e warmer regions below them.
In general, the younger the mountain-landscapes,--younger, I mean, with
reference to the time of their emergence from the ice of the glacial
period,--the less separable are they into artistic bits capable of being
made into warm, sympathetic, lovable pictures with appreciable humanity
in them.

Here, however, on the head waters of the Tuolumne, is a group of wild
peaks on which the geologist may say that the sun has but just begun to
shine, which is yet in a high degree picturesque, and in its main
features so regular and evenly balanced as almost to appear
conventional--one somber cluster of snow-laden peaks with gray
pine-fringed granite bosses braided around its base, the whole surging
free into the sky from the head of a magnificent valley, whose lofty
walls are beveled away on both sides so as to embrace it all without
admitting anything not strictly belonging to it. The foreground was now
aflame with autumn colors, brown and purple and gold, ripe in the mellow
sunshine; contrasting brightly with the deep, cobalt blue of the sky,
and the black and gray, and pure, spiritual white of the rocks and
glaciers. Down through the midst, the young Tuolumne was seen pouring
from its crystal fountains, now resting in glassy pools as if changing
back again into ice, now leaping in white cascades as if turning to
snow; gliding right and left between granite bosses, then sweeping on
through the smooth, meadowy levels of the valley, swaying pensively from
side to side with calm, stately gestures past dipping willows and
sedges, and around groves of arrowy pine; and throughout its whole
eventful course, whether flowing fast or slow, singing loud or low, ever
filling the landscape with spiritual animation, and manifesting the
grandeur of its sources in every movement and tone.

Pursuing my lonely way down the valley, I turned again and again to gaze
on the glorious picture, throwing up my arms to inclose it as in a
frame. After long ages of growth in the darkness beneath the glaciers,
through sunshine and storms, it seemed now to be ready and waiting for
the elected artist, like yellow wheat for the reaper; and I could not
help wishing that I might carry colors and brushes with me on my
travels, and learn to paint. In the mean time I had to be content with
photographs on my mind and sketches in my note-books. At length, after I
had rounded a precipitous headland that puts out from the west wall of
the