lowing ascent had taken nearly all day, the
descent only about a minute. When the avalanche started I threw myself
on my back and spread my arms to try to keep from sinking. Fortunately,
though the grade of the canyon is very steep, it is not interrupted by
precipices large enough to cause outbounding or free plunging. On no
part of the rush was I buried. I was only moderately imbedded on the
surface or at times a little below it, and covered with a veil of
back-streaming dust particles; and as the whole mass beneath and about
me joined in the flight there was no friction, though I was tossed here
and there and lurched from side to side. When the avalanche swedged and
came to rest I found myself on top of the crumpled pile without bruise
or scar. This was a fine experience. Hawthorne says somewhere that steam
has spiritualized travel; though unspiritual smells, smoke, etc., still
attend steam travel. This flight in what might be called a milky way of
snow-stars was the most spiritual and exhilarating of all the modes of
motion I have ever experienced. Elijah's flight in a chariot of fire
could hardly have been more gloriously exciting.

The Streams In Other Seasons

In the spring, after all the avalanches are down and the snow is melting
fast, then all the Yosemite streams, from their fountains to their
falls, sing their grandest songs. Countless rills make haste to the
rivers, running and singing soon after sunrise, louder and louder with
increasing volume until sundown; then they gradually fail through the
frosty hours of the night. In this way the volume of the upper branches
of the river is nearly doubled during the day, rising and falling as
regularly as the tides of the sea. Then the Merced overflows its banks,
flooding the meadows, sometimes almost from wall to wall in some places,
beginning to rise towards sundown just when the streams on the fountains
are beginning to diminish, the difference in time of the daily rise and
fall being caused by the distance the upper flood streams have to travel
before reaching the Valley. In the warmest weather they seem fairly to
shout for joy and clash their upleaping waters together like clapping
of hands; racing down the canyons with white manes flying in glorious
exuberance of strength, compelling huge, sleeping boulders to wake up
and join in their dance and song, to swell their exulting chorus.

In early summer, after the flood season, the Yosemite streams are in
th