The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1890-09-12
YOSEMITE TREASURES.
A Landscape Most DivineIy Beautiful and
Sublime.

a Landscape Most Divtnely Beautiful and
Sublime.
The Yosemite VALLEY, in the heart of
the Sierra Nevada is noble mark for
the traveller, whether tourist, botanist,
geologist or lover of wilderness pure
and simple. But those who are free
may find the journey a long one; not
because of the miles, for they are not so
many-onlY about two hundred and
fifty from San Francisco, and passed
over by rail and carriage roads in day
or two-but the was is SO beautiful that
one is beguiled at every step, and the
great golden days and weeks and months
go by uncounted. How wildly my own
| first Journey to Yosemite comes to
mind, though made more than score of
years ago. 1 set out afoot from Oak
land, on the bay of San Francisco, in
April. 1t was the bloom-time of the year
over all the lowlands and ranges of the
coast; the landscape was fairly drenched
with sunshine, the larks were singing,
and the hills were so covered with flow
ers that they seemed to be painted.
Slow indeed was my progress through
these glorious gardens, the first of the
| California fora / had seen. Cattle and
cultivation were making a few scars as
yet. and wandered enchanted in long,
we. sag curves, aware now and then
! that Yosemite lay to the eastward, and
that, sometime, should find it.
7 One shining morning, at the head of
the Pacheco Pass, landscape was dis
played that after all my wanderings
still appears as the most divinely beau
tiful and sublime l have ever beheld.
There at my feet lay the great central
plain of California, level as a lake,
thirty or forty miles wide, four hun
dred long, one rich furred bed of golden
Composite. And along the eastern shore
of this lake of gold rose the mighty
Sierra, miles in height, in massive,
tranquil grandeur, so gloriously colored
and so radiant that it seemed not clothed
with light, but wholly composed Of it,
like the wall of some celestial city.
Along the top, and extending good
way down, was rich pearl-gray belt of
snow; then belt of blue and dark
| purple, marking the extension of the
forests; and stretching along the base
of the range broad belt of rose-purple,
where lay the miners gold and the
! open foothill gardens-all the colors
| smoothly blending, making wall of
| fight clear as crystal and ineffably fine,
| yet firm as adamant Then it seemed
| 20 me the Sierra should be called, not
| the Nevada or Snowy Range, but the
Range of Light. And after ten years in
| the midst of it, rejoicing and wondering,
seeing the glorious floods of light that
| ill 1.-THE sunbursts of morning among
the mountain-peaks, the broad, monday
radiance on the crystal rocks, the flush
Of the alpenglow, and the thousand
iashing waterfalls with their marvellous
abundance of irised spray-it still seems
to me range of light. But no terres-
trial beauty may endure forever. The
! glory of wildness has already departed
from the great central plain. Its bloom
Is shed, and so in part is the bloom of
the mountains. In Yosemite, even I'M
der the protection of the Government,
ali that is perishable is vanishing apace.
| John Muir, in Century.