The correspondence between the Hetch Hetchy walls in their trends,
sculpture, physical structure, and general arrangement of the main
rock-masses and those of the Yosemite Valley has excited the wondering
admiration of every observer. We have seen that the El Capitan and
Cathedral rocks occupy the same relative positions In both valleys; so
also do their Yosemite points and North Domes. Again, that part of the
Yosemite north wall immediately to the east of the Yosemite Fall has two
horizontal benches, about 500 and 1500 feet above the floor, timbered
with golden-cup oak. Two benches similarly situated and timbered occur
on the same relative portion of the Hetch Hetchy north wall, to the east
of Wapama Fall, and on no other. The Yosemite is bounded at the head by
the great Half Dome. Hetch Hetchy is bounded in the same way though its
head rock is incomparably less wonderful and sublime in form.
The floor of the Valley is about three and a half miles long, and from a
fourth to half a mile wide. The lower portion is mostly a level meadow
about a mile long, with the trees restricted to the sides and the river
banks, and partially separated from the main, upper, forested portion by
a low bar of glacier-polished granite across which the river breaks in
rapids.
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