XIII 



NEVADA FOEESTS 1 



WHEN the traveler from California has 

 crossed the Sierra and gone a little way down 

 the eastern flank, the woods come to an end 

 about as suddenly and completely as if, going 

 westward, he had reached the ocean. From 

 the very noblest forests in the world he emerges 

 into free sunshine and dead alkaline lake- 

 levels. Mountains are seen beyond, rising in 

 bewildering abundance, range beyond range. 

 But however closely we have been accustomed 

 to associate forests and mountains, these al- 

 ways present a singularly barren aspect, ap- 

 pearing gray and forbidding and shadeless, 

 like heaps of ashes dumped from the blazing 

 sky. 



But wheresoever we may venture to go in 

 all this good world, nature is ever found richer 

 and more beautiful than she seems, and no- 

 where may you meet with more varied and 

 delightful surprises than in the byways and 

 recesses of this sublime wilderness lovely 

 asters and abronias on the dusty plains, rose- 

 gardens around the mountain wells, and resiny 

 1 Written at Eureka, Nevada, in October, 1878. [Editor.) 

 164 



