Loose masses of rock projected over the edge and we soon began loosening them and watching the fun. The falling stone would gather hundreds of others in its course, and thus the growing avalanche would thunder down the cliff amidst the most deafening reverberations from the cañon walls, till the final crash at the bottom sounded like a cannon shot. We went along the cliff and rolled huge rock masses to our heart's content. We would all get on the ground behind one, and with one push of the feet send the rock over the cliff sometimes as large as ½ a ton. For two hours we enjoyed this sport and then returned to the summit. Lake started along the cliff to the south, and climbed without difficulty to the summit of one of the great columns on the cliff front. He pushed boulders over the cliff and we could see the white streak of dust and the black masses of stone shooting downwards like rockets, the roar of the fall upon the debris pile coming up only after many seconds.

--Joseph N. LeConte, 1890

Nothing included in the Library will in any way be edited by me. It has always bothered me that most twentieth century historical writers seem to feel it is their main task to sanitize these accounts by changing the original author's prose into modern-day, pedantic English. In my opinion, any editing detracts from a piece, and can be justified only as self-aggrandizement by an editor. Editors who do this can, if careful, retain most (but not all) of the meaning of an account, but, the more they tinker, the more they lose any real "feeling" of time and place. This feeling of time and place is one of the prime purposes of this site.

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