NEVADA'S TIMBER BELT 



est and most important of Nevada conifers, 

 attaining a height of from sixty to eighty feet 

 and a diameter of nearly two feet, while now 

 and then an exceptional specimen may be found 

 in shady dells a hundred feet high or more. 



The foliage is bright yellowish and bluish 

 green, according to exposure and age, growing 

 all around the branchlets, though inclined to 

 turn upward from the under sides, like that 

 of the plushy firs of California, making re- 

 markably handsome fernlike plumes. While 

 yet only mere saplings five or six inches thick 

 at the ground, they measure fifty or sixty feet 

 in height and are beautifully clothed with 

 broad, level, fronded plumes down to the base, 

 preserving a strict arrowy outline, though a 

 few of the larger branches shoot out in free 

 exuberance, relieving the spire from any un- 

 picturesque stiffness of aspect, while the coni- 

 cal summit is crowded with thousands of rich 

 brown cones to complete its beauty. 



We made the ascent of the peak just after 

 the first storm had whitened its summit and 

 brightened the atmosphere. The foot-slopes 

 are like those of the Troy range, only more 

 evenly clad with grasses. After tracing a long, 

 rugged ridge of exceedingly hard quartzite, 

 said to be veined here and there with gold, 

 we came to the North Dome, a noble sum- 



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