1 72 MY LIFE 



ably cultivable. Having passed this, at one spot I saw a group 

 of tall golden yellow lilies, which blazed out grandly as the 

 train passed them. When we had reached a height of forty-five 

 hundred feet snow-sheds began, short ones at first, and at 

 considerable intervals, but afterwards longer and closer to- 

 gether, and for the last fourteen miles below the summit they 

 were almost continuous. They are formed of massive roughly- 

 hewn or sawed logs completely enclosing the line, but with 

 so many crevices as to let in a good deal of light ; but the 

 snow soon stops these up, and in the winter they are as dark 

 as a bricked tunnel. 



Before entering them we had fine views, looking backward, 

 down deep valleys and lateral ravines, among the slopes and 

 ridges of which the line wound its way at a nearly uniform 

 incline in order to avoid tunnelling. Everywhere within sight 

 the country had been denuded of its original growth of large 

 timber, but there were abundance of young trees of the sugar- 

 pine, white pine, Douglas and silver firs, and a few cedars, 

 which, if allowed to grow, will again clothe these mountains 

 with grandeur and beauty for a future generation. The visi- 

 ble rocks were either granite or talcose slaty beds and decom- 

 posing gneiss. There were also considerable tracts of white 

 volcanic clay or ash, in which the gold miners work, and the 

 layers of large round pebbles here and there showed where 

 ancient river channels had been cut across by the existing 

 streams. 



We reached the summit (seven thousand feet above the 

 sea) at 6:13 in a large snow-shed opening into the railroad 

 warehouses and workshops, and into the hotel. After dinner 

 I strolled out to a small marshy lake in a hollow, and found a 

 fine subalpine vegetation with abundance of flowers, promis- 

 ing me a great treat in its examination. The country imme- 

 diately around consists of bare granite hills and knolls, with 

 little lakes in the hollows. Just beyond the hotel there is a 

 short tunnel which brings the railway out to the western slope 

 of the Sierra, whence it winds around the southern shore of 

 Donner Lake on a continuous descent to Truckee and the great 

 Nevada silver mines. The granite rocks in the pass are every- 



