I noticed a peculiarity of the oak in Yosemite that I never saw
elsewhere [Footnote: I have since observed the same trait in the
oaks in Georgia--probably a characteristic of this tree in southern
latitudes.]--a fluid or outflowing condition of the growth
aboveground, such as one usually sees in the roots of trees--so that
it tended to envelop and swallow, as it were, any solid object with
which it came in contact. If its trunk touched a point of rock, it
would put out great oaken lips several inches in extent as if to
draw the rock into its maw. If a dry limb was cut or broken off, a
foot from the trunk, these thin oaken lips would slowly creep out
and envelop it--a sort of Western omnivorous trait appearing in the
trees.

Whitman refers to "the slumbering and liquid trees." These Yosemite
oaks recall his expression more surely than any of our Eastern
trees.

The reader may create for himself a good image of Yosemite by
thinking of a section of seven or eight miles of the Hudson River,
midway of its course, as emptied of its water and deepened three
thousand feet or more, having the sides nearly vertical, with
snow-white waterfalls fluttering against them here and there, the
famous spires and domes planted along the rim, and the landscape of
groves and glades, with its still, clear winding river, occupying
the bottom.




IV