STEEP TRAILS 



down in sheltered hollows on moist moraines, 

 would be regarded in California only as groves 

 of saplings, and so, relatively, they are, for by 

 careful calculation we find that more than a 

 thousand of these trees would be required to 

 furnish as much timber as may be obtained 

 from a single specimen of our Sierra giants. 



The height of the timber-line in eastern 

 Nevada, near the middle of the Great Basin, 

 is about eleven thousand feet above sea-level; 

 consequently the forests, in a dwarfed, stonn- 

 beaten condition, pass over the summits of 

 nearly every range in the State, broken here 

 and there only by mechanical conditions of 

 the surface rocks. Only three mountains in 

 the State have as yet come under my observa- 

 tion whose summits rise distinctly above the 

 tree-line. These are Wheeler's Peak, twelve 

 thousand three hundred feet high, Mount 

 Moriah, about twelve thousand feet, and 

 Granite Mountain, about the same height, all 

 of which are situated near the boundary-line 

 between Nevada and Utah Territory. 



In a rambUng mountaineering journey of 

 eighteen hundred miles across the state, I have 

 met nine species of coniferous trees, — four 

 pines, two spruces, two junipers, and one fir, — 

 about one third the number found in Cali- 

 fornia. By far the most abundant and inter- 



166 



