THE SIERRA NEVADA 9 



a delightfully pure and tranquil music after sunset ; 

 and coyotes, the little, despised dogs of the wilder 

 ness, brave, hardy fellows, looking like withered 

 wisps of hay, bark in chorus for hours. Mining- 

 towns, most of them dead, and a few living ones 

 with bright bits of cultivation about them, occur at 

 long intervals along the belt, and cottages covered 

 with climbing roses, in the midst of orange and 

 peach orchards, and sweet-scented hay-fields in fer 

 tile flats where water for irrigation may be had. 

 But they are mostly far apart, and make scarce 

 any mark in general views. 



Every winter the High Sierra and the middle 

 forest region get snow in glorious abundance, and 

 even the foot-hills are at times whitened. Then all 

 the range looks like a vast beveled wall of purest 

 marble. The rough places are then made smooth, 

 the death and decay of the year is covered gently 

 and kindly, and the ground seems as clean as the 

 sky. And though silent in its flight from the 

 clouds, and when it is taking its place on rock, or 

 tree, or grassy meadow, how soon the gentle snow 

 finds a voice ! Slipping from the heights, gather 

 ing in avalanches, it booms and roars like thunder, 

 and makes a glorious show as it sweeps down the 

 mountain-side, arrayed in long, silken streamers and 

 wreathing, swirling films of crystal dust. 



The north half of the range is mostly covered 

 with floods of lava, and dotted with volcanoes and 

 craters, some of them recent and perfect in form, 

 others in various stages of decay. The south half 

 is composed of granite nearly from base to summit, 

 while a considerable number of peaks, in the middle 



