The story of its death is not unlike that of its companion already
described, though the declivity of its channel, and its uniform exposure
to sun-heat prevented any considerable portion of its current from
becoming torpid, lingering only well up on the Mountain slopes to finish
their sculpture and encircle them with a zone of moraine soil for
forests and gardens. Nowhere in all this wonderful region will you find
more beautiful trees and shrubs and flowers covering the traces of ice.
The rugged Tenaya Glacier wildly crevassed here and there above the
ridges it had to cross, instead of drawing its sources direct from the
summit of the Range, formed, as we have seen, one of the outlets of the
great Tuolumne Glacier, issuing from this noble fountain like a river
from a lake, two miles wide, about fourteen miles long, and from 1500
to 2000 feet deep.
In leaving the Tuolumne region it crossed over the divide, as mentioned
above, between the Tuolumne and Tenaya basins, making an ascent of five
hundred feet. Hence, after contracting its wide current and receiving
a strong affluent from the fountains about Cathedral Peak, it poured
its massive flood over the northeastern rim of its basin in splendid
cascades. Then, crushing heavily against the Clouds' Rest Ridge, it bore
down upon the Yosemite domes with concentrated energy.
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