NEVADA FARMS 



mountain-ranges have been thoroughly crushed 

 and ground by glaciers, thrashed and vitalized 

 by the sun, and sifted and outspread in lake- 

 basins by powerful torrents that attended the 

 breaking-up of the glacial period, as if in every 

 way Nature had been making haste to prepare 

 the land for the husbandman. Soil, climate, 

 topographical conditions, all that the most 

 exacting could demand, are present, but one 

 thing, water, is wanting. The present rainfall 

 would be wholly inadequate for agriculture, 

 even if it were advantageously distributed over 

 the lowlands, while in fact the greater portion 

 is poured out on the heights in sudden and 

 violent thunder-showers called &quot;cloud-bursts,&quot; 

 the waters of which are fruitlessly swallowed 

 up in sandy gulches and deltas a few minutes 

 after their first boisterous appearance. The 

 principal mountain-chains, trending nearly 

 north and south, parallel with the Sierra and 

 the Wahsatch, receive a good deal of snow dur 

 ing winter, but no great masses are stored up as 

 fountains for large perennial streams capable 

 of irrigating considerable areas. Most of it 

 is melted before the end of May and absorbed 

 by moraines and gravelly taluses, which send 

 forth small rills that slip quietly down the 

 upper canons through narrow strips of flowery 

 verdure, most of them sinking and vanishing 



155 



