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GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTEE^T UNITED STATES, 



mountains hereabout, one of them in the West Humboldt Range a 

 few miles east of Lovelock. Nickel and cobalt deposits, not now 

 worked, occur in the Stillwater Range about 30 miles southeast of 

 Lovelock. A little niter has been found in this neighborhood, chiefly 

 in the Humboldt Lake Range.* 



From Lovelock the railroad continued down to the west side of 

 the Humboldt Valley, at first thi'ough broad fields of hay and grain. 

 At Perth (a sidetrack) there is a very large pit from which gravel 

 has been taken for grading along the railroad. The gravel here, as 

 at other places in this part of Nevada, is one of the old beach deposits 

 of Lake Lahontan. Shore terraces, which are in many places very 

 distinct, may be seen here on both sides of the valley. 



Beyond the cultivated region the low irregular valley surface con- 

 sists of a mixture of clay and sand in dunelike form, the lumpy 

 suiface being due more or less to the growth of brush and to conse- 



quent local protection from the wind. The yellowish-green brush 

 that covers the country is greasewood (Sarcobatus), which seems to 

 prefer ground that is otherwise unproductive- 

 Granite Point (elevation 3,973 feet), a railroad siding and group of 

 section houses, is named from a rocky bluff that projects into the 

 west side of the valley below Lovelock. It is horizontally scored by 

 the upper Lake Lahontan terraces. Below this pomt the valley is 

 more barren, the hard white clay in the low-lying ground supporting 

 only isolated clumps of greasewood. 



Humboldt Lake, a water body of irregular outline and variable 

 area which receives the surplus drainage of Humboldt River, comes 

 into view at or a little southwest of milepost 334. It is on the left 

 (east) of the railroad, at the bottom of a broad, smoothly graded 

 wash slope. The level and size of the lake vary greatly with the 

 seasons. At times of high water it overflows into Carson Sink. At 

 other times, however, evaporation exceeds the supply and the lake 

 decreases in size. The water is not densely saline, as it is parti}" 



^ Saltpeter, or niter, which is a neces- 

 sary constituent in the nianufacturQ of 

 most gunpowders and is also xery largely 

 used for fertilizers and for other purposes, 

 has been found in small quantities in 

 many places in the United States, al- 

 though practically the entire supply of 

 these salts now used in this country is 

 obtained from Chile. Xiter was discov- 

 ered in the foothills bordering the Love- 

 lock Valley at about the time of the first 

 coming of the railroad through this part 

 of the country, and the possibility of de- 

 veloping a local supply of these impor- 



tant salto has ever since been a source of 

 intermittent interest. Incrustations of 

 salt containing in some places a consid- 

 erable proportion of sodium nitrate are 

 found on some of the fractured cliffs and 

 ledges of volcanic rock just above the 

 edge of the \alley land south and south- 

 oast of Lovelock. Continued exploration 

 and experimentation in these districts 

 have, however, failed to discover any 

 mass of niter-bearing material of sufficient 

 volume and richness to justify or encour- 

 age an enterprise for its commercial de- 

 1 velopment. 



