so beautiful that it is
not easy to choose any one for particular description. The one that I
remember best fell on the mountains near Yosemite Valley, July 19, 1869,
while I was encamped in the Silver Fir woods. A range of bossy cumuli
took possession of the sky, huge domes and peaks rising one beyond
another with deep canons between them, bending this way and that in long
curves and reaches, interrupted here and there with white upboiling
masses that looked like the spray of waterfalls. Zigzag lances of
lightning followed each other in quick succession, and the thunder was
so gloriously loud and massive it seemed as if surely an entire mountain
was being shattered at every stroke. Only the trees were touched,
however, so far as I could see,--a few firs 200 feet high, perhaps, and
five to six feet in diameter, were split into long rails and slivers
from top to bottom and scattered to all points of the compass. Then came
the rain in a hearty flood, covering the ground and making it shine with
a continuous sheet of water that, like a transparent film or skin,
fitted closely down over all the rugged anatomy of the landscape.

It is not long, geologically speaking, since the first raindrop fell on
the present landscapes of the Sierra; and in the few tens of thousands
of years of stormy cultivation they have been blest with, how beautiful
they have become! The first rains fell on raw, crumbling moraines and
rocks without a plant. Now scarcely a drop can fail to find a beautiful
mark: on the tops of the peaks, on the smooth glacier pavements, on the
curves of the domes, on moraines full of crystals, on the thousand forms
of yosemitic sculpture with their tender beauty of balmy, flowery
vegetation, laving, plashing, glinting, pattering; some falling softly
on meadows, creeping out of sight, seeking and finding every thirsty
rootlet, some through the spires of the woods, sifting in dust through
the needles, and whispering good cheer to each of them; some falling
with blunt tapping sounds, drumming on the broad leaves of veratrum,
cypripedium, saxifrage; some falling straight into fragrant corollas,
kissing the lips of lilies, glinting on the sides of crystals, on
shining grains of gold; some falling into the fountains of snow to swell
their well-saved stores; some into the lakes and rivers, patting the
smooth glassy levels, making dimples and bells and spray, washing the
mountain windows, washing the wandering winds; some plash