322 MINING INDUSTEY. 



The steep, sheltered sides of many of the canons of the range support a 

 growth of pinon and juniper trees, with some yellow pine, fir, and mountain 

 mahogany, which, though somewhat sparse, is abundant compared to the 

 average mountain range of this region, and sufficient to afford several years' 

 supply of mining timber and fuel to mines that are likely to be opened. 



The agricultural resources of the range are not sufficient to support its 

 present limited population, being principally confined to the more hardy 

 vegetables, which have been successfully cultivated in some of the larger 

 canons; fair crops of grain have, however, been raised on the bottom 

 lands at the mouths of Big Creek and Kingston Canons, and along the bor- 

 ders of Eeese River and of the Smoky Valley Flat, when the supply of water 

 has been sufficient and the slope of the ground suitable for irrigation. 



The valleys which border the range on the east and west are broad, 

 plain-like depressions, from six to twelve miles wide, their sides sloping up 

 toward the foot-hills of the mountains, which are from 600 to 1,200 feet 

 above their lowest point. Their surface is covered by a scanty growth of 

 sage brush, which, in their lower and more moist portions, is replaced by a 

 coarse wire or swamp grass. That on the west is traversed by the Reese 

 River, which flows northward into the Humboldt, of which it is the longest 

 affluent; but, although opposite Austin it is a considerable stream, with an 

 average fall of 25 feet in the mile, it seldom reaches that river, owing to the 

 great evaporating power of the atmosphere. 



Smoky Valley, on the east, is both deeper and wider than Reese River 

 Valley, and forms an independent basin; the waters flowing into it from 

 this range all drain toward a large mud or alkali flat, opposite Park Canon, 

 which is about 18 miles long by 6 miles wide; a low divide, opposite the Hot 

 Springs, forms the southern limit of this basin, though the valley extends 

 over a hundred miles further south without any considerable change of level. 

 Such alkali flats as this form a very characteristic feature in the scenery of 

 the great plateau; partially covered by water from the melting of the snows 

 in spring and early summer, its surface, destitute of all vegetation, is left, by 

 the evaporation of these waters, incrusted with a thin, white coating of min- 

 eral salts. At its northern extremity is the so-called salt marsh, where these 

 incrustations are so considerable that large quantities of the salts (here con- 



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