ve the species of trees which characterized
the several elevations. At one thousand feet nut pines and oaks mingled
gracefully together, but at another thousand gradually disappeared,
giving place to the lofty yellow pines, added to which the sugar pine
was found at three thousand feet, that in turn dying out at seven
thousand feet. Next came the spruce, superbly developed, growing to a
height of two hundred feet; then the white pine, the silver fir, and the
arbor vitae, all thriving luxuriously after their kind. Birds almost
entirely disappeared at these altitudes, preferring the more genial
warmth and life of the plains; but now and then an eagle, with broad
spread pinions, swooped gracefully from the top of some lonely pine, and
sailed, without a flutter of his wings, far away across the depth of the
valley, and was soon lost to sight by the winding of the gorge. Even the
presence of this proud and peculiar bird but emphasized the loneliness
of these silent heights.

After hours of upward struggle the crowning point was reached. The
driver remarked, with a flourish of his whip: "It's all down hill from
here;" soon after which we emerged from the forest road and came to the
open plateau known to tourists as Inspiration Point. Here the first
comprehensive view of the valley is obtained. We paused briefly to
behold and to realize, as far as possible, such a scene as might never
again be afforded us. Though we were now at an elevation of over seven
thousand feet above the plains, the Yosemite Valley itself, from this
point, was but about three thousand five hundred feet below us, into
which we gazed with uninterrupted view. Running nearly due east and
west, it looked small and circumscribed from this great height, but was
really a gorge of about eight miles in length by two miles in width. On
either side rose vertical cliffs of granite, varying from four to five
thousand feet in height, the lofty gorges here and there discharging
waterfalls of transparent beauty.

The precipitous mountains which wall in the valley are composed of
seventeen distinctive formations, the loftiest of which is Mount Starr
King, 5,600 feet in height; but the Three Brothers, with an average
height of less than 4,000 feet, and Sentinel Dome, 4,500 feet, are quite
as prominent, so far as the ordinary power of vision goes; while El
Capitan, which is but 3,300 feet high, seems, from its special position,
more striking and effective than the other t