Here is a moss with a globular capsule and a squinted, cowl-shaped calyptra. Do you know it?
Yosemite, May 17th, 1870.
Our valley is just gushing, throbbing full of open, absorbable beauty, and I feel that I must tell you about it. I am lonely among my enjoyments; the valley is full of visitors, but I have no one to talk to.
The season that is with us now is about what corresponds to full-fledged spring in Wisconsin. The oaks are in full leaf and have shoots long enough to bend over and move in the wind. The good old bracken is waist-high already, and almost all the rock ferns have their outermost fronds unrolled. Spring is in full power and is steadily reaching higher like a shadow and will soon reach the topmost horizon of rocks. The buds of the poplar opened on the 19th of last month, those of the oaks on the 24th.
May 1st was a fine, hopeful, healthful, cool, bright day with plenty of the fragrance of new leaves and flowers and of the music of bugs and birds. From the 5th to 14th was extremely warm, the thermometer averaging about 85 degrees at noon in shade. Craggy banks of cumuli became common about Storm King and the Dome. Flowers came in troops. The upper snows melted very fast, raising the falls to their highest pitch of glory. The waters of the Yosemite Fall no longer float softly and downily like hanks of spent rockets but shoot at once to the bottom with tremendous energy. There is at least ten times the amount of water in the valley that there was when you were here.
In crossing the valley we had to sail in the boat. The river paid but little attention to its banks, flowing over the meadow in great river-like sheets. But last Sunday, 15th, was a dark day; the rich streams of heat and light were withheld; the thermometer fell suddenly to 35 degrees, and down among the verdant banks of new leaves, and groves of half-open ferns, and thick settlements of confident flowers, came heavy snow in big, blinding flakes, coming down with a steady gait and taking their places gracefully upon shrinking leaves and petals as if they were doing exactly right. The whole day was snowy and stormy like a piece of early winter. Snow fell also on the 16th. A good many of the ferns and delicate flowers are killed.
There are about fifty visitors in the valley at present. When are you and the Doctor coming? Mr. Hutchings has not yet returned from Washington, and so I will be here all summer. I have not heard from you since January.
I had a letter the other day from Prof. Butler. He has been glancing and twinkling about among the towns of all the States at a most unsubstantial velocity.
Did you see the gold of the Joaquin plains this spring? There is a later gold in October which you must see.
Remember me warmly to Dr. Carr and all the boys, and I remain always