The ponderous flood, weighing hundreds of tons, was sustained,
hovering, hesitating, like a bunch of thistledown, while I counted one
hundred and ninety. All this time the ordinary amount of water was
coming over the cliff and accumulating in the air, swedging and widening
and forming an irregular cone about seven hundred feet high, tapering to
the top of the wall, the whole standing still, jesting on the invisible
arm of the North Wind. At length, as if commanded to go on again, scores
of arrowy comets shot forth from the bottom of the suspended mass as if
escaping from separate outlets.
The brow of El Capitan was decked with long snow-streamers like hair,
Clouds' Rest was fairly enveloped in drifting gossamer elms, and the Half
Dome loomed up in the garish light like a majestic, living creature clad
in the same gauzy, wind-woven drapery, while upward currents meeting at
times overhead made it smoke like a volcano.
An Extraordinary Storm And Flood
Glorious as are these rocks and waters arrayed in storm robes, or
chanting rejoicing in every-day dress, they are still more glorious when
rare weather conditions meet to make them sing with floods. Only once
during all the years I have lived in the Valley have I seen it in full
flood bloom. In 1871 the early winter weather was delightful; the days
all sunshine, the nights all starry and calm, calling forth fine crops
of frost-crystals on the pines and withered ferns and grasses for the
morning sunbeams to sift through.
Pages:
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59