The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1883-06-01
The Yosemite Falls.
From the Cornhill MAGAZINE


No wonder the Indians reverence the
beautiful Yosemite falls. Even the white
settlers in the valley cannot resist their
influence, but speak of them with admir-
alton that amounts to love- Some spend
the Winter in the valley, and they told me
that if could.see the falls in their winter
robes, all fringed with icicles, should
gain a glimpse of fairyland. AT the base
of the great fall the FAIRIES build real ice
palace. sometimes more than one hundred
feet hight is formed by the ever falling.
freezing spray, and the bright sun CLEANS
on this glittering palace of crystal, and
the falling water striking upon it shoots
off in showers, like myriads opals and di-
almonds; but when first beheld them, on
a bright May morning, not an icicle re
mained, and the falls were in their glory
l had never dreamed of any thing so love
ly | confess that | am not keen lover
of waterfalls in general, and am often
inclined to vote them bore, when en-
thusiastic people insist on leaving the
blessed sunshine to go ever so far down
a dank, damp ravine to see some foolish
driplet. But here stand in the glorious
sunlight, among pine trees a couple of
hundred feet in height, and they are pig
mics like ourselves, in presence of even
the lowest step of the stately fall which
leaps and dashes from SO vast height
that it loses all semblance of water 1t
is splendid bouquet Of glistening rockets
which instead of rushing heavenward,
shoot down as if from the blue canopy
which seems to touch the brink, 2, 700
feet above us. Like myriad falling stars
they flash, each keeping in separate course
for its several hundred feet, till at length
it blends with 10000 more in the grand,
avalanche of frothy, fleecy foam, which
forever and forever falls, boiling and
raging like a whirlpool, among the huge
black boulders in the deep caldron below.
and throwing back clouds of mist and
vapor, The most exquisite moment &C.
ours when you reach some spot where
the suns rays, streaming past you, trans
form the hghtvapor into brilliant rainbow
prisms, which gird the fall with vivid iris
bars. As the water rockets flash through
there belts they seem tocarry the color.
onward as they fall and sometimes it
waves and trembles in the breeze, so that
the rainbow knows not where TO rest, but
forms a moving column of radiant tricol-
Or So large IA body of water rushing
through the air naturally produces asuong
current, which, passing between the face
of the rock and the fall, carries the lat
ter well forward, SO that it becomes the
sport of every breeze that dances through
4 bn 10,
ever vibrating from side to side, and
often forms semicircular curve. The
width of the stream at the summitssis IA
bout twenty to thirty feet, but at the base
I'of the upper fal! it has expanded to a
width of fully 300 feet; and, as the wind
carries it to one side or the other, it plays
over a space of about 600 f ,et in width
of precipitous rock face, 1000 feet in
depth. This the height of the upper fall
is seen from below, the YOSEMITE though
| divided into three distinct falls is appar-
entity all on one plane. 1t is only when
you reach some point from which you
see its sideways that you realize that the
great upper fall lies fully quarter of a
mile further than the middle and lower
falls, and that it rushes down this space
in boiling cascades till il reaches a per
pendicnlar rock, over which leaps about
600 feet, and then gives third and finai
plunge of about 500, making up total OF
little under ,, 700. Now, it you can real
ize that the height of Niagara is l52 feet
you will perceive that if some potent ma
gician could bring it into the valley, il
would be effectually concealed by trees
of fully Its own height, many far over.
topping it Niagara, of course, makes Vi
in width what she lacks in height. The
Horseshoe or Canadian fall is about Isl
feet The width is 2,100 feet. The
! American fall is about 100 feet in height
and 100 in width The total width, in
elusive of Goat Island, is 4, 200 feet