thousands of feet high, not architectural, or like something
builded, but like the sides and the four corners of the globe
itself. What an impression of mass and of power and of grandeur in
repose filters into you as you walk along! El Capitan stands there
showing its simple sweeping lines through the trees as you approach,
like one of the veritable pillars of the firmament. How long we are
nearing it and passing it! It is so colossal that it seems near
while it is yet far off. It is so simple that the eye takes in its
naked grandeur at a glance. It demands of you a new standard of size
which you cannot at once produce. It is as clean and smooth as the
flank of a horse, and as poised and calm as a Greek statue. It
curves out toward the base as if planted there to resist the
pressure of worlds--probably the most majestic single granite
column or mountain buttress on the earth. Its summit is over three
thousand feet above you. Across the valley, nearly opposite, rise
the Cathedral Rocks to nearly the same height, while farther along,
beyond El Capitan, the Three Brothers shoulder the sky at about the
same dizzy height. Near the head of the great valley, North Dome,
perfect in outline as if turned in a lathe, and its brother, the
Half Dome (or shall we say half-brother?) across the valley, look
down upon Mirror Lake from an altitude of over four thousand feet.
These domes suggest enormous granite bubbles if such were possible
pushed up from below and retaining their forms through the vast
geologic ages. Of course they must have weathered enormously, but as
the rock seems to peel off in concentric sheets, their forms are
preserved.