mense limits of the American Republic, or north of us on the
continent, there is no sheet of water that competes with Tahoe
in altitude and interest. But in Mariposa County of our State
there are two lakes, both small,--one 8300 feet, and the other
11,000 feet,--on the Sierra above the line of the sea.

To a wearied frame and tired mind what refreshment there is in
the neighborhood of this lake! The air is singularly searching
and strengthening. The noble pines, not obstructed by
underbrush, enrich the slightest breeze with aroma and music.
Grand peaks rise around, on which the eye can admire the
sternness of everlasting crags and the equal permanence
of delicate and feathery snow. Then there is the sense of
seclusion from the haunts and cares of men, of being upheld
on the immense billow of the Sierra, at an elevation near the
line of perpetual snow, yet finding the air genial, and the
loneliness clothed with the charm of feeling the sense of the
mystery of the mountain heights,
the part of a chain that link the two polar seas, and of the
mystery of the water poured into the granite bowl, whose rim
is chased with the splendor of perpetual frost, and whose
bounty, flowing into the Truckee stream, finds no outlet into
the ocean, but sinks again into the land.

Everything is charming in the surroundings of the mountain
Lake; but as soon as one walks to the beach of it, and surveys
its expanse, it is the color, or rather the colors, spread out
before the eye, which holds it with greatest fascination.
I was able to stay eight days in all, amidst that calm
and cheer, yet the hues of the water seemed to become more
surprising with each hour. The Lake, according to recent
measurement, is about twenty-one miles in length, by twelve or
thirteen in breadth. There is no island visible to break
its sweep, which seems to be much larger than the figures
indicate. And the whole of the vast surface, the boundaries of
which are taken in easily at once by the range of the eye, is
a mass of pure splendor. When the day is calm, there is a ring
of the Lake, extending more than a mile from shore, which is
brilliantly green. Within this ring the vast center of the
expanse is of a deep, yet soft and singularly tinted blue.
Hues cannot be more sharply contrasted than are these
permanent