86 A. Gray—Forest Geography and Archeology. 
and more bare and less green as we proceed westward, with 
only some scattering cottonwoods (i. ¢. poplars) on the imme- 
: “dba ag ks of the traversing rivers, which are themselves far 
between. 
ta the Rocky Mountains we come again to forest, but only 
in narrow lines or patches; and if you travel by the Pacific 
Railroad you hardly come to any; the eastern and the interior- 
desert plains meet along the comparatively low level of the 
divide which here is so opportune for the railway; but both 
north and south of this line the mountains themselves are 
seem to be as bare as the alkaline plains they traverse, mostly 
north and south; and the plains bear nothing taller than sage- 
brush. But those who reach and climb these mountains find 
that their ravines and higher recesses nourish no small amount 
of timber, though the trees themselves are mostly small and 
always lo 
When the western rim of this great basin is reached there is 
an nee change of scene. This rim is formed of the Sierra 
Nev Even its eastern slopes are forest-clad in great meas- 
ure ; oF the western bear in some respects the noblest and 
most remarkable forest of the world Ria ie rkable even for the 
Eucalyptus-trees in certain sheltered ravines of the southern 
part of Australia, it is probable that there is no forest to 
tonipated for grandeur with that which stretches, essentially 
unbroken,—though often narrowed, and nowhere very wide,— 
from the southern part of the Sierra Nevada in lat. 86° to 
Puget Sound beyond lat. 49°, and not a little farther. 
Descending into the long ‘valley of California, "the forest 
changes, dwindles, and mainly disappears. In the Pacific 
Co: nges, it resumes its sway, with altered features, some 
of them not less magnificent and of greater beauty. The Red- 
woods of the coast, for instance, are little less gigantic than the 
Pe -trees of the Sierra Nevada, and a handsomer, and a thou- 
times more numerous. An veral species ges are 
we shave two torcoe seeicilit in Rank America,—an Atlan- 
