its magnificent moraines extending in majestic curves from the spacious
amphitheater between the mountains, I was exhilarated with the work that
lay before me. It was one of the golden days of the Sierra Indian
summer, when the rich sunshine glorifies every landscape however rocky
and cold, and suggests anything rather than glaciers. The path of the
vanished glacier was warm now, and shone in many places as if washed
with silver. The tall pines growing on the moraines stood transfigured
in the glowing light, the poplar groves on the levels of the basin were
masses of orange-yellow, and the late-blooming goldenrods added gold to
gold. Pushing on over my rosy glacial highway, I passed lake after lake
set in solid basins of granite, and many a thicket and meadow watered by
a stream that issues from the amphitheater and links the lakes together;
now wading through plushy bogs knee-deep in yellow and purple sphagnum;
now passing over bare rock. The main lateral moraines that bounded the
view on either hand are from 100 to nearly 200 feet high, and about as
regular as artificial embankments, and covered with a superb growth of
Silver Fir and Pine. But this garden and forest luxuriance was speedily
left behind. The trees were dwarfed as I ascended; patches of the alpine
bryanthus and cassiope began to appear, and arctic willows pressed into
flat carpets by the winter snow. The lakelets, which a few miles down
the valley were so richly embroidered with flowery meadows, had here, at
an elevation of 10,000 feet, only small brown mats of carex, leaving
bare rocks around more than half their shores. Yet amid this alpine
suppression the Mountain Pine bravely tossed his storm-beaten branches
on the ledges and buttresses of Red Mountain, some specimens being over
100 feet high, and 24 feet in circumference, seemingly as fresh and
vigorous as the giants of the lower zones.

Evening came on just as I got fairly within the portal of the main
amphitheater. It is about a mile wide, and a little less than two miles