MONTEZUMA EANGE. 75l 



SECTION VI. 

 MONTEZUMA RANGE AND KAWSOH MOUNTAFNS. 



BY ARNOLD HAGUE. 



Montezuma Range. — This mountain uplift lies to the westward of the 

 West Humboldt Range and upon the opposite side of the Humboldt Valley, 

 forming the first successful barrier to the westerly progress of the river in 

 its long sinuous course across the State of Nevada. It extends from Mirage 

 Lake northward for over 80 miles, passing beyond the limits of the 

 map. From its southern termination to the Trinity Peak group, it agrees in 

 trend with the lower half of the West Humboldt Range, and from there 

 northward has a nearly due north and south direction. In width, the range 

 rarely exceeds 12 miles, and in many places is. contracted to 6 or 8 miles, 

 the widest portions being in the region of Antelope Peak to the north, and 

 at Trinity Canon opposite the town of Oreana. 



The range as seen from the valley, looking westward, presents a jagged 

 and broken outline, which comes, however, more from frequent and abrupt 

 changes in geological structure than from any real grandeur of topographi- 

 cal features. The serrated and sharp, pinnacled masses of granite, the 

 rounded and smoothly-eroded forms of gray slate, the long black tables 

 and rough domes of basalt, with the irregular outbursts of rhyolite, give an 

 ever-changing and varied aspect as regards structure, form, and color to the 

 entire range. 



Commanding peaks nowhere characterize the range, the most elevated 

 summits rising but a few hundred feet above others in the smTOunding 

 group. Trinity Peak, composed of granite, at the head of Trinity Canon, 

 and Antelope Peak, of Jurassic slates, 18 miles to the northward, attain an 

 altitude of about 7,500 feet above sea-level ; from both peaks the ridges 

 falling off gradually toward Indian Pass, 2,500 feet below. 



The drainage-channels of at least four-fifths of the entire mountain 

 area fall toward the Humboldt Valley, a few secondary canons from the 

 steeper slopes carrying water derived from melting snows to the westward. 

 The range, however, may be characterized as one of the driest in the 



