CHAPTER XXVIIL 



* 



OVER THE SIERRAS. 



lERRA is the Spanish word for 'saw' 

 and also for ^mountain/ referring to the 

 notched outline of the mountains as 

 seen against the sky." 



My main object now was to push oa 

 to Sacramento. At Kelton, in Utah, 

 where I remained only a few hours, I 

 was still seven hundred and ninety miles 

 from my destination. Stock is exten- 

 sively grazed here and cattle shipped to the Pacific 

 coast in very large numbers. Leaving Kelton, I rode 

 thirty-three miles to Terrace, a small settlement in the 

 midst of a desert; thence to Wells in the adjoining 

 State of Nevada. 



Nevada belongs to the ^' Great Basin," a table-land 

 elevated 4,500 feet above the sea. It is traversed, 

 with great uniformity, by parallel mountain ranges, 

 rising from 1,000 to 8,000 feet high, running north 

 and south. Long, narrow valleys, or canyons, lie be- 

 tween them. The Sierra Nevada, in some places 

 13,000 feet in heigiit, extends along the western 

 boundary of the State. The only navigable river ia 

 the Colorado, but there are several other streams ris- 



L507) 



