INDIAN CAMP ON THE NEVADA PLAINS.
The fall is about 600 feet, the stream being clearly defined throughout its descent, and the volume of water is very great, giving to the falls the very ideal of beauty, power and truly extraordinary grandeur. In the Cañon of the South Fork, there is another fall of equal height, and it is one, too, of much attractiveness, but brought into comparison with that of Nevada, of which it is a close brother, though difficult to reach, it appears so inconsequential as to scarcely deserve a name, though it is occasionally known as Illillouette Falls.
But everywhere, up and down that magic valley, whether viewed from the gorges that have their bottoms in dark and mystic abysses, or from amazing heights of walls thrust far into the skies, there is wonder piled upon wonder, grandeur overtopping rapture, dumfounded admiration riding at furious pace in the lead of inspiration, glorious realization gilding the visions of imagination. As the gifted Benjamin F. Taylor wrote of his visit to this wonderland: “Yosemite awaited us without warning. Spectral white in the glancing of the sun, the first thought was that the granite ledges of all the mountains had come to resurrection, and were standing pale and dumb before the Lord. I turned to it again, and began to see the towers, the domes, the spires, the battlements, the arches and the white clouds of solid granite, surging up into the air and come to everlasting anchor until the mountains shall be moved! You hasten on; you hear the winds intoning in the choral galleries a mile above your head; you hear the crash of waters as of cataracts in the sky; you trample upon broad shadows that have fallen thousands of feet down, like the cast-off garments of descending night.”
HALF DOME AND CLOUD’S REST, YOSEMITE VALLEY.—This is equally as grand a view of portions of the Yosemite scenery as the one given on page 177, though perhaps less beautiful from an artistic standard. The half dome on the left is one of the most striking features of this photograph. It is so smooth and regular in its outlines that we can hardly regard it as an accident of nature, but rather a work of design. But, after all, do we not find design, and law, and regularity of purpose in all the works of nature?
