And the mountain peaks around the sides of the
upper general Tuolumne Basin, with their sharp unglaciated summits and
polished rounded sides, indicate the height to which the glaciers rose;
while the numerous moraines, curving and swaying in beautiful lines,
mark the boundaries of the main trunk and its tributaries as they
existed toward the close of the glacial winter. None of the commerical
highways of the land or sea, marked with buoys and lamps, fences, and
guide-boards, is so unmistakably indicated as are these broad, shining
trails of the vanished Tuolumne Glacier and its far-reaching
tributaries.
I should like now to offer some nearer views of a few characteristic
specimens of these wonderful old ice-streams, though it is not easy to
make a selection from so vast a system intimately inter-blended. The
main branches of the Merced Glacier are, perhaps, best suited to our
purpose, because their basins, full of telling inscriptions, are the
ones most attractive and accessible to the Yosemite visitors who like to
look beyond the valley walls. They number five, and may well be called
Yosemite glaciers, since they were the agents Nature used in developing
and fashioning the grand Valley. The names I have given them are,
beginning with the northern-most, Yosemite Creek, Hoffman, Tenaya, South
Lyell, and Illilouette Glaciers.
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