514 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tude of spiders. One cannot climb over them without being covered 

 with the webs and distributing hundreds of the little insects. But few 

 bushes grow upon the tufa, for the rainfall here is very slight, and they 

 are clearly revealed in all their nakedness. 



Exceedingly barren are the shores of this great lake, except at two 

 points where springs furnish water for irrigation. The Truckee Eiver 

 has rich bottoms along its lower course, occupied by Indians who seem 

 to be fairly well civilized. 



Although the lake is so isolated, its scenery is remarkable in the ex- 

 treme, and it deserves to be better known. More plainly than is 

 usually the case, the history of the ancient lake which occupied these 

 valleys is recorded on the slopes of the surrounding mountains and in 

 the strange tufa deposits which rise out of the waters of its modern rep- 

 resentative, Pyramid Lake. Eising and falling with the different sea- 

 sons, the lake seems to have slight hold upon life. If the Truckee 

 Eiver should be entirely diverted to Winnemucca Lake, the waters of 

 Pyramid Lake would undoubtedly shrink to insignificant proportions. 

 The same effect would be brought about if the aridity of the Great 

 Basin region should increase, and the precipitation upon the Sierra 

 Nevada become less than at present. 



Let us hope that, in the swinging of the pendulum from arid to 

 more moist conditions and back again, the lakes of the Great Basin are 

 not doomed to extinction, but that they may again increase in size, re- 

 peating the conditions of the past. 



