In many places,
especially in the middle region of the western flank, the main canyons
widen into spacious valleys or parks diversified like landscape gardens
with meadows and groves and thickets of blooming bushes, while the lofty
walls, infinitely varied in form are fringed with ferns, flowering
plants, shrubs of many species and tall evergreens and oaks that find
footholds on small benches and tables, all enlivened and made glorious
with rejoicing stream that come chanting in chorus over the cliffs and
through side canyons in falls of every conceivable form, to join the
river that flow in tranquil, shining beauty down the middle of each
one of them.
The Incomparable Yosemite
The most famous and accessible of these canyon valleys, and also the one
that presents their most striking and sublime features on the grandest
scale, is the Yosemite, situated in the basin of the Merced River at an
elevation of 4000 feet above the level of the sea. It is about seven
miles long, half a mile to a mile wide, and nearly a mile deep in the
solid granite flank of the range. The walls are made up of rocks,
mountains in size, partly separated from each other by side canyons, and
they are so sheer in front, and so compactly and harmoniously arranged
on a level floor, that the Valley, comprehensively seen, looks like an
immense hall or temple lighted from above.
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