174 MY LIFE [Chap. 



sub-aerial decomposition and exfoliation. Here they show 

 the remains of what were rugged or jagged peaks worn down 

 smooth into rounded hummocks of very varied forms. 

 Striation is sometimes faintly visible, but under the intense 

 climatic changes of this region, weathering has in most cases 

 quite obliterated it. 



Having read Miss Bird's account of Lake Tahoe as being 

 superbly beautiful, I determined to see it, and if the country 

 looked promising to stay a few days. I accordingly left by 

 the train on Monday morning, stayed the night at a very 

 poor hotel at Truckee, and took the stage at seven the next 

 morning for the lake, a distance of fourteen miles. The road 

 was up a very picturesque, winding valley, very precipitous 

 and rocky on the east side, more sloping on the west. The 

 bottom of the valley seemed to be granite or gneiss, but the 

 craggy heights on the east side were all of lava, sometimes 

 scoriaceous, sometimes almost columnar basalt, and occasion- 

 ally laminated. Sometimes there were precipices, peaks, and 

 detached pillars of scoriaceous lava,two hundred tofive hundred 

 feet high, of strange forms and highly picturesque. This valley 

 had a rapid stream, which was the outlet of the lake. It had 

 once probably been full of lava and ashes, when the lake 

 would have been much deeper and larger. This was in- 

 dicated by stratified deposits in places at different levels, 

 and by layers of rock full of rounded pebbles. The lake 

 itself, though a fine piece of water, did not come up to 

 my expectations. The mountains around were bare and 

 monotonous, rather higher and snow-flecked on the west, but 

 the highest peaks visible not more than ten thousand feet. 

 On the west side there was most wood, but the mountains 

 were not more than two thousand to four thousand feet above 

 the lake, and therefore not high in proportion to its size, 

 which is thirty-five miles long and fifteen miles wide. It is 

 really less striking than Loch Lomond or Windermere, where 

 the mountains are more picturesque and more precipitous ; 

 while it can bear no comparison with the sub-alpine Swiss 

 and Italian lakes. 



I strolled about the shores of the lake, and into some of 



