ttAt L'ss
John Muir, wiring from Alaska 10 th'
San Francisco Bulletin, says of one of ih'
regions shich he has visited near Sun
Bum Bay:
This i in form and ofi.in typica
Yosemite valley, though Us yet its hool
is covered with ice and wa;er-ice a6ov,
and beneath. How noble a mansion il
which to spend a winter ami a summer
1t is about ten miles long. and from
three. quarters to one mile wide. 1t con
tains tea larce falls and cascades, the
finest one on the LETT side, near the head.
After coming in an admirable rush over
a granite brow where 1t Is first seen at a
height of 900 or 1000 feet. II leaps q
sheer precipice of about $50 feet, then
divides and reaches the iidewater in
broken rapids over bowl iers. Another
about 1000 feet high drops at once onto
the margin OF the glacier two miles back
from the spout. Several Of the others
are upward of 5000 feet high, descend
ing through narrow gorges as richly
feathered with ferns as any channel that
water ever flowed in, though tremen-
dously abrupt and deep. A grander
array OF rocks and waterfalls | have
never yet beheld. The amount of tim.
Der on the walls is about the same as
that ON tn Yosemite walls, but owing
to create Moisture their is more small
egetables-bushes, mosses, grasses, etc;
though by lar the greater portion of the
area of the wall surface is bare, and
shining with the polish it received when
occupied by the glacier that formed the
entire canon. Tie deep green patches
seen ON the mountains back Of the walls
at the limit OF vegetation are grass,
where the wild goats, or chamois, rather,
roam and feed. The still gTeener and
more luxuriant pasture further down in
the guillies and slopes, where the de-
ciiv,ty is not excessive, are made up
mostly of willows, birch and huckleberry
Lushes, with varying amount Of prick
ly ribes, and rubus and eclihopanax.
This growth when approached, especial
ly on the lower slopes near the level of
the sea at the jaws Of the great side
canons, is found to be the most impene-
trable and tediSus and toilsome combina-
alton of fighting bush, that the weary
explorer ever fell Into, incomparably
more furnishing than the bucklhorn and
manzannita tlngles OF the Sierra. The
cliff gardens of this hidden Yosemite are
exceedingly rich and beautiful. On al
most every rift and bench, however
small, as well as on the wider table racks
where a little soil had lodged, we find
companies of fine bright flowers, always
fresh, and always tar more brilliant
colored than could be locked for in so
cool and beclouded a region-larkspurs,
geraniums, paintedcusp, b'ue-bells, gen.
tians, sedums, saxifraxes, epilobiums,
vio'ets, parnassia, verdtrum, orchids,
fritilaria, similax, spranthes, asters
daisies, the yellow pond lily, bryaLthus,
casslope, linnea, and great variety of
Towering rihes and rubBs and heath
worts. Many of the above, though with
soft bush stems and leaves, are yet as
brightly painted as those Of the warm
sunlands Of the south. The heathworts
i'll particular are very abundant and
beautiful, both in flower and fruit, max
ing. delicate green carpets for the rocks,
flushed with pink bells or dotted with
red and blue berries. The grasses are
everywhere tall, with ribbon leaves well
tempered and arched, and with no lack
of Dristly spikes and nodding, purple
panicles. The Alpine grasses of the
Sierra, making close carpets on the ela-
cier meadows, have not yet seen in
Alaska.