North Dome
lifts its rounded granite bulk three thousand five hundred and seventy feet above the valley. It looks as if built of huge, concentric, overlapping, hemispherical domes, piled one upon another, and having their overlapping edges irregularly broken away. On the valley side, that is, toward the south and southeast, it is so steep that no human foot has ever climbed it. In the rear, however, that is, toward the north and west, it falls away in a vast ridge or spine, along which one can easily gain the very summit of the dome itself. The Indian name was To-coy-ah, meaning the shade of an Indian baby basket.
Passing three quarters of a mile still down, we reach the angle or turn between the Tenaya cañon and the valley proper. In this turn, in fact forming the angle, stands the
Washington Column,
a rounded, columnar rock tower, partially standing forth from the abutting cliff behind. This reaches the height of two thousand five hundred feet.
Immediately beyond this, large masses of the huge concentric, overlapping plates, have cracked off, slipped away and fallen, leaving rough bas-relief arches several hundred yards long, and projecting some scores of feet, like rudely-drawn gigantic eyebrows. These are commonly called the
Royal Arches,
or the Arched Rocks, but the Indian name, Hun-to, "The Watching Eye," will better satisfy the poetical visitor, unless, indeed, his Masonic proclivities quite overpower his poetic appreciation, in which case he will undoubtedly prefer the former title.
For the next mile and a half northwest nothing of special wonder for Yosemite detains us.
The relief is fitting and needful, not only that we may recover in some degree from the continued effect of the marvels already past, but, more especially, that we may rally in preparation for the most stupendous wonder of them all, the great