THE SIEKKA NEVADA 7 



tervals of about fifteen and twenty miles. Here 

 the great burly brown bears delight to roam, har 

 monizing with the brown boles of the trees be 

 neath which they feed. Deer, also, dwell here, and 

 find food and shelter in the ceanothus tangles, with 

 a multitude of smaller people. Above this region 

 of giants, the trees grow smaller until the utmost 

 limit of the timber line is reached on the stormy 

 mountain-slopes at a height of from ten to twelve 

 thousand feet above the sea, where the Dwarf Pine 

 is so lowly and hard beset by storms and heavy 

 snow, it is pressed into flat tangles, over the tops of 

 which we may easily walk. Below the main forest 

 belt the trees likewise diminish in size, frost and 

 burning drouth repressing and blasting alike. 



The rose-purple zone along the base of the range 

 comprehends nearly all the famous gold region of 

 California. And here it was that miners from every 

 country under the sun assembled in a wild, torrent- 

 like rush to seek their fortunes. On the banks of 

 every river, ravine, and gully they have left their 

 marks. Every gravel- and boulder-bed has been 

 desperately riddled over and over again. But in 

 this region the pick and shovel, once wielded with 

 savage enthusiasm, have been laid away, and only 

 quartz-mining is now being carried on to any con 

 siderable extent. The zone in general is made up 

 of low, tawny, waving foot-hills, roughened here and 

 there with brush and trees, and outcropping masses 

 of slate, colored gray and red with lichens. The 

 smaller masses of slate, rising abruptly from the 

 dry, grassy sod in leaning slabs, look like ancient 

 tombstones in a deserted burying-ground. In early 



