rnia. He died suddenly, of
diphtheria, in the midst of his brilliant career.

Mr. King was a great lover of nature. His "White Hills," describing the
mountain scenery of New Hampshire, is the most complete book ever written
concerning that interesting region.
###

The Yosemite valley, in California, is a pass about ten miles long. At its
eastern extremity it leads into three narrower passes, each of which
extends several miles, winding by the wildest paths into the heart of the
Sierra Nevada chain of mountains. For seven miles of the main valley,
which varies in width from three quarters of a mile to a mile and a half,
the walls on either side are from two thousand to nearly five thousand
feet above the road, and are nearly perpendicular. From these walls, rocky
splinters a thousand feet in height start up, and every winter drop a few
hundred tons of granite, to adorn the base of the rampart with picturesque
ruin.

The valley is of such irregular width, and bends so much and often so
abruptly, that there is a great variety and frequent surprise in the forms
and combinations of the overhanging rocks as one rides along the bank of
the stream. The patches of luxuriant meadow, with their dazzling green,
and the grouping of the superb firs, two hundred feet high, that skirt
them, and that shoot above the stout and graceful oaks and sycamores
through which the horse path winds, are delightful rests of sweetness and
beauty amid the threatening awfulness.

The Merced, which flows through the same pass, is a noble stream, a
hundred feet wide and ten feet deep. It is formed chiefly of the streams
that leap and rush through the narrower passes, and it is swollen, also,
by the bounty of the marvelous waterfalls that pour down from the ramparts
of the wider valley. The sublime poetry of Habakkuk is needed to describe
the impression, and, perhaps, the geology, of these mighty fissures: "Thou
didst cleave the earth with rivers."

At the foot of the breakneck declivity of nearly three thousand feet by
which we reach the banks of the Merced, we are six miles from the hotel,
and every rod of the ride awakens wonder, awe, and a solemn joy. As we
approach the hotel, and turn toward the opposite bank of the river, what
is that

"Which ever sounds and shines,
A pillar of white light upon the wall
Of purple cliffs aloof descried"?

That, reader, is the highest waterfall in the world--the Yosemite
cataract, nearly twenty-