USA > California > Tulare County > History of Tulare County, California with biographical sketches > Part 26
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ASCENT OF MOUNT KAWEAH.
That afternoon the last-named party searched for the best route to reach the summit of the grand peak. No sign of a trail appeared, nor evidence that men had been there. They found the ascent comparatively easy for animals, however, far up above the timber line. The Indian word, it seems, is repre- sented by the syllables Kah-wah, with accent on the last. Literally it means, "I sit here," or as we may more appropri- ately render it in English, "Here I dwell," or " Herc I rest." Kah-wah.
By noon they had wound their way on horseback, among primeval forests and rocks, above the last scrubby specimens of the pinus contorta, to a height of 12,500 feet. Herc they lunched and left their horses tied to huge bowlders. This was
in a sandy sag on the southwest slopc, just below the lowest of four large snow-fields, shown in the engraving as irregularly bounded spots. Thence they moved to the west, climbing from rock to rock, upward and ever upward, soon wearied and out of breath. None can have a conception of the extreme exertion and utter exhaustion from time to time of this rough and trackless peak climbing. At three P. M. Mr. Wright had reached the top of the lower peak, just above the first three snow-fields. Its height was found to be not far fromn 13 350 feet. His comrades, lighter weights and more practiced moun- tain climbers, were by this time on the highest point and were busy selecting material for a monument with which to crown the summit. At 4:40 P. M. all were united on the highest point. Here, after careful examination, not the slightest trace was found that any human being had ever been there before.
NAMING THE MOUNTAINS,
Many of thesc distinct peaks are not yet named. The exploring party of 1881, of Wright, Wales and Wallace, gave names to some of the most prominent. Mount Young, one of many huge peaks in that vicinity, was never named until that summer. Mr. Wales ascended it alone, on Tuesday, September 7th, with instruments, to take its altitude, build a monument and leave a record of its name, and the name of another hand- some peak just south of it, which, from his suggestion, was named Mount Hitchcock.
It became evident, says Mr. Wright, that we were already in the heart of our least frequented Sierras, and that we could with propriety indulge in the pardonable pastime of mountain naming, where so many towering nameless peaks were piercing the blue sky around us. From this commanding point the view in every direction was superb-a really magnificent pan- orama of peaks and gorges, including the massive Kaweah group to the westward, and King's River divide, north of us. Immediately west of us was a bare granite cone or pyramid, with great snow masses (September 3d) on its northern and east- ern slopes. This the party agreed, at Wright's request, to call
MOUNT GUYOT,
In honor of the distinguished Swiss geologist and geographer, whose lectures for two years at Princeton, New Jersey, are among the pleasantest recollections of his college days. The pass was also named Guyot Pass. The long, sharp, bare granite peak, just east of Guyot Pass, extending from southeast to northwest a full half mile, and with huge snow-fields along its crest, we named
MOUNT AGASSIZ.
We felt it was appropriate, that those who had been bosom friends in youth, and in Neufthatel, in Switzerland, and whose mutual, scholarly labors, as leading naturalists have done so much for American science since they made this their adopted land, should thus have their names closely associated among our snowy Sierra, so like their native Alps and Jura
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GRAND AND SUBLIME SCENERY.
Mountains. Mr. Wallaee made the ascent of Mount Guyot, and built a monument on its top. He found its altitude was at least 13,500 feet. On the same prineiple, after they aseended Whitney, and from its summit had viewed, with Captain Michaelis and others, a number of newly-named peaks, and found many still unnamed, they deeided, at Mr. Wales' sugges- tion, to call two handsome granite peaks, three or four miles west and southwest of Whitney, and on each side of the entranee to Whitney Cañon,
MOUNTS YOUNG AND HITCHCOCK,
The former on the north side, the latter on the south. These were in honor of Professor Young, the noted astronomer, now at Princeton, and Professor Charles Hitchcock, of Dartmouth, where Mr. Wales spent his eollege days. With our aneroid, Mr. Wales found that the altitude of Mount Young is about 13,600 feet, the mereury of the standard thermometer showing a temperature in the shade (on the summit) of 48°, and in the sunshine 66°. He built a monument some five feet in height, and in it placed the record of the naming of Mounts Young and Hitchcock.
Now as regards the manner in which these names were given : Mounts Michaelis and Langley, with Keeler's and Day's Needles, were named after the leaders of the scientific corps and their two assistants, Messrs. Johnson and Crapo - their California guides, and were afterward accepted by com- mon eonsent.
By looking from the summit of Whitney in the direction indieated, Mount Michaelis can be easily distinguished as a · handsome dome and large terrace on each side, looking altogether not unlike the seetion of a huge earth-work and its apron. Mount Langley, just to its left, is known by a minaret or obelisk, that seems to stand on the north edge of its summit. It is known among mountain prospectors as
MILESTONE MOUNTAIN,
And on clear days can be distinguished with a good glass, or even with the naked eye, from the plains of Tulare and Fresno Counties. Mounts Hazen and Benet were named by Captain Michaelis, after two of our Generals, his army chiefs. Hazen is a long, flat mountain, percipitous on its north side, and is marked on some maps as Table Mountain. Benet is easily distinguished as a very dark, almost black, double peak.
The noted Mount Brewer, named after the chief of one of Professor Whitney's geological parties, is readily known by its great height and its deeply notched top.
Mount Wallace is a tall, pyramidal peak, about midway between Tyndall and Benet. Mount Wales is a sharp peak just left of Langley, and is marked by a dark red iron-stain along its southern slope. Mount Wright is a high, regularly shaped sugar-loaf, just to the right of Hazen.
Captain Michaelis, of his own volition, named these last three peaks after the party of explorers we have mentioned.
OUR MOUNTAIN SCENERY.
So mueh of the Sierra Nevada mountain seenery, says Hon. E. C. Winchell, as reaches from Walker's Pass on Kern River, to Yosemite, on the Merced, a distance of two hundred miles, is the highest land in the United States.
The trend of the range is northwest and southeast. The eastern front is bold and steep, falling abruptly down to Owen's River Valley, whose plain euts the range at an elevation of five thousand feet.
A complete sketeh of the western features of the Sierra be- tween the Kern and the Merced, must include an outline of the visible traces of aneient voleanic action among its heights. The extent of such traees is as yet unknown, the geologieal survey being unfinished. For twenty or thirty miles along the San Joaquin they address every eye. From some old erater not yet discovered, broad streams of lava ran down the mount- ain side-filling and following aneient river beds down to the beaeh of the antediluvian sea which then submerged the San Joaquin Valley. Spreading over a gentle glaeis and covering many miles of the old sea-shore, the fluid lava became solid. Time's sharp tooth has, since the sea fell back to its present line, gnawed away most of the lava fields. On the south bank of the San Joaquin, a mile above Millerton, is a bold escarpment, a thousand feet high, capped by a level tablet of black, basal- tic lava, from ten to one hundred feet in thiekness, aceording to the undulations of the original surface on which it lies. As- cending to the top of this table, the beholder finds it reaching baek many miles eastward, having a slight ineline upwards; that it presents a breadth of several miles, appearing on both sides of the San Joaquin River, which stream lies one thou- sand feet below him, in the bottom of a gorge that has been cut down, through the lava tablet and through the underlying hills of granite, since the molten flood cooled off. Looking westwards toward the plain, he sees numerous detached ridges and isolated hills, one or two miles in front and on either hand, eapped with the same basalt, and all in the same plane, having a very gentle slope to the west ; and far out in the plain, five or six miles distant, on the opposite side of the San Joaquin River, he beholds the terminus of the glaeis distinetly and indu- bitably marked by a bold precipitous ridge two or three miles long, one hundred and fifty feet high, ranging north and south, eapped with imperfeetly fused lava and conglomerate, still in the same inclined plane with the other peaks, and which, by examination, he finds continuing still onward, into the valley.
These evidences indisputably demonstrate that ages ago a stupendous river of molten rock and earth was poured out of the western flank of the Sierra, from some high point east of Millerton, which, confined at first, perhaps, in deep, narrow cañons or river beds, found, as it neared the sea beach, more room to spread and widen, till, entirely disengaged from hill and gorge and approaching a low, gentle shore, it flowed to the right, left, andas forward into the seething waves that cooled it.
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GRAND AND SUBLIME SCENERY.
THE VISALIA ROUTE.
If you go by the Visalia Route, the first grove visited is about three miles north of the mill. A toll road, thirty miles long, winds in its length among the spires of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and taps Mineral King Mining District, and ena- bles the tourist to approach the wildest and most romantic scenery in the United States, at the head of King's and Kern Rivers. The living glaciers silently grind the subjacent rocks, and mountains whose majesty or grotesqueness are unsurpassed in this country, throw their sombre shadows across valleys as yet untrodden by the foot of man. But as one tourist after another scales these giddy heights, and from some narrow defile drinks in the beauty of the scene in the secluded valley
"GIRDLE" OR BIG TREE PARTLY CUT DOWN.
below, a spirit of adventure is awakened which longs to com- mune with nature in her fondest seclusion, and erelong all these mountain wilds will be penetrated.
About three-fourths of a mile in a westerly direction, close to a stream, is a fine tree known as the "Girdle," or "Old Maid," which is eighty-six feet in circumference, very tall and straight. Some years ago some Vandal.st made an attempt to cut this tree down in order to get a section, but after cutting around was prevented by Mr. Willett, then register of the land office. The tree still lives and will in all probability for cent- uries.
A more stringent law should be enacted to prevent their destruction. They are monuments of vegetable growth which should be preserved for the admiration of the world that will through future ages ever gaze with wonder and amazement upon their magnificence and grandeur. While the trees of
which we have spoken are confined to small groves, everywhere through the forest, for miles around, may be found trees of enormous size.
THE CLIMATE.
The climate through this section , is delightful during the spring and summer months. It is cool and dry, and not subject to cold, frosty mornings, as that of many other mountainous countries. The scenery through the vicinity is magnificent. Huge towering peaks, deep gorges, and rocky cañons are among the interesting features. Bears and deer abound just beyond. Ten or twelve miles further on, and to the northeast, is the King's River Canon, with its high walls and rugged cliffs, through which flows the King's River.
THE GENERAL GRANT.
" The giant of all living trees, called 'General Grant,' is growing on the edge of a ravine. We measured it and found it was 104 feet in circumference about four feet from the base, but through the carelessness of some one a portion of the tree had been burnt at the base, and if the tree had been symmet- rical in form at the base there is no doubt of it measuring 120 or 125 feet. This tree, like all its competitors, though standing straight as an arrow for upwards of 300 feet, and without a limb for fully 200 feet, the extreme top has been broken off by the winds, or some unknown cause. There are limbs toward the top of this giant tree that look as though they would measure from nine to twelve feet in circumference. The age of this tree and the hundreds of others whose circum- ference is not so large as this one, I think is mere conjecture on the part of any man. There are about forty or fifty trees that can be seen from the General Grant, whose circumference will range from 75 to 100 feet each, and in height, from 200 to 300 feet, and perhaps a little higher."
BEAUTIFUL SNOW PLANTS.
"In the basin close to the remaining snow was seen the won- derful snow-plant whose flower-stem shoots up in the shape of a large conic-shaped sugar-pine burr, and grows to a height of two and a half feet. The color of the flower is a bright crim- son red; the shape of each blossom resembles the formation of a double hyacinth, and grows close and compact around the stem, the center of which is pithy and spongy. The bloom has four petals, is staminate and pistillate, and consequently it may be an annual.
HEAT AND COLOR OF THE SUN.
Wm. C. Wyckoff, in Harper's Magazine for June, says the Mount Whitney observations show the sun to be hotter than was supposed. The heat received at the earth's surface is probably more by one-half than was estimated by Herschel and Pouillet, and even materially exceeds the values assigned by more recent investigators.
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GRAND AND SUBLIME SCENERY.
Mount Whitney observations firmly establish the fact that the sun is blue. The particular shade of color which it has, if viewed without int rvening atmosphere, may be laid down as that on the border of the blue near the green, about where the line F appears in the spectrum. Sad to say, this is not an " æsthetic " hue; it is more like that referred to in one of Southey's poems: "You could almost smell brimstone, their breath was so blue, for he painted the devils so well."
A TRIP TO MOUNT WHITNEY.
At our request, Rev. F. H. Wales, editor of the Alliance Messenger, furnished the following account of his trip in this region :-
" It was on a warm summer morning that our pack-train left Edward's Camp, on the opposite side of Farewell Gap from Mineral King.
" I had tarried here four days, waiting for Wright and Wallace, and had climbed 'Bullion Peak,' 12,- 000 feet elevation, just to try my pluck. Had also caught trout, and drank of that delicious soda spring a mile or so down the ravinc, hunted grouse and quail, and geologized to my heart's content, and was really glad to get off.
"Down the ravine some six miles we struck the ' Hocky Trail,' and traversed its winding way, with steep mountains on every hand.
"At noon we halted in 'Round Meadow' for dinner, and, while Wallace attended the horses, and Captain spread the lunch, I took the rod and sampled the little stream which gurgled by our camp ground. By the time the fire was burning brightly and the kettle boiling, I had thirty-one of the beautiful 'rainbow ' trout, the first we had seen.
BEAUTIFUL LAKES.
" That night we camped in a long valley known as ' Trout Meadow,' and next day arrived at Fish Lakes, where we tarried over Sunday.
"These are two picturesque little lakes caused by an avalanche from the mountains during the earthquake in 1868. Jo Palmer, one of the guides, told us he was camped near by and heard the ter- rific crash caused by the fall. He thought it the 'day of Judgment.' These lakes are filled with stumps of decayed trees and abound in fish,-trout, roach, suckers, chub, etc.
"Here we regaled ourselves on a two-pound silver trout which I caught while the Captain got breakfast ready. I had five of these beauties by the time the coffee was boiled.
"Two miles on we came to Runckle's, a ninety-acre ranch en ced in, and a few log houses, a kind of frontier tavern. Here
boarded some four or five fishermen from Lone Pine, who fish in the lakes and pack the trout in wet grass, and on mules take them to that iuland place, where a good market is ever ready. "Runckle keeps a stock of such things as mountain
1
THE "TWIN SISTERS" OF VISALIA GROVE.
travelers and sheep men need. Here is a good soda spring, also. "Crossing the Kern here we passe I the natural bridges formed of ' tufa' rather than lava, as we at last decided by an applica- tion of vinegar.
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GRAND AND SUBLIME SCENERY
" We spent that night at Red Mountain, one of the most perfect extinct craters imaginable, formed like an oval bowl on top, with one side crushed out, and the river of lava, stretch- ing miles away, easily traceable.
" Here we should have gone directly to Laguna Camp, but we were misdirected and went round by Diaz' meadows. He
SHA-GOO-PAH FALLS, 3,000 FEET HIGH.
is a Spaniard who has a large shecp and cattle range. Cross- ing over Cora Whitney Pass, at 1,200 feet altitude, we reached Laguna Camp.
THE PALISADES.
" Next day we ascended through ' Rampart ' Cañon, one of the grandest places on the route, a beautiful dell of 1,000 acres, surrounded by palisades from 500 to 1,000 feet high and
apparently vertical. At Rampart Pass we caught sight of what we supposed to be Mount Whitney. It proved to be the Kaweah group. Our trail here averaged from 10,000 to 11,000 feet high much of the time. Passing Mills Mountain and Guyot on the left and Agassiz on the right, we caught a glimpse at last of Mount Whitney's oval dome, with Mount Hitchcock guarding it on the right and Mount Young on the left. These are 13,600 feet high.
"A good trail now leads up to the very summit of Mount Whitney, and even mules have been there. Some six or eight parties had visited the summit before our own, and the United States party, under Professor Langley, was there at the time. [See Harper's Monthly for May, 1883.]
A GRAND CAÑON.
" We went as far north as Mount Tyndall, whence we could look down upon the head-waters of the south fork of King's River; then turning south passed down one of the grandest cañons in the world. With steep acclivities almost vertical, from 2,500 to 3,500 feet in height, five falls came tumbling over and turned to spray before reaching the bottom.
" A grand resort for the sportsman, and we conceived, and, together with the scientific party, developed the scheme of having this whole country, twenty by thirty miles-which is, and, from its location, must ever remain, a wilderness-set apart by Government as a public park, similar to the Yellow- stone.
LIVING GLACIER AND PINK SNOW.
" Leaving this magnificent scenery, we doubled and passed up Jenny Lind Canon, at the very head of which we found a small living glacier and quantities of pink snow, in which our tracks looked like blood. Acres and acres of glacier-polished rocks are on every side, proving what the past has seen in these parts.
"Having ascended Mount Kaweah, 14,000 feet high, and finding no evidence that any one had ever preceded us, we built our monument and left our diary there. Winding a tortuous way round Cliff Pass, among precipices steep, and inland lakes of surpassing beauty, we at length reached Mineral King via Timber Gap, and next day ascended Miner's Peak, 14,200 feet high."
NAMES AND HEIGHT OF MOUNTAINS.
Altitudes of peaks of Sierra Nevada of Tulare County, Cal- ifornia: Mt. Whitney about 15,000; Mt. Williamson, 14,400; Mt. Tyndall, 14,386; Sheep Mountain, 14,300; Mt. Henry, 14,200; Mt. Abert, 14,100; Mt. Kaweah, 14,000; Mt. Brewer, 13,886; Mt. Young, 13,600; Mt. Guyot, 13,500; Mt. Garfield, 13,100; Miner's Peak, 12,800; Mt. Silliman, 11,600.
Mt. Agassiz, Mt. Hitchcock, Mt. Le Conte, Mt. Mills, Mt. Michaelis, Mt. Hazen, Mt. Langley, Mt. Benet, Mt. Wallace, Mt. Wales, Mt. Wright, and Mile Stone Mountain are all between 13,000 and 14,000 feet, but they have never been measured exactly.
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GRAND AND SUBLIME SCENERY.
GRANT'S WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS.
These springs are in the southeastern part of Mariposa County, within a mile of Fresno County. Except to the neighbors, they were unknown, and outside of the world, until purchased by Judge Grant, of Iowa, eighteen months ago. He has built a first-rate wagon-road from Madera and Borenda to these springs, and ex- tended it to the Mariposa road, to Yosemite, thirty- nine miles distant, at Cold Spring.
There are 13 springs; the ground and rocks are of a white color, and are charged with sulphur, iron, and magnesia; they are said to discharge the largest volume of water of any mineral springs in California. The water makes a cubic column of eight inehes and supplies enough to water eighty acres of land. The springs are in a gorge of the mountains 3,200 feet a- bove the sea, and, being on the shortest road from the railway to the Yo- semnite, will become a fa- vorite resort for tourists and invalids.
THE NEW HOTEL.
A good hotel has just been completed, with baths from the mineral waters, and the owner will not only have it well kept but will not permit any extortion on visitors. The waters are said to be curative of all diseases of the blood and dyspepsia. The climate is twenty degrees cooler than on the plains below.
GRAND AND INSPIRING.
Silence reigns on the heights of the Nevadas save when the scream of the Sierra eagle or the loud report of the avalanche
interrupts the frozen stillness, or when in symphonious fullness a storm rolls through the vacant canons and exhausts its fury upon the impenetrable roeks.
" Our Sierras," says W. B. Wallace, " hold in their depths riches other than gold and silver. The student of nature can here find much that will sharpen his perception, and augment his knowledge. There is something ennobling in mountains. The mount- ain-climber obtains ideas of vastness, of intensity, and of sublimity, which the plainsman never real- izes. And there is a faseination in his wild life which, when it has once laid hold on the in - dividual, reluctantly loos- ens its grasp. He finds health, strength, quie- tude, and suggestive faets in his surroundings, and when fatigued by weary rambles, he obtains eom- forting repose on a roek pillow, and lulled to sleep by falling waters, and the sad, sweet music of swaying pines, he dreams dreams that are iris-hued.
SCENE IN THE SIERRAS.
EASILY DECEIVED.
An attenuated atmos- phere disturbs one's ideas of distance. Not unfre- quently a man sets out to elimb mountain ridge he estimates to be but two or three miles distant, and after travel- ing half a day discovers that he has undertaken a walk of eight or ten miles. The atmosphere of these elevated regions seems to be a vital and invigorating air.
Granite mountains do not always take on the same form. That which they most commonly assume is the dome shape, similar to the Castle Peaks of Yosemite.
This article on the preceding pages entitled "Grand and Sublime Scenery," is now issued in pamphlet form, making a book of about eighty pages. It also contains a large number of other engravings from sketches by Wales and Eisen, and from photographs by Dusy. It may be had on remitting the price, fifty cents, to the publishers, W. W. ELLIOTT & CO., 421 Montgomery Street, San Francisco, Cal. It is a good work to send to your friends and induce them to visit this scenery. The object of this little work is to call the attention of our own people, as well as those who may visit us, to a comparatively unknown and unexplored region abounding in Grand Scenery, wild and unvisited by tourists. It thus affords all the more pleasure to lovers of nature in all her undisturbed glory and grandeur. Hoping these imperfect pages and sketches may incite others to a thorough exploration and penciling of our Alps, is our only hope of reward.
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BOTANICAL FEATURES OF THE COUNTY.
BOTANY OF THE COUNTY.
BY PROF. W. A. SANDERS.
NO COUNTY in California surpasses this in number and variety of indigenous plants, extending, as it does, from the Alpine region of the high Sierras, downward across a large area of mountain, swamp and heavy forests, deep shaded cañons, high foot-hills, low hills of clay and gravel, river bot- toms, broad plains and alkali flats along the region from Tulare Lake to the San Joaquin River, each with a flora distinctly its own. Over 1,500 species of plants are known to exist in this range of soil and climate. To name and give location of all these would demand more space than our present limits, so I have determined to omit the unimportant, and in doing so have discarded the botanical arrangements of orders and genera, and have arranged them in a manner that to the scientific reader mnay recall (perhaps with an inclination to sneer) Buffon's clas- sification of animals into "Wild and Tame," but to the non- botanical reader I trust it will be acceptable.
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