The John Muir Newsletter, Summer 2000

u Volume 10, Number 3 oi. Summer 21)01) NEWSLETTER Reconstruction of John Muir's First Public Lecture, Sacramento, 1876 by Steve Pauly, Pleasant Hill, California WEditor's Note: This is Part IV of Steve Pauly's article recreating John Muir's first public talk; the earlier parts appeared in 1999 issues.) OSEMITE CREEK GLACIER The broad, many-fountained glacier to which the basin of Yosemite Creek belonged, was about fourteen miles in BSngth by four in width, and in many places was not less than a ^thousand feet in depth. Its principal tributaries issued from lofty .iphitheatres laid well back among the northern spurs of the ifloffmann range. These at first pursued a westerly course; then, Sihiting with each other and absorbing a series of small affluents from the Tuolumne divide, the trunk thus formed swept round : to the south in a series of small affluents from the Tuolumne ide. The trunk thus formed swept round to the south in a s magnificent curve, and poured its ice into Yosemite in cascades two miles wide. This broad glacier formed a kind of wrinkled !|te-cloud. As it grew older, it became more regular and river- like; encircling peaks overshadowed its upper fountains, rock islets rose at intervals among its shallowing currents, and its Bright sculptured banks, nowhere overflowed, extended in massive simplicity all the way to its mouth. As the ice-winter iidrew near a close, the main trunk, becoming torpid, at length iiwholly disappeared in the sun, and a waiting multitude of plants |jpd animals entered the new valley to inhabit the mansions prepared for them. In the meantime the chief tributaries, (creeping slowly back into the shelter of their fountain shadows, Monlinued to live and work independently, spreading moraine soil for gardens, scoping basins for lakelets, and leisurely Completing the sculpture of their fountains. These also have at |||st vanished, and the whole basin is now full of light. Forests jjjourish luxuriantly over all its broad moraines, lakes and lleadows nestle among its domes, and a ...