does not permit even the suggestion of the possibilities to the
trail traveller of this wonderland above the rim. It is the summer
playground for a nation.

Second in magnificence among the park valleys is Hetch Hetchy, the
Yosemite of the north. Both are broad, flowered and forested levels
between lofty granite walls. Both are accented by gigantic rock
personalities. Kolana Rock, which guards Hetch Hetchy at its western
gateway as El Capitan guards Yosemite, must be ranked in the same class.
Were there no Yosemite Valley, Hetch Hetchy, though it lacks the
distinction which gives Yosemite Valley its world-wide fame, would be
much better known than it now is--a statement also true about other
features of the national park.

Hetch Hetchy is now being dammed below Kolana Rock to supply water for
San Francisco. The dam will be hidden from common observation, and the
timber lands to be flooded will be cut so as to avoid the unsightliness
usual with artificial reservoirs in forested areas. The reservoir will
cover one of the most beautiful bottoms in America. It will destroy
forests of luxuriance. It will replace these with a long sinuous lake,
from which sheer Yosemite-like granite walls will rise abruptly two or
three thousand feet. There will be places where the edges are forested.
Down into this lake from the high rim will cascade many roaring streams.

The long fight in California, in the press of the whole country, and
finally in Congress, between the advocates of the Hetch Hetchy reservoir
and the defenders of the scenic wilderness is one of the stirring
episodes in the history of our national parks. At this writing, time
enough has not yet passed to heal the wounds of battle, but at least we
may look calmly at what remains. One consideration, at least, affords a
little comfort. Hetch Hetchy was once, in late prehistoric times, a
natural lake of great nobility. The remains of Nature's dam, not far
from the site of man's, are plain to the geologist's eye. It is possible
that, with care in building the dam and clearing out the trees to be
submerged, this restoration of one of Nature's noble features of the
past may not work out so inappropriately as once we feared.

[Illustration: _From a photograph by J.T. Boysen_

THE CLIMAX OF YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK

Mount Lyell and its glacier from Lyell Fork]

[Illustration: THE GREATEST WATERWHEEL OF THE TUOLUMNE

It is fifty feet in height and seventy-five feet long; Yose