The tracts of land embracing the Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Big Tree Grove, described as the "Cleft" or "Gorge" in the granite peak of the Sierra Nevada mountains, situated in the county of Mariposa, in the State of California, and the headwaters of the Merced River, and known as the Yosemite Valley, with its branches or spurs, in estimated length fifteen miles, and in average width one mile back from the main edge of the precipice, on each side of the valley, and the tracts embracing what is known as the "Mariposa Big Tree Grove", not to exceed the area of four sections, and to be taken in legal subdivisions of one quarter section each, together with that part of fractional sections 5 and 6, township 5 south, range 22 east, Mount Diablo meridian, California, lying south of the South Fork of Merced River and almost wholly between the Mariposa Big Tree Grove and the south boundary of the Yosemite National Park, on June 11, 1906, are reserved and withdrawn from settlement, occupancy, or sale under the laws of the United States and set apart as a national forest, subject to all the limitations, conditions, and provisions of sections 61, 471c and 471d of this title, as well as the limitations, conditions, and provisions of section 46 of this title, and shall hereafter form a part of the Yosemite National Park.
(June 30, 1864, ch. 184, §§1, 2,