Mr. Greeley says: “The Sierra Nevadas lack the glorious glaciers, the frequent rains, the rich verdure, the abundant cataracts of the Alps, but they far surpass them; they surpass any other mountains I ever saw, in wealth and grace of trees. Look down from almost any of their peaks, and your range of vision is filled, bounded, satisfied, by what might be termed a tempest-tossed sea of evergreens, filling every upland valley, covering every hillside, crowning every peak but the highest with their unfading luxuriance. “That I saw, during this day’s travel, many hundreds of pines eight feet in diameter, with cedars at least six feet, I am confident; and there were miles of such and smaller trees of like genus, standing as thick as they could grow. Steep mountain sides, allowing these giants, to grow rank above rank, without obstructing each other’s sunshine, seem peculiarly favorable to the production of these serviceable giants. But the summit meadows are peculiar in their heavy fringe of balsam fir of all sizes, from those barely one foot high to those hardly less than two hundred; their branches surrounding them in collars, their extremities gracefully bent down by weight of winter snows, making them here, I am confident, the most beautiful trees on earth. The dry promontories which separate these meadows are also covered with a species of spruce, which is only less graceful than the firs aforesaid. I never before enjoyed such a tree-feast as on this wearying, difficult ride.” Had Mr. Greeley taken more time, it would not have been so wearying to himself or mule. He rode sixty miles, on one mule the day he went to the Yosemite, but his observations of what he saw are none the less just and valuable, though but few of the pine trees will measure eight feet in diameter. It is true, probably, that few forests in the United States are so dense and beautiful in variety as those seen on the old Mariposa route to the Yosemite by way of the meadows of the Pohono Summit. About these meadows the firs especially attract attention, from the uniform or geometrical regularity their branches assume. No landscape gardener could produce such effects as are here freely presented by the Great Architect of the universe for the admiration of his wayward children. Here in this region will also be found the California tamarack pine, and a variety of pine somewhat resembling the Norway pine, called Pinus Jeffreyi. There is still another pine, to be found only on the highest ridges and mountains, that may be said to mark the limit of arbol vegetation; this dwarf is known as _pinus albicaulis_, and could it but adapt itself to a lower altitude, and retain its dense and tangled appearance, it would make good hedge-rows.