The mountains of California . malllocal tributaries, such as those of Indian Canon,the Sentinel, and the Three Brothers, and by afew small residual glaciers which lingered in theshadows of the walls long after the main trunkglacier had receded beyond the head of the the glaciers that once covered the rangebeen melted at once, leaving the entire surfacebare from top to bottom simultaneously, then ofcourse all the lakes would have come into existenceat the same time, and the highest, other circum-stances being equal, would, as we have seen, bethe first to vanish. But because they melt
The mountains of California . malllocal tributaries, such as those of Indian Canon,the Sentinel, and the Three Brothers, and by afew small residual glaciers which lingered in theshadows of the walls long after the main trunkglacier had receded beyond the head of the the glaciers that once covered the rangebeen melted at once, leaving the entire surfacebare from top to bottom simultaneously, then ofcourse all the lakes would have come into existenceat the same time, and the highest, other circum-stances being equal, would, as we have seen, bethe first to vanish. But because they melted gradu-ally from the foot of the range upward, the lowerlakes were the first to see the light and the firstto be obliterated. Therefore, instead of finding thelakes of the present day at the foot of the range, wefind them at the top. Most of the lower lakes van- THE GLACIER LAKES 107 islied thousands of years before those now bright-ening the alpine hmdscapes were born. And ingeneral, owing to the deliberation of the upward. THE DEATU (JF A LAKE. retreat of the glaciers, Die lowest of the existinglakes a?e also the oldest, a giadn;d tr;iiisitioii beingapparent thioughout the entire Ixlt, fi-oin the older,forested, nieadow-rimnied and contracted Joiins all 108 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA the way up to those that are new born, lying bareand nieadowless among the highest peaks. A few small lakes unfortunately situated are ex-tinguished suddenly by a single swoop of an ava-lanche, carrying down immense numbers of trees,together with the soil they were growing are obliterated by land-slips, earthquaketaluses, etc., but these lake-deaths compared withthose resulting from the deliberate and incessantdeposition of sediments, may be termed fate is like that of trees struck by lightning. The lake-line is of course still rising, its presentelevation being about 8000 feet above sea-level;somewhat higher than this toward the southernextremity of the range, low
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectcaliforniadescriptio
