CALIFORNIA TO QUEBEC 175 



I had seen it, and especially the valley up to it, but I had pre- 

 ferred to get on to the Rockies as soon as possible. I there- 

 fore went back to Truckee by the return of the stage in 

 the afternoon, and went on to Reno by the evening train. 

 While waiting at the station two ladies addressed me, and 

 said they had met me last autumn at the meeting of the 

 American Association at Boston. They were both botanists, 

 and had been camping out in the Californian mountains; so 

 we compared notes, and had some interesting botanical con- 

 versation. Their names were Miss J. W. Williams and Miss 

 Sarah W. Horton, of Oakland, California. 



The line from Truckee to Verdi (twenty-four miles) passes 

 through a very interesting series of gorges in the volcanic 

 district. The rocks and precipices exhibit all the varied 

 characteristics of basalt, lava, and volcanic ash, with frequent 

 intercalated layers of gravel and glacial drifts. The lateral 

 gorges give frequent peeps into the interior, with strange 

 castellated cliffs and pinnacles. Sometimes the main gorge 

 narrows, leaving barely room for the railway, with the river 

 foaming against the black, rugged precipice. The whole coun- 

 try from Gold Run, in California, to Verdi, in Nevada (eighty 

 miles), is a region of extinct (Pliocene?) volcanoes, but at 

 and near the summit these rocks have been denuded down 

 to the gneiss and granite, which there exhibits the grinding 

 power of ice as in the mountains of Europe. In this region 

 we have the results of fire, water, and ice action, well illus- 

 trating their respective shares in modelling the earth's surface. 

 The long and deep valley of the Truckee has probably been 

 entirely excavated through volcanic rocks since a quite recent 

 geological period. 



Leaving Reno the next morning, we passed through similar 

 volcanic country for about fifty miles, in the Truckee valley ; 

 then across an arid pleateau to the valley of the Humboldt 

 river, only reaching stratified rocks at the Humboldt mountains, 

 towards the source of the river, in the evening; and the 

 next morning found ourselves near Ogden, where I changed 

 for the Denver and Rio Grande Railway, in order to see 

 a different portion of the mountains, two hundred miles fur- 



