. 
FOREST GEOGRAPHY AND ARCHAZOLOGY. 205 
In the Rocky Mountains we come again to forest, but only 
in narrow lines or patches ; and if you travel by the Pacific 
Railroad you hardly come to any: the eastern and the in- 
terior-desert plains meet along the comparatively low level of 
the divide which here is so opportune for the railway; but 
both north and south of this line the mountains themselves 
are fairly wooded. Beyond, through all the wide interior 
basin, and also north and south of it, the numerous mountain 
chains seem to be as bare as the alkaline plains they traverse, 
mostly north and south; and the plains bear nothing taller 
than sage-brush. But those who reach and climb these moun- 
tains find that their ravines and higher recesses nourish no 
small amount of timber, though the trees themselves are 
mostly small and always low. 
When the western rim of this great basin is reached there 
is an abrupt change of scene. This rim is formed of the 
Sierra Nevada. Even its eastern slopes are forest-clad in 
great measure, while the western bear in some respects the 
noblest and most remarkable forest of the world, — remark- 
able even for the number of species of evergreen trees occu- 
pying a comparatively narrow area, but especially for their 
wonderful development in size and altitude. Whatever may 
be claimed for individual Eucalyptus-trees in certain sheltered 
ravines of the southern part of Australia, it is probable that 
there is no forest to be compared for grandeur with that which 
stretches, essentially unbroken, — though often narrowed, and 
nowhere very wide, — from the southern part of the Sierra 
Nevada in lat. 36° to Puget Sound beyond lat. 49°, and not a 
little farther. 
Descending into the long valley of California, the forest 
changes, dwindles, and mainly disappears. In the Pacific 
coast ranges it resumes its sway, with altered features, some 
of them not less magnificent and of greater beauty. The 
Redwoods of the coast, for instance, are little less gigantic 
than the Big Trees of the Sierra Nevada, and far handsomer, 
and a thousand times more numerous. And several species, 
which are merely or mainly shrubs in the drier Sierra, be- 
come lordly trees in the moister air of the northerly coast 
