Geological History of Yosemite Valley

Eugene Kingman loved the spirit of the National Parks. During 1936 he was invited to use his combined scientific and artistic background to illustrate 7 paintings of Yosemite and 6 paintings of Crater Lake National Park in an intriguing geographical article by Dr. Wallace W. Atwood, featuring these 13 paintings in the March 1937 issue of National Geographic Magazine. The title of this article is "Crater Lake and Yosemite Through the Ages" and the full article can be accessed via this link.

The final uplift caused the Merced to cut still deeper. Thus more than a million years ago, just before the Great Ice Age, was produced the canyon shown in this painting. The higher peaks of the Sierra Nevada became snow-capped, and the lower slopes cover with dense stands of evergreens.