172 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



masses of barren and unsightly refuse, which may in time 

 become covered with trees, but will probably never be profit- 

 ably cultivable. Having passed this, at one spot I saw a group 

 of tall golden yellow lilies, which blazed out grandly as the 

 train passed them. When we had reached a height of forty- 

 five hundred feet snow-sheds began, short ones at first, and 

 at considerable intervals, but afterwards longer and closer 

 together, and for the last fourteen miles below the summit 

 they were almost continuous. They are formed of massive 

 roughly-hewn or sawed logs completely enclosing the line, 

 but with so many crevices as to let in a good deal of light ; 

 but the snow soon stops these up, and in the winter they are 

 as dark as a bricked tunnel. 



Before entering them we had fine views, looking backward, 

 down deep valleys and lateral ravines, among the slopes and 

 ridges of which the line wound its way at a nearly uniform 

 incline in order to avoid tunnelling. Everywhere within sight 

 the country had been denuded of its original growth of large 

 timber, but there were abundance of young trees of the sugar- 

 pine, white pine, Douglas and silver firs, and a few cedars, 

 which, if allowed to grow, will again clothe these mountains 

 with grandeur and beauty for a future generation. The 

 visible rocks were either granite or talcose slaty beds and 

 decomposing gneiss. There were also considerable tracts of 

 white volcanic clay or ash, in which the gold-miners work, 

 and the layers of large round pebbles here and there showed 

 where ancient river channels had been cut across by the 

 existing streams. 



We reached the summit (seven thousand feet above the 

 sea) at 6.13 in a large snow-shed opening into the railroad 

 warehouses and workshops, and into the hotel. After dinner 

 I strolled out to a small marshy lake in a hollow, and 

 found a fine subalpine vegetation with abundance of flowers, 

 promising me a great treat in its examination. The country 

 immediately around consists of bare granite hills and knolls, 

 with little lakes in the hollows. Just beyond the hotel there 

 is a short tunnel which brings the railway out to the western 

 slope of the Sierra, whence it winds round the southern shore 



