The record-union., 1897-06-24
Weinst0Ck Lubn &C Co., 4OO-4L2 Street, Sacramento.

present these first chapters, we see that
| only very short geological time ago
a vast deluge of molten rocks poured
from many a crater and chasm on the
fianks and along the summit of the
range, filling river channels and lake
basins, and obliterating nearly every
| existing feature on the northern por
ton. AT length, when these broad lava
| floods ceased to ffow but while the
great volcanic cones built up the axis
still burned and smoked, the whole
Sierra passed under the domain of
snow and ice. Then over the bald.
| featureless blackened mountains,
! glaciers began to crawl, covering them
| from SUBMITS to the sea with man
tie of ice, and then, with infinite delib-
GRAFTON, the work went on of sculptur-
ing the range over again and making
new scenery. These mighty agents of
erosion crushed and ground the flinty
lavas and GRANTEES beneath their crys-
tai folds, working on through unnum-
| bered centuries, until in the fullness of
time the mighty Sierra was born again,
| brought to light nearly as we behold
| 1t to-day, with it's glaciers and snow
crushed pines at the top of the range,
| NIledl neIOS anu orange groves at the
| foot of it. This change from icy dark
ness to life and beauty was slow as we
count time, and is still going on over
all the world wherever glaciers exist;
but in no country, as far as 1 know,
| may these majestic changes be studied
to better advantage than in this land
of sunshine. Towards the close of the
Glacial Period in California, when the
snow clouds became less fertile and
the waste from the sunheat greater,
| the lower folds of the ice sheet dis
charging fleets of icebergs into the sea,
began to grow shallow and recede from
| the lowlands, and then more slowly UP
the fianks of the Sierra, in compliance
| with changes of climate The great
white mantle of ice on the mountains
at length broke up into series of gla-
| ciers more or less river-like with
many tributaries, and these again We're
melted and divided into still smaller
glaciers, until now only about sixty
| five of the smallest of the grand sys-
| TEN are left on the COOL northern
| slopes of the snowiest peaks. Plants
| and animals, biding their time, follow
| ed the Withdrawing ice, bestowing
quick animation on the newborn land
Escapes. Pine trees marched up the
snow-warmed moraines in long, hope
kful files; brown-spiked sedges fringed
| the shores of the young lakes; new
rivers roared in the canyons: flowers
bloomed around the feet of the great
FURNISHED domes; while mellow beds of
soil, broadly outspread, furnished food
to multitudes of natures waiting, hun
cry children, great and small-Squir-
rels, marmots, deer, bears, elephants
and birds, etc. The warm ground
burst into bloom, and the green, as
piring groves were haunted by songful
birds; and life in every form grew
richer and happier and more beautiful
as the eventful years passed away over
the land so lately suggestive of only
consummate desolation.
And now man has come with science
| and religion, arts and crafts, preach
| ing, plowing, planting, building Farms
and towns, with homes and factories,
churches and schools, parks and gar
dens, are spreading over the fertile
lowlands, and wildness is going away
| The dawn of a new day is breaking.
| Like the features of a landscape
emerging from floods of fire and ice,
| the mountain tops of civilization rath-
| er barren as yet, are rising over ignor-
ance and vice, to develop, we hope, as
| harmoniously in accordance with di-
| vine law as did the noble scenery Of
California