256 ON THE FRONTIEB. 



intervening valleys ; the mountains lessening, and the 

 valleys widening, as they succeed each other in endless 

 rotation. Through the centre of the picture flows the 

 stately river itself; its flanking heights receding farther 

 and farther from its banks ; its " bottoms " widening and 

 enlarging into plains, it winds its way along in many a 

 glistening coil, like some gigantic, endless, silvery anaconda 

 gliding into immensity. Our gaze follows its course until 

 at last mountains and valleys, " bottoms " and river, are 

 merged together in one misty gray, and then blend with 

 the blue of heaven. The horizon is too far off for man's 

 unaided vision to detect its line. 



The actual extent of the view, the distance to where a 

 straight line from our eyes to the horizon would touch the 

 earth, I have no means of estimating. I have been told 

 by persons upon whose statements I habitually relied, that 

 smoke from the funnel of the steamer which occasionally 

 brings supplies to Fort Mojave from the Gulf of California, 

 has been seen here, while she was yet sixty miles off. A 

 hard statement to credit, but the air is wonderfully clear 

 in this excessively dry climate, and I have no doubt that 

 the line of horizon is much farther off than that. I know, 

 on approaching the Rocky Mountains from the east, cross- 

 ing the so-called Great American Plain, the summits of 

 those mountains first appear above your horizon, looking 

 like the tops of thunder-clouds, when you are yet at 

 a distance of a hundred and eighty miles from the 

 base of the range, while, from such base, those summits 

 are forty to fifty miles still further back. I can vouch 

 for this, since I have seen them from there often, 



