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A Journal for Spring 1994 Members of the Volume 56 Yosemite Association Number 2

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A Journal for Spring 1994 Members of the Volume 56 Yosemite Association Number 2 A Journal for Spring 1994 Members of the Volume 56 Yosemite Association Number 2 PAGE TWO YOSEMITE ASSOCIATION, SPRING 1994 Bi l Guyton are two different things . He for quick and dramatic results, possessed a fine intellect and preferably in the form of some About 1870, John Muir and exceptional powers of obser- discovery that would produce Josiah Whitney became antag- vation, but it is perhaps fair to another economic boom like onists in a sometimes acrimo- suggest that nature appealed the then fizzling gold rush. nious dispute regarding the more to his emotions than to Failing to produce such a origin of Yosemite Valley in the his intellect . Muir fell in love miracle, Whitney was soon Sierra Nevada of California. with Yosemite and worked threatened with having funds Muir; a naturalist and amateur as a shepherd and sawmill for the Survey discontinued . In geologist, believed that glaciers operator to stay there . Great fact in its last years Whitney had formed the remarkable Val- things were to come to John paid some Survey expenses out ley Whitney, professional geol- John !`'r)?. Muir, but in 1868 he was a of his own pocket . In 1864, ogist, Yale graduate, and State nobody. Whitney eloquently expressed Geologist of California, argued tant contributions to our his opinion on the legislative The Specialist and that the valley was formed knowledge of the Sierra floor when he said, "We have the Generalist when the bottom dropped Nevada and California and escaped perils by flood and thousands of feet during a to the preservation of Yosem- Josiah Whitney 's duties as field, have evaded the friendly "grand cataclysm" Here was ite, and he deserves better State Geologist were "to make embrace of the grizzly, and a conflict in the manner of than the narrow view of him an accurate and complete geo- now find ourselves in the jaws David and Goliath : the likeable that many people have. logical survey of the state, to of the Legislature ." amateur versus the government describe in reports and maps In addition to fighting for the Coming to California professional . To the delight of the rocks, fossils, soils, miner- life and integrity of the Survey, subsequent generations, Muir Josiah Whitney was ap- als, botanical and zoological Whitney directed field parties won. Most books about the pointed State Geologist of Cali- productions, and to collect in various parts of California Sierra Nevada mention the dis- fornia in 1860 at age 41 . Prior specimens . " No small assign- and prepared and published re- pute at least briefly, so briefly to this he graduated from Yale ment that . Realizing that accu- ports as well . There was much as to be unfair to Whitney. University, studied in Europe, rate maps were vital to the to do besides investigate the With each retelling, details be- and participated in geological future of the State, Whitney origin of Yosemite Valley. come blurred and the charac- surveys in New York, New hired topographers and geolo- ters more sharply drawn; Muir Hampshire, Iowa, and Wiscon- gists to begin a systematic pro- Chester Averill . William Gabb_ becomes a visionary who can sin. He was a respected geolo- gram of map-making and basic William Ashburner, Josiah Dwight do no wrong and Whitney be- gist capable of attracting geologic studies . This approach Whitney, Charles E Hoffmann. comes a pompous fool incap- talented men to work for the soon brought conflict with the Clarence King, and William Henry Brewer, members of the California able of seeing the obvious. new California Geological California Legislature, mem- Geological Survey in 1860, when Was it really so clear-cut? Survey. William Brewer and bers of which were impatient Whitney was State Geologist. Did Whitney really miss the Clarence King were two of the obvious? Is it true that the most celebrated among them, more you go to school the less contributing to the exploration you can learn from nature? Is of the Sierra Nevada and our there anything to be said for knowledge of glaciation and the now discredited views of glaciers in California. Whitney? The situation was John Muir arrived in Califor- not as simple as some accounts nia in 1868 at age 30 . His walk would have us believe . The from San Francisco to Yosemite glacial origin of Yosemite Val- Valley was part of an odyssey ley is not obvious and Muir that already included a walk overstated his case . Going to from Indiana to Florida and school does not make one visits to Cuba, South America, blind to nature, and yes, there and Panama . Muir had attended are things to be said in defense the University of Wisconsin of Whitney and his mistaken but had no degree . He was hypothesis regarding Yosemite. knowledgeable about botany Josiah Whitney made impor- and geology, but did not claim to be a scientist in the profes- Cover : Yosemite Valli sional sense; he was a natural- east from El Capii an . ist and lover of nature, if those 1C._.i1TE ASSOCIATION, SPRING 1994 PAGE THREE Horn Lateral Moraine Recessional Moraine Terminal Moraine John Muir managed to find not bode well for Whit- ways to live in Yosemite for ney in the coming dispute. Figure 1: many years . Even while work- Cirque glaciers Ancient Glaciation form as snow ac- log as a shepherd he wrote cumulates on a moun- it his diary about the glacial In the June of 1863 Josiah tain crest. The glaciers features he saw in or near Whitney and W.H. Brewer, pluck blocks of rock from the Yosemite mountain, forming bowl-shaped . As soon as he could, having visited Yosemite Valley, features called cirques . A jagged he quit sheepherding and saw- travelled on to Tuolumne Mead- ridge, an arete, forms where two milling and became a full-time ows in what is now Yosemite cirques brow toward each other. naturalist and writer. Among National Park and found "traces A horn forms where three or more cirques meet. A valley glacier other things, he wrote about of enormous glaciers here in Living Glaciers moves down a valley, transporting the evils of sheep and logging earlier times, the first found on and depositing boulders, sand and and about the damage done to the Pacific slope . ." In 1866 Clarence King and clay. Ridges of glacial deposits are his beloved mountains . His In 1865 Whitney published James Gardiner described a called moraines . Lateral moraines form on the sides of the glaciated travels and observations ex- a report of the Geological Sur- possible glacier on Mount Rit- valley; terminal moraines form tended from Yosemite Valley vey, Volume I, Geology. In it ter in the Sierra Nevada . Whit- at the terminus of the glacier; into the higher elevations he wrote that his field staff, ney was aware of their find but recessional moraines form as a yLcier retreats. and south throughout the Clarence King and James Gar- expressed doubt about it being Sierra. His style of living diner, found ample evidence a true glacier, and dismissed it kept him close to the land that a glacier had once occu- as being of no geologic signifi- remote sensing. In 1980, W.B. and provided constant oppor- pied Yosemite Valley, and that cance. This view was narrow, Raub and others reported the tunity for him to study the the ice may have been a thou- uninspired, and technically existence of 497 glaciers and at effect of ice on the magnifi- sand feet thick . Moraines in the wrong, but it was not foolish; least 847 smaller perennial ice cent Sierra landscape. Valley were described in detail. modern Sierra glaciers are more patches in the Sierra Nevada, Whitney the geologist was It is clear that years before of a curiosity than they are of but their definition of "glacier" doing almost everything except John Muir arrived in California, geologic significance. has been challenged by other studying geology, while Muir Josiah Whitney was well aware In October 1871 John Muir workers as being too broad. the generalist was spending al- of the former existence of great discovered "a living glacier" The number of glaciers in the most every day making geolog- glaciers throughout the Sierra near Merced Peak not far from Sierra is unknown and debata- ical observations . This would Nevada and in Yosemite Valley. Yosemite Valley. During the ble, but I believe that most He did not, however, believe next few years Muir would people who are interested in that glaciers were capable of identify and study many other the question think that the :facial striae in glacially palislie~l rock along the middle fork of the much erosional work, a view glaciers throughout the Sierra number is closer to 80 than Kings River south of Grouse that was widespread among Nevada, including the Lyell and 497 The Palisade Glacier is the Meadow, Sequoia National Park . geologists of the time . Maclure glaciers . Most of his largest in the Sierra with a sur- glaciers were real enough, but face area of about one-half some may have been simply square mile ; most of the others, snow masses, for Clarence whatever the correct number, King stated in 1882 that some are much smaller than the places where Muir described Palisade Glacier. All the glaciers glaciers were free of snow dur- were larger when Muir studied ing the dry season of 1864-65. them, but even then they were On the other hand, King may small by any standard. have been mistaken in his rec- ollection . It is clear that Muir Glacial Troughs and did find glaciers, but King's Fault-block Basins doubts remind us that Sierra The primary form of Yosem- glaciers are small and hard to ite is steep cliffs rising above a distinguish from perennial flat valley floor.
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