CHARACTEEISTICS OF THE BASIN AREA. 
299 
ley. This valley resembles that of the Malade in most essential feat- 
ures of vegetation. 
Thence westward, the country in Northern Utah and Nevada and 
Southern Idaho and Oregon consists of a similar succession of narrow 
ranges and valleys, the former grassy, or containing a sparse growth of 
inferior timber, while the latter are poorer in grass and richer in sage- 
brush. 
Along the Central Pacific Railroad the vegetation is very scanty as 
far as the head of the Humboldt, and grows still worse to the south- 
ward. This is the country which formed a part of the bed of the fossil 
lake Bonneville, and, while the water has departed, the solid portions, 
in the form of saline incrustations, remain in immense amount, covering 
thousands of square miles with a white, shining floor of alkali. Of 
course, here it is impossible that vegetation should grow. Even on the 
few groups of mountains, which rise here and there like islands from a 
placid sea, there is little vegetable growth. 
The country along the western base of the Wahsatch Eange, extend- 
ing thence to the Great Salt Lake, is a fertile, well settled region. The 
inhabitants are Mormons, and their occupation farming. At the base 
of the mountains a continuous line of springs breaks forth, which, with 
the Weber and Ogden Eivers and Box Elder Creek, water nearly the 
whole of this strip. 
The lower slopes of the mountains produce a fine growth of bunch 
grass, while on the flat below sage becomes a component to some extent 
of the vegetation. Along the shore of the lake there is much marshy 
land, producing reeds and coarse grasses. All this strip of land can be 
burned over easily. 
The valley of the Jordan was originally an expanse of sage, bordered 
at the base and on the lower slopes of the Wahsatch Range by fine pas- , 
turage. The grass improves southward, among the valleys on the trib- 
utaries, to the Utah Lake, and on Sevier River, while the mountains and 
higher plateaus are timbered. 
On the eastern slopes of the Wahsatch Range there are several fine 
valleys, where the plateaus break off against the base of the mount- 
ains. One of the largest of these is known as Castle Valley. 
Comparatively few of the ranges of Nevada are timbered, and most of 
those are but sparsely covered by a stunted growth of desert species, 
such as Pinon pine and cedar. Of these the Toano, Goshnte, East 
Humboldt, Diamond, Pinon, Snake, Antelope, and Cedar Ranges in the 
eastern part, the Pancake, Hot Creek, Monitor, Toyabe, Desatoya, and 
West Humboldt in the center, and the Walker River, Sierra Nevada, 
and Pyramid Lake Ranges in the western part contain nearly all the 
timber of the State. The other ranges are grassy, or, in the south, 
covered with Artemisia, or are barren. 
Few of the valleys contain grass enough to be of economic value, ex- 
cept in the northern part. Most of them are waterless and covered 
