In the æons of past centuries there were about thirty species of this genus scattered over the earth. In Asia fossilized specimens of cones, foliage and wood have been found. To-day there are but two living specimens of these trees on earth, the Sequoia gigantea and the Sequoia sempervirens, or redwood. The former are to be found only in the Sierras, while the latter grows only on the Coast range, and all in California. The largest tree in the Sequoia grove in Mariposa county measures one hundred and eighty feet in circumference and three hundred and sixteen feet in height.
This, the largest tree in the world, has been named Columbia.
The YoSemite, the most wonderful of all valleys, lies hidden deep in the heart of the Sierras. It detracts something from the romance of the musical Spanish when one learns that YoSemite is only Spanish for grizzly bear. The first white men to enter the valley were looking for bear, not scenery.
This wonderful valley, this marvelous gorge, “touched by a light that hath no name, a glory never sung,” is a puzzle to geologists. It is a granite-walled chasm in the very heart of the mountains. The solid rock walls have split in half, one-half dropping out of sight, leaving only this beautiful valley to tell the tale.
Down the dark, frowning walls, which rise sheer from three to five thousand feet, plunge numerous waterfalls which leap two thousand feet at a bound. Through the valley flows the Merced river. Its water, clear as crystal, is full of that most delicious of all fish, mountain trout. A more pellucid stream does not flow on this continent. Up in the mountain the Merced river is a wild, roaring torrent, but through the valley it flows placidly over its white pebble bed, bathing the brown roots of the trees that fringe its banks. The trout float lazily along, leaping up to catch the insects that fly over the water, or sleeping in quiet pools and shady nooks along the bank. Here the cook drops his line out of the kitchen window and hooks trout for our breakfast.
The air is fragrant with the odor of many blossoms. The murmur of YoSemite falls lulls one to sleep as it goes leaping down five thousand feet over the granite wall to the pool below, clashing with spray the flowers that bloom on its banks.
YoSemite is truly a valley with little suggestion of the cañon about it. The Half Dome towering high above almost conceals the trench of the river, and the gorge of Tenaya creek. Several thousand broad acres spread out in a level tract on its long narrow bottom.
HALF DOME AND MERCED RIVER.
El Capitan is the monarch of the world of rocks. A solid mass of granite, towering skyward three-fifths of a mile, barren except for one lone tree, an alligator pine, one hundred and twenty-seven feet high, growing on a narrow ledge, in a niche a thousand feet above its base. Its rugged face, one and one-half miles across, kissed to a soft creamy whiteness by the suns of summer and the snows of winter. That is El Capitan, the wonder of the world. The Indians call it Tutockahnulah, in honor of their greatest chief.