UPPER YOSEMITE FALLS IN WINTER.
VIEW OF AMERICAN RIVER CAÑON, IN THE SIERRAS.
Yosemite Falls in winter, with the lace-like sheet of water gently pouring down between the columns of ice on either side, present a scene of indescribable loveliness. It is a scene, also, not often witnessed, for Yosemite has a dearth of visitors during the winter.—The companion photograph affords a fine view of scenery in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, made famous by Mark Twain in one of his jokes, wherein he stated that the changes of climate in that region were so sudden and extreme that, while hunting in the mountains one day, his dog’s head was sun-struck by the intense heat, while at the same time his tail was frozen by the severe cold prevailing at his other extremity. The point of the joke will be appreciated after reading the splendid description of this locality by the author of Glimpses of America on page [192].
A ROTARY SNOW PLOW CUTTING THROUGH A BLOCKADE ON THE SIERRAS.
After leaving Cape Horn, and passing many relics of early mining days: holes in the ground, decaying sluice-boxes, long flumes, tumble-down shanties, and a few hydraulic works, the road gains the Sacramento Valley, where the passengers are met by a burst of sunshine that makes the land laugh with plenty, and fills every heart with gladness. The air is fragrant with the almond and orange, and where husbandry has not covered the broad-spreading acres with grain or vineyards, there are flowers of a thousand hues, and butterflies of corresponding colors. The early emigrants from the East, who sought fortune on the Pacific slope after the gold discoveries of 1848-49, found a paradise in the fragrant and prolific valley of the Sacramento, which, beautiful at all times, was to them, after a journey of almost unbearable hardships across the burning sands of the American Desert, a region of incomparable delight. There is, indeed, no contrast in all nature so sudden and so great as that afforded between Nevada and California, the line of separation being the Sierras. Out of the arid plains, a very ocean of verdureless desolation, the road rises rapidly to altitudes of perpetual snow and into forests of pine that cover the sides of fearful precipices, the peaks of towering mountains and the jaws of yawning chasms; then it swoops down again into a land of perennial bloom, the antithesis of that of the eastern desert, where, instead of parching, the sun revivifies and forces into fruitage orchards, vineyards, groves, gardens, and fields, making the land one of teeming plenty, and joyful with song of bird, flash of stream, gleam of golden grain, and resonant with the laughing chorus of exuberant nature. More fortunes have been won by aid of the hoe and sickle wielded in this charming valley than were ever gained by means of pick, flame and rocker on the harsh mountain sides, where the gold-seekers have toiled so hopefully for forty years, and in a great majority of cases spent their strength without reward.