Silently flying through the
darkened air, swirling, glinting, to their appointed places, they seem
to have taken counsel together, saying, "Come, we are feeble; let us
help one another. We are many, and together we will be strong. Marching
in close, deep ranks, let us roll away the stones from these mountain
sepulchers, and set the landscapes free. Let us uncover these clustering
domes. Here let us carve a lake basin; there, a Yosemite Valley; here, a
channel for a river with fluted steps and brows for the plunge of
songful cataracts. Yonder let us spread broad sheets of soil, that man
and beast may be fed; and here pile trains of boulders for pines and
giant Sequoias. Here make ground for a meadow; there, for a garden and
grove, making it smooth and fine for small daisies and violets and beds
of heathy bryanthus, spicing it well with crystals, garnet feldspar, and
zircon." Thus and so on it has oftentimes seemed to me sang and planned
and labored the hearty snow-flower crusaders; and nothing that I can
write can possibly exaggerate the grandeur and beauty of their work.
Like morning mist they have vanished in sunshine, all save the few small
companies that still linger on the coolest mountainsides, and, as
residual glaciers, are still busily at work completing the last of the
lake basins, the last beds of soil, and the sculpture of some of the
highest peaks.

[Illustration: MOUNT HOOD.]

CHAPTER II

THE GLACIERS

Of the small residual glaciers mentioned in the preceding chapter, I
have found sixty-five in that portion of the range lying between
latitude 36 deg. 30' and 39 deg.. They occur singly or in small groups on the
north sides of the peaks of the High Sierra, sheltered beneath broad
frosty shadows, in amphitheaters of their own making, where the snow,
shooting down from the surrounding heights in avalanches, is most
abundant. Over two thirds of the entire number lie between latitude 37 deg.
and 38 deg., and form the highest fountains of the San Joaquin, Merced,
Tuolumne, and Owen's rivers.

The glaciers of Switzerland, like those of the Sierra, are mere wasting
remnants of mighty ice-floods that once filled the great valleys and
poured into the sea. So, also, are those of Norway, Asia, and South
America. Even the grand continuous mantles of ice that still cover
Greenland, Spitsbergen, Nova Zembla, Franz-Joseph-Land, parts of Alaska,
and the south polar region are shallowing and shrinking. Every gla