Our summit was four feet across, not large enough for the transit instrument and both of us; so I, whose duties were geological, descended to a niche a few feet lower and sat down to my writing.
The sense of aërial isolation was thrilling. Away below, rocks, ridges, crags, and fields of ice swell up in jostling confusion to make a base from which springs the spire of stone 11,600 feet high. On all sides I could look right down at the narrow pedestal. Eastward great ranks of peaks, culminating in Mount Lyell, were in full, clear view; all streams and cañons tributary to the Merced were beneath us in map-like distinctness. Afar to the west lay the rolling plateau gashed with cañons; there the white line of Yosemite Fall; and beyond, half submerged in warm haze, my Sunday mountain.
The same little arctic bluebird came again and perched close by me, pouring out his sweet, simple song with a gayety and freedom which wholly charmed me.
During our four hours’ stay the thought that we must make that leap again gradually intruded itself, and whether writing or studying the country I could not altogether free myself from its pressure.
It was a relief when we packed up and descended to the horrible cleft to actually meet our danger. We had now an unreliable footing to spring from, and a mere block of rock to balance us after the jump.
We sprang strongly, struck firmly, and were safe. We worked patiently down the east face, wound among blocks and pinnacles of the lower descent, and hurried through moraines to camp, well pleased that the Obelisk had not vanquished us.
X
CUT-OFF COPPLES’S
1870
One October day, as Kaweah and I travelled by ourselves over a lonely foothill trail, I came to consider myself the friend of woodpeckers. With rather more reserve as regards the bluejay, let me admit great interest in his worldly wisdom. As an instance of co-operative living the partnership of these two birds is rather more hopeful than most mundane experiments. For many autumn and winter months such food as their dainty taste chooses is so rare throughout the Sierras that in default of any climatic temptation to migrate the birds get in harvests with annual regularity and surprising labor. Oak and pine mingle in open growth. Acorns from the one are their grain; the soft pine bark is granary; and this the process:
Armies of woodpeckers drill small, round holes in the bark of standing pine-trees, sometimes perforating it thickly up to twenty or thirty and even forty feet above the ground; then about equal numbers of woodpeckers and jays gather acorns, rejecting always the little cup, and insert the gland tightly in the pine bark with its tender base outward and exposed to the air.
A woodpecker, having drilled a hole, has its exact measure in mind, and after examining a number of acorns makes his selection, and never fails of a perfect fit. Not so the jolly, careless jay, who picks up any sound acorn he finds, and, if it is too large for a hole, drops it in the most off-hand way, as if it were an affair of no consequence; utters one of his dry, chuckling squawks, and either tries another or loafs about, lazily watching the hard-working woodpeckers.