s when
the snow is melting fast. But, however situated, they soon cease to form
surprises to the studious mountaineer; for, like all the love-work of
Nature, they are harmoniously related to one another, and to all the
other features of the mountains. It is easy, therefore, to find the
bright lake-eyes in the roughest and most ungovernable-looking
topography of any landscape countenance. Even in the lower regions,
where they have been closed for many a century, their rocky orbits are
still discernible, filled in with the detritus of flood and avalanche. A
beautiful system of grouping in correspondence with the glacial
fountains is soon perceived; also their extension in the direction of
the trends of the ancient glaciers; and in general their dependence as
to form, size, and position upon the character of the rocks in which
their basins have been eroded, and the quantity and direction of
application of the glacial force expended upon each basin.

In the upper canons we usually find them in pretty regular succession,
strung together like beads on the bright ribbons of their
feeding-streams, which pour, white and gray with foam and spray, from
one to the other, their perfect mirror stillness making impressive
contrasts with the grand blare and glare of the connecting cataracts. In
Lake Hollow, on the north side of the Hoffman spur, immediately above
the great Tuolumne canon, there are ten lovely lakelets lying near
together in one general hollow, like eggs in a nest. Seen from above, in
a general view, feathered with Hemlock Spruce, and fringed with sedge,
they seem to me the most singularly beautiful and interestingly located
lake-cluster I have ever yet discovered.

Lake Tahoe, 22 miles long by about 10 wide, and from 500 to over 1600
feet in depth, is the largest of all the Sierra lakes. It lies just
beyond the northern limit of the higher portion of the range between the
main axis and a spur that puts out on the east side from near the head
of the Carson River. Its forested shores go curving in and out around
many an emerald bay and pine-crowned promontory, and its waters are
everywhere as keenly pure as any to be found among the highest
mountains.

Donner Lake, rendered memorable by the terrible fate of the Donner
party, is about three miles long, and lies about ten miles to the north
of Tahoe, at the head of one of the tributaries of the Truckee. A few
miles farther north lies Lake Independence, about the same si