Close up under the shadow of the Sierra Matterhorn, on the eastern slope
of the range, lies one of the iciest of these glacier lakes at an
elevation of about 12,000 feet. A short, ragged-edged glacier crawls
into it from the south, and on the opposite side it is embanked and
dammed by a series of concentric terminal moraines, made by the glacier
when it entirely filled the basin. Half a mile below lies a second lake,
at a height of 11,500 feet, about as cold and as pure as a snow-crystal.
The waters of the first come gurgling down into it over and through the
moraine dam, while a second stream pours into it direct from a glacier
that lies to the southeast. Sheer precipices of crystalline snow rise
out of deep water on the south, keeping perpetual winter on that side,
but there is a fine summery spot on the other, notwithstanding the lake
is only about 300 yards wide. Here, on August 25, 1873, I found a
charming company of flowers, not pinched, crouching dwarfs, scarce able
to look up, but warm and juicy, standing erect in rich cheery color and
bloom. On a narrow strip of shingle, close to the water's edge, there
were a few tufts of carex gone to seed; and a little way back up the
rocky bank at the foot of a crumbling wall so inclined as to absorb and
radiate as well as reflect a considerable quantity of sun-heat, was the
garden, containing a thrifty thicket of Cowania covered with large
yellow flowers; several bushes of the alpine ribes with berries nearly
ripe and wildly acid; a few handsome grasses belonging to two distinct
species, and one goldenrod; a few hairy lupines and radiant spragueas,
whose blue and rose-colored flowers were set off to fine advantage amid
green carices; and along a narrow seam in the very warmest angle of the
wall a perfectly gorgeous fringe of _Epilobium obcordatum_ with
flowers an inch wide, crowded together in lavish profusion, and colored
as royal a purple as ever was worn by any high-bred plant of the
tropics; and best of all, and greatest of all, a noble thistle in full
bloom, standing erect, head and shoulders above his companions, and
thrusting out his lances in sturdy vigor as if growing on a Scottish
brae.
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