of THEIR Our Club is generally recognized as the one organization best fitted to take the lead in all matters involving the preservation of the wonderful natural scenery which California is so fortunate as to possess, and in calling the attention of the world to these wonders. It takes money to carry on this work and to direct and concentrate public opinion where it will do the greatest immediate good. Members mean money-for our work is financed almost entirely through the payment of dues. The Club has grown wonderfully in the years past, but there is room for much greater growth and need for an increased income. We want each member of the Club to take an active part in its various undertakings. You can help by getting new members. There are few public-spirited people in California who would not willingly contribute $3.00 annually ($5.00 for the first year) to help in this good work. Any of your friends who are interested to help in the following activities should be persuaded to join. PRESERVATION OF THE SCENERY AND WONDERFUL NATURAL FEATURES OF THE SIERRA.-Concerted action is essential and a central organization to enlist and direct public sentiment is an imperative necessity. PUBLICATION OF INFORMATION TELLING PEOPLE ALL OVER THE WORLD ABOUT THESE WONDERS AND HOW TO REACH THEM, thus arousing interest in their welfare. PRESERVATION OF OUR FORESTS.-The Club has always taken a vital interest in the preservation of our forests. In our BULLETIN, published semi-annually, we make a special feature of Forestry and publish reliable and up-to-date facts furnished by leading authorities so as to keep our members in touch with this important subject. WELFARE OF OUR NATIONAL PARKS.-We are devoting every energy to further the interests of our great national wonderlands, both by securing increased appropriations from Congress and by keeping our members informed of any dangers which threaten their welfare and existence. BUILDING OF TRAILS AND ROADS to make these parklands more accessible. The Paradise Trail, connecting Paradise Valley with Kings River Cañon, would not have been built but for the leadership and co-operation of the SIERRA CLUB. Its value to travel is worth infinitely more than its cost. Other trails are needed to out-of-the-way but attractive regions of the High Sierra. PLANTING THE FISHLESS STREAMS AND LAKES OF THE SIERRA WITH TROUT. -The SIERRA CLUB, in co-operation with the California Fish and Game Commission, has done more in the last four years towards stocking the Kings-Kern High Sierra with golden trout and other trout than has been accomplished in the forty years preceding. ANNUAL OUTINGS AND EXCURSIONS.-This part of the Club's work can be participated in by but comparatively few. While a subordinate part of the Club's activities, it enables us to furnish our members with a wonderful outing at minimum expense and results in the exploration and the increased accessibility of the regions visited through construction of trails and bridges and spread of information for the benefit of those who may come after. PHOTOGRAPHS ARE EXHIBITED AND LECTURES DELIVERED. We intend to make these features more important as time goes on. We ask you to aid us in building up the membership of the Club and thus making it a greater power for good. Board of Directors, PER WM. E. COLBY, Secretary. SIERRA RESORT P. O. Sequoia, Tuolumne Co., Cal. This celebrated mountain resort, on the Big Oak Flat Road, at the gateway to the Yosemite National Park, improved and modernized. A place for sojourn and rest in the Sierra Forest. Hot and cold baths, laundry and the best of everything. Automobilists make this their headquarters, from which they can visit the Yosemite Valley and the peerless Hetch Hetchy in all its unsophisticated beauty. Supplies, pack-horses, and guides for the upper reaches of the Park, Tuolumne Meadows, Lake Tenaya, Tuolumne Canyon, and the finest fishing streams of the Sierra. Write for rates, stage time table, and further particulars for reaching this resort to above address, or Room 607 Crocker Building, San Francisco. The Blair-Murdock Co. Printers and Publishers 68 Fremont St. San Francisco Phones: Kearny 1040 Home J 1040 VOL. VIII SAN FRANCISCO, JUNE, 1911 No. 2 LITTLE STUDIES IN THE YOSEMITE VALLEY BY F. E. MATTHES. III. THE Winds of the Yosemite Valley.* To most folks roaming about the Yosemite Valley its winds and breezes seem a matter of small interest or consequence. They come and go, now one way, now another, apparently without regularity or system,-moody, capricious beyond analysis. In the midst of the grand tumult of the Yosemite landscape, our senses fairly bewildered with its many glories, we cannot stop to consider these little breaths that blow about us, and let them puff by unheeded. The Yosemite region is not a windy country anyway; but once or twice in a season does a gale arise to disturb its wonted tranquillity, and its daily zephyrs are such light, airy little nothings as to scarcely seem worthy of downright study. And yet they become singularly interesting when once rightly understood. They turn out to be surprisingly systematic and withal so intimately connected with the configuration of the valley itself, that, to one who has at length mastered their secret they grow to be one of its immanent features, as characteristic and inseparable as El Capitan or the Yosemite Falls. It happens to be so ordained in nature that the sun shall heat the ground more rapidly than the air. And so it comes that every slope or hillside basking in the morning sun soon becomes itself a source of heat. It gradually warms the air immediately over it, and, the latter, becoming lighter, begins to rise. But not vertically upward, for above it is still the cool air pressing down. Up along the warm slope it ascends, much as shown by the arrows in the accompanying diagram (Fig. 1). Few visitors to *Published by permission of the Director of the U. S. Geological Survey. |