Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 85.djvu/79

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 North Dome of Concentric Granite Formation 3,600 Feet Above Merced River.

that "there is no reason to suppose, or at least no proof, that glaciers have ever occupied the valley or any portion of it. ... A more absurd theory was never advanced than that by which it was sought to ascribe to glaciers the sawing out of these vertical walls and the rounding of the domes." At the same time, Professor Whitney was thoroughly convinced that the Tuolumne watershed to the north had been entirely filled by a gigantic glacier which he agreed had hewn out the Hetch Hetchy Valley, a miniature Yosemite situated twenty miles northwesterly and three hundred feet lower in altitude.

An able ally who came to the aid of Professor Whitney was the noted glacialist, Israel C. Russell. Detailed by the United States Geological