Our national parks . he canons of the range, completely chok-ing them in some of the narrower portions, andno mountaineer will be likely to forget the sav-age roughness of the roads they make. Eventhe swift, overbearing rivers, accustomed to sweepeverything out of their way, are in some placesbridled and held in check by them. Foaming,roaring, in glorious majesty of flood, rushing offlong rumbling trains of ponderous blocks with-out apparent effort, they are not able to movethe largest, which, withstanding all assaults forcenturies, are left at rest in the channels like isl-ands, with gardens
Our national parks . he canons of the range, completely chok-ing them in some of the narrower portions, andno mountaineer will be likely to forget the sav-age roughness of the roads they make. Eventhe swift, overbearing rivers, accustomed to sweepeverything out of their way, are in some placesbridled and held in check by them. Foaming,roaring, in glorious majesty of flood, rushing offlong rumbling trains of ponderous blocks with-out apparent effort, they are not able to movethe largest, which, withstanding all assaults forcenturies, are left at rest in the channels like isl-ands, with gardens on their tops, fringed withfoam below, with flowers above. On some points concerning the origin of thesetaluses I was long in doubt. Plainly enoughthey were derived from the cliffs above them,the size of each talus being approximately mea-sured by a scar on the wall, the rough angularsurface of which contrasts with the rounded,glaciated, unfractured parts. I saw also that,instead of being slowly accumulated materiali. A SIERRA CANON(Kings River Caiion from Lookout Peak) FOUNTAINS AND STREAMS 261 weathered off, boulder by boulder, in the ordi-nary way, almost every talus had been formedsuddenly, in a single avalanche, and had not beenincreased in size during the last three or fourcenturies; for trees three or four hundred yearsold were growing on them, some standing at thetop close to the wall, without a bruise or brokenbranch, showing that scarcely a single boulderhad fallen among them since they were , all the taluses throughout the rangeseemed, by the trees and lichens growing onthem, to be of the same age. All the phenomenapointed straight to a grand ancient I left the question open for years, and went onfrom canon to canon, observing again and again ;measuring the heights of taluses throughoutthe range on both flanks, and the variations inthe angles of their surface slopes; studying theway their boulders were assorted and relatedand brought
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