What I saw on the west coast of South and North America, and at the Hawaiian Islands.: By H. Willis Baxley, M.D.

YO-SEMITE.
autumn this may be done in several places, but not when it is
swollen by winter rains or the spring thaw. To approach near
enough to realize the great height from which the water leaps,
we were compelled to dismount and clamber for someQ distance
over huge rocks that hal from time to time fallen from the cliffs
above.
The Yo-Semite waterfall and the valley are so called from
the tribe of Indians formerly occupying this district of country.
The name is said by some to mean Great Water. It has been
attempted recently by fastidious etymologists to show that YoHamite was the name of the tribe, who alone for a time are
supposed to have known, and to have held the key of entrande
to the valley. But the designation Yo-Semite given by the
first white explorers who visited it, appears to be too firmly fixed
on the public mind to beunsettled. Nor, so far as I can ascertain, are there any sufficient reasons why it should be changed,
while consequent confusion and uncertainty should forbid the
attempt. On the score of euphony nothing would be gained by
the change.
The stream which forms this waterfall heads in the Sierra
Nevada, nearly twenty-five miles off; and although in the dry
season it dwindles to a brooklet, forming in truth but an insignificanlt cascade in volume, yet when in full flow in winter and
spring, and even in June, as I am assured by one of my companions who has several times crossed it, it is fordable with difficulty, and pitches a torrent over the precipice, forming an unrivalled cataract. It is not by a single bound that the flashing
sheet of foam reaches the valley that clothed in beauty welcomes the sparkling tribute. First plunging perpendicularly
fourteen hundred and ninety-seven feet, it then rushes madly
through a canfion having an angle of fifty degrees, and a total
perpendicular of four hundred and sixty-two feet more; and as
if impatient of partial restraint, it leaps again at another bound
of five hundred and eighteen feet into a rock-walled basin,
whence floats on the undulating air the wild music of its rejoicing to a whispering gallery in the vaulted cliff, which echoes it
with startling distinctness.
There is some diversity of statement about the height of this
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