 CHAPTER 10 THE SAN GABRIEL VALLEY The Sun Valley of San Gabriel is one of the brightest spots to be found in all our bright land and most of its brightness is wildness. Wild south sunshine in a basin rimmed about with mountains and hills. Cultivation is not wholly wanting, for here are the choices of all the Los Angeles orange groves, but its glorious abundance of ripe sun and soil is only beginning to be coined into fruit. The drowsy bits of cultivation accomplished by the old missionaries and the more recent efforts of restless Americans are scarce as yet visible and when comprehended in general views form nothing more than mere freckles on the smooth brown bosom of the valley. I entered the sunny south half a month ago, coming down along the cool sea and landing at Santa Monica. An hour's ride over stretches of bare brown plain and through cornfields and orange groves brought me to the handsome conceded little town of Los Angeles where one finds Spanish adobes and Yankee shingles meeting and overlapping in very curious antagonism. I believe there are some fifteen thousand people here and some of their buildings are rather fine, but the gardens and the sky interested me more. A palm is seen here and there, poisoning its royal crown in the rich light and the banana, with its magnificent ribbon leaves, producing a marked tropical effect, not semi-tropical as they are so fond of saying here while speaking of their fruits. Nothing I have noticed strikes me as semi, save the brusque little bits of civilization with which the wilderness is checkered. These are semi-barbarous or less. Everything else in the region has a most exuberant pronounced wholeness. The city helped me but a short time for the San Gabriel Mountains were in sight, advertising themselves grandly along the northern sky and I was eager to make my way into their midst. At Pasadena I had the rare good fortune to meet my old friend Dr. Conger with whom I had studied chemistry and mathematics fifteen years ago. He exalted San Gabriel above all other inhabitable valleys, old and new, on the face of the globe. I have rambled, said he, ever since we left college, tasting innumerable climates and trying the advantages offered by nearly every new state and territory. Here I have made my home and here I shall stay while I live. The geographical position is exactly right, soil and climate perfect and everything that heart can wish comes to our efforts, flowers, fruits, milk and honey and plenty of money. And there he continued pointing just beyond his own precious possessions is a block of land that is for sale, buy it and be my neighbor, plant five acres with orange trees and by the time your last mountain is climbed their fruit will be your fortune. He then led me down the valley through the few famous old groves in Volbearing and on the estate of Mr. Wilson showed me a ten acre grove, eighteen years old, the last year's crop from which was sold for twenty thousand dollars. There, said he with triumphant enthusiasm, what do you think of that? Two thousand dollars per acre per annum for land worth only one hundred dollars. The number of orange trees planted to the acre is usually from forty nine to sixty nine. They then stand from twenty five to thirty feet apart each way and thus planted thrive and continue fruitful to a comparatively great age. J. Debarth Shorb, an enthusiastic believer in Los Angeles and oranges, says we have trees on our property fully forty years old and eighteen inches in diameter that are still vigorous and yielding immense crops of fruit although they are only twenty feet apart. Seedlings are said to begin to bear remunerative crops in their tenth year but by superior cultivation this long unproductive period may be somewhat lessened while trees from three to five years old may be purchased from the nurserymen so that the newcomer who sets out an orchard may begin to gather fruit by the fifth or sixth year. When first set out and for some years afterward the trees are irrigated by making rings of earth around them which are connected with small ditches through which the water is distributed to each tree or where the ground is nearly level the whole surface is flooded from time to time as required. From three hundred and nine trees twelve years old from the seed Debarth Shorb says that in the season of eighteen seventy four he obtained an average of twenty dollars and fifty cents per tree or one thousand four hundred and thirty five dollars per acre over and above the cost of transportation to San Francisco commission on sales etc. He considers one thousand dollars per acre a fair average at present prices after the trees have reached the age of twelve years the average price throughout the country for the last five years has been about twenty or twenty five dollars per thousand and in as much as the area adapted to orange culture is limited it is hoped that this price may not greatly fall for many years. The lemon and lime are also cultivated here to some extent and considerable attention is now being given to the Florida Banana and the Olive, Almond and English Walnut. But the orange interest heavily overshadows every other while vines of late years have been so unremunerative they are seldom mentioned. This is preeminently a fruitland but the fame of its productions has in some way far outrun the results that have as yet been attained. Experiments have been tried and good beginnings made but the number of really valuable well established groves is scarce as one to fifty compared with the newly planted. Many causes however have combined of late to give the business a wonderful impetus and new orchards are being made every day while the few old groves aglow with golden fruit are the burning and shining lights that direct and energize the sanguine newcomers. After witnessing the bad effect of homelessness developed to so destructive an extent in California it would reassure every lover of his race to see the hearty home building going on here and the blessed contentment that naturally follows it. Travel worn pioneers who have been tossed about like boulders and flood time are thronging hither as to a kind of terrestrial heaven resolved to rest. They build and plant and settle and so come under natural influences. When a man plants a tree he plants himself. Every root is an anchor over which he rests with grateful interest and becomes sufficiently calm to feel the joy of living. He necessarily makes the acquaintance of the sun and the sky. Favorite trees fill his mind and while tending them like children and accepting the benefits they bring he becomes himself a benefactor. He sees down through the brown common ground teeming with colored fruits as if they were transparent and learns to bring them to the surface. What he wills he can raise by true enchantment. With slips and rootlets his magic wands they appear at his bidding. These and the seeds he plants are his prayers and by them brought into right relations with God he works grander miracles every day than ever were written. The Pasadena Colony located on the southwest corner of the well known San Pasquale Rancho is scarce three years old but it is growing rapidly like a pet tree and already forms one of the best contributions to culture yet accomplished in the county. It now numbers about 60 families mostly drawn from the better class of vagabond pioneers who during the Rolling Stone days have managed to gather sufficient gold moss to purchase from 10 to 40 acres of land. They are perfectly hilarious in their new found life work like ants in a sunny noon day and looking far into the future hopefully count their orange chicks 10 years or more before they are hatched supporting themselves in the meantime on the produce of a few acres of alfalfa together with garden vegetables and the quick growing fruits such as figs, grapes, apples, etc. The whole reinforced by the remaining dollars of their land purchase money. There is nothing more remarkable in the character of the colony than the literary and scientific taste displayed. The conversation of most I have met here is seasoned with a smack of mental ozone, attic salt, which struck me as being rare among the tillers of California soil. People of taste and money in search of a home would do well to prospect the resources of this aristocratic little colony. If we look now at these southern valleys in general, it will appear at once that with all their advantages, they lie beyond the reach of poor settlers, not only on account of the high price of irrigable land, $100 per acre and upwards, but because of the scarcity of labor. A settler with $3 or $4,000 would be penniless after paying for 20 acres of orange land and building ever so plain a house. While many years would go by ere his trees yielded an income adequate to the maintenance of his family. Nor is there anything sufficiently reviving in the fine climate to form a reliable inducement for very sick people. Most of this class from all I can learn come here only to die and surely it is better to die comfortably at home, avoiding the thousand discomforts of travel at a time when they are so hard to bear. It is indeed pitiful to see so many invalids already on the verge of the grave, making a painful way to quack climates, hoping to change age to youth and the darkening twilight of their day to morning. No such health fountain has been found and this climate, fine as it is, seems like most others to be adapted for well people only. From all I could find out regarding its influence upon patient suffering from pulmonary difficulties, it is seldom beneficial to any great extent in advanced cases. The cold sea winds are less fatal to this class of sufferers than the corresponding winds further north, but not withstanding they are tempered on their passage inland over warm dry ground. They are still more or less injurious. The summer climate of the fir and pine woods of the Sierra Nevada would, I think, be found infinitely more reviving. But because these woods have not been advertised like patent medicines, few seem to think of the spicy, vivifying influences that pervade their fountain freshness and beauty. End of Chapter 10 Recording by Jennifer Ying, San Gabriel, California Chapter 11 of Steep Trails This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Steep Trails by John Muir Chapter 11 The San Gabriel Mountains After saying so much for human culture in my last, I may now be allowed a word for wildness, the wildness of this Southland pure and untameable as the sea. In the mountains of San Gabriel, overlooking the lowland vines and fruit groves, mother nature is most ruggedly, thornily savage. Not even in the Sierra have I ever made the acquaintance of mountains more rigidly inaccessible. The slopes are exceptionally steep and insecure to the foot of the explorer, however great his strength or skill may be, but Thorny Chaperrill constitutes their chief defense. With the exception of little park and garden spots not visible in comprehensive views, the entire surface is covered with it from the highest peaks to the plain. It swoops into every hollow and swells over every ridge, gracefully complying with the varied topography in shaggy, ungovernable exuberance, fairly dwarfing the utmost efforts of human culture out of sight and mind. But in the very heart of this thorny wilderness, down in the dells, you may find gardens filled with the fairest flowers that any child would love, and unapproachable lins lined with lilies and ferns, where the ocel builds its mossy hut and sings in chorus with the white falling water. Bears also and panthers, wolves, wildcats, wood rats, squirrels, foxes, snakes, and innumerable birds all find grateful homes here, adding wildness to wildness in glorious profusion and variety. Where the coast ranges and the Sierra Nevada come together, we find a very complicated system of short ranges. The geology and topography of which is yet hidden, and many years of laborious study must be given for anything like a complete interpretation of them. The San Gabriel is one or more of these ranges, forty or fifty miles long and half as broad, extending from the Cajon Pass on the east to the Santa Monica and Santa Susana ranges on the west. San Antonio, the dominating peak, rises towards the eastern extremity of the range to a height of about six thousand feet, forming a shore landmark throughout the valley and all the way down to the coast, without, however, possessing much striking individuality. The whole range, seen from the plain, with the hot sun beating upon its southern slopes, wears a terribly forbidding aspect. There is nothing of the grandeur of snow or glaciers or deep forests to excite curiosity or adventure. No trace of gardens or waterfalls. From base to summit all seems gray, bare and silent. Dead bleached bones of mountains overgrown with scrubby bushes like gray moss. But all mountains are full of hidden beauty, and the next day after my arrival at Pasadena I supplied myself with bread and eagerly set out to give myself to their keeping. On the first day of my excursion I went only as far as the mouth of Eaton Canyon, because the heat was oppressive and a pair of new shoes were chafing my feet to such an extent that walking began to be painful. While looking for a camping ground among the boulder beds of the canyon, I came upon a strange dark man of doubtful parentage. He kindly invited me to camp with him and led me to his little hut. All my conjectures as to his nationality failed, and no wonder, since his father was Irish and mother Spanish, a mixture not often met even in California. He happened to be out of candles, so he sat in the dark while he gave me a sketch of his life which was exceedingly picturesque. Then he showed me his plans for the future. He was going to settle among these canyon boulders and make money and marry a Spanish woman. People mine for irrigating water along the foothills as for gold. He is now driving a prospecting tunnel into a spur of the mountains back of his cabin. My prospect is good, he said, and if I strike a strong flow I shall soon be worth five or ten thousand dollars. That flat out there, he continued referring to a small irregular patch of gravelly detritus that had been sorted out and deposited by Eaton Creek during some flood season, is large enough for a nice orange grove, and after watering my own trees I can sell water down the valley, and then the hillside back of the cabin will do for vines, and I can keep bees for the white sage and black sage up the mountains is full of honey. You see, I've got a good thing. All this prospective affluence in the sunken, border choked floodbed of Eaton Creek. Most home seekers would as soon think of settling on the summit of San Antonio. Half an hour's easily rambling up the canyon brought me to the foot of the fall, famous throughout the valley settlements as the finest yet discovered in the range. It is a charming little thing, with a voice sweet as a songbirds, leaping some thirty five or forty feet into a round mirror pool. The cliff back of it and on both sides is completely covered with thick furry mosses, and the white fall shines against the green like a silver instrument in a velvet case. Here come the Gabriel lads and lassies from the commonplace orange groves to make love and gather ferns and dabble away their hot holidays in the cool pool. They are fortunate in finding so fresh a retreat so near their homes. It is the Yosemite of San Gabriel. The walls, though not of the true Yosemite type, either in form or sculpture, rise to a height of nearly two thousand feet. Ferns are abundant on all the rocks within reach of the spray, and picturesque maples and sycamores spread a grateful shade over a rich profusion of wild flowers that grow among the boulders. From the edge of the pool a mile or more down the dell-like bottom of the valley, the hole forming a charming little poem of wildness, the vestibule of these shaggy mountain temples. The foot of the fall is about a thousand feet above the level of the sea, and here climbing begins. I made my way out of the valley on the west side, followed the ridge that forms the western rim of the Eaton Basin to the summit of one of the principal peaks, thus crossed the middle of the basin, forcing away over its many subordinate ridges and out over the eastern rim. And from first to last, during three days spent in this excursion, I had to contend with the richest, most self-possessed and uncompromising chaperol I have ever enjoyed since first my mountaineering began. For a hundred feet or so the ascent was practicable only by means of bosses of the club moss that clings to the rock. Above this the ridges weathered away to a slender knife edge for a distance of two or three hundred yards, and then to the summit it is a bristly mane of chaperol. Here and there small openings occur, commanding grand views of the valley and beyond to the ocean. These are favorite outlooks and resting places for bears, wolves, and wild cats. In the densest places I came upon wood rat villages whose huts were from four to eight feet high built in the same style of architecture as those of the musk rats. The day was nearly done. I reached the summit and I had time to make only a hasty survey of the topography of the wild basin now outspread map-like beneath and to drink in the rare loveliness of the sunlight before hastening down in search of water. Pushing through another mile of chaperol I emerged into one of the most beautiful park-like groves of life oak I ever saw. The ground beneath was planted only with espidiums and briar roses. At the foot of the grove I came to the dry channel of one of the tributary streams, but following it down a short distance I described a few specimens of the scarlet mimulus and I was assured that water was near. I found about a bucketful in a granite bowl but it was full of leaves and beetles making a sort of brown coffee that could be rendered available only by filtering it through sand and charcoal. This I resolved to do in case the night came on before I found better. Following the channel a mile farther down to its confluence with another larger tributary I found a lot of boulder pools clear as crystal and brimming full linked together by little glistening currents just strong enough to sing. Flowers in full bloom adorned the banks lilies ten feet high and luxuriant ferns arching over one another in lavish abundance while a noble old live oak spread its rugged boughs over all forming one of the most perfect and most secluded of nature's gardens. Here I camped making my bed on smooth cobblestones. Next morning pushing up the channel of a tributary that takes its rise on Mount San Antonio I passed many lovely gardens watered by oozing currentlets every one of which had lilies in them in the full pump of bloom and a rich growth of ferns chiefly woodwardias and asphidiums and maidenhares but toward the base of the mountain the channel was dry and the chaperone closed over from bank to bank so that I was compelled to creep more than a mile on hands and knees. In one spot I found an opening in the thorny sky where I could stand erect and on the further side of the opening discovered a small pool. Now here I said I must be careful in creeping for the birds of the neighborhood come here to drink and the rattlesnakes come here to catch them. I then began to cast my eye along the channel perhaps instinctively feeling a sneaky atmosphere and finally discovered one rattler between my feet but there was a bashful look in his eye and a withdrawing deprecating kink in his neck that showed plainly as words could tell that he would not strike and only wished to be let alone. I therefore passed on lifting my foot a little higher than usual and left him to enjoy his life in this his own home. My next camp was near the heart of the basin at the head of a grand system of cascades from ten to two hundred feet high one following the other in close succession and making a total descent of nearly seventeen hundred feet. The rocks above me leaned over in a threatening way and were full of seams making the camp a very unsafe one during an earthquake. Next day the chaperone in ascending the eastern rim of the basin was if possible denser and more stubbornly bayonetted than ever. I followed bear trails where in some places I found tufts of their hair that had been pulled out in squeezing away through but there was much of a very interesting character that far over paid all my pains. Most of the plants are identical with those of the Sierra but there are quite a number of Mexican species. One coniferous tree was all I found. This is a spruce of a species new to me, de glas y macrocarpa. My last camp was down at the narrow notched bottom of a dry channel, the only open way for the life of the neighborhood. I therefore lay between two fires built to fence out snakes and wolves. From the summit of the eastern rim I had a glorious view of the valley out to the ocean which would require a whole book for its description. My bread gave out a day before reaching the settlements but I felt all the fresher and clearer for the fast. CHAPTER XII. Nevada Farms To the farmer who comes to this thirsty land from beneath rainy skies, Nevada seems one vast desert, all sage and sand, hopelessly irredeemable now and forever. And this, under present conditions, is severely true. For notwithstanding it has gardens, rainfields, and hayfields generously productive, these compared with the arid stretches of valley and plain as beheld in general views from the mountain tops are mere specks lying inconspicuously here and there and out of the way places, often 30 or 40 miles apart. In leafy regions, blessed with copious rains, we learn to measure the productive capacity of the soil by its natural vegetation. But this rule is almost wholly inapplicable here, for notwithstanding its savage nakedness, scarce at all veiled by a sparse growth of sage and linoceros, the desert soil of the Great Basin is as rich in the elements that in rainy regions rise and ripen into food as that of any other state in the union. The rocks of its numerous mountain ranges have been thoroughly crushed and ground by glaciers, thrashed and vitalized by the sun, and sifted and outspread in lake basins by powerful torrents that attended the breaking up of the glacial period, as if in every way nature had been making haste to prepare the land for the husbandmen. Soil, climate, topographical conditions, all that the most exacting could demand are present, but one thing water is wanting. The present rainfall would be wholly inadequate for agriculture, even if it were advantageously distributed over the lowlands, while in fact the greater portion is poured out of the heights in sudden and violent thundershowers called cloudbursts, the waters of which are fruitlessly swallowed up in sandy gulches and deltas a few minutes after their first boisterous appearance. The principal mountain chains, trending nearly north and south, parallel with the Sierra and the Wasatch, receive a good deal of snow during winter, but no great masses are stored up as fountains for large perennial streams, capable of irrigating considerable areas. Most of it is melted before the end of May and absorbed by moraines and gravelly talises, which send forth small rills that slip quietly down the upper canyons through narrow strips of flowery verdure, most of them sinking and vanishing before they reach the base of their fountain ranges. Perhaps not one in ten of the whole number flow out into the open plains, not a single drop reaches the sea, and only a few are large enough to irrigate more than one farm of moderate size. It is upon these small outflowing rills that most of the Nevada ranches are located, lying countersunk beneath the general level just where the mountains meet the plains, at an average elevation of five thousand feet above sea level. All the cereals and garden vegetables thrive here and yield bountiful crops. Fruit, however, has been, as yet, grown successfully in only a few specially favored spots. Another distinct class of ranches are found sparsely distributed along the lowest portions of the plains, where the ground is kept moist by springs or by narrow threads of moving water, called rivers, fed by some one or more of the most vigorous of the mountain rills that have succeeded in making their escape from the mountains. These are mostly devoted to the growth of wild hay, though in some the natural meadow grasses and sedges have been supplemented by Timothy and alfalfa, and where the soil is not too strongly impregnated with salts some grain is raised. Reese River Valley, Big Smoky Valley, and White River Valley offer fair illustrations of this class. As compared with the foot hill ranches, they are larger and less inconspicuous as they lie in the wide unshadowed levels of the plains, way the edged flux of green and a wilderness of gray. Still, another class equally well-defined, both as to distribution and as to products, is restricted to that portion of western Nevada and the eastern border of California, which lies within the redeeming influences of California waters. Three of the Sierra Rivers descend from their icy fountains into the desert, like angels of mercy to bless Nevada. These are the Walker Carson and Truckee, and in the valleys through which they flow are found by far the most extensive hay and grain fields within the bounds of the state. Irrigating streams are led off right and left through the innumerable channels, and the sleeping-ground, starting at once into action, pours forth its wealth without stent. But not withstanding the many porous fields, thus fertilized, considerable portions of the waters of all these rivers continue to reach their old death-beds in the desert, indicating that in these salt valleys there still is room for coming farmers. In Middle and Eastern Nevada, however, every rill that I have seen in a ride of three thousand miles, at all available for irrigation, has been claimed and put to use. It appears, therefore, that under present conditions the limit of agricultural development in the dry basin between the Sierra and the Wasatch has been already approached. A result caused not alone by natural restrictions as to the area capable of development, but by the extraordinary stimulus furnished by the mines to agricultural effort. The gathering of gold and silver, hay and barley, have gone on together. Most of the mid-valley bogs and meadows and foothill rills capable of irrigating from ten to fifty acres were claimed more than twenty years ago. A majority of these pioneer settlers are plotting Dutchmen, living content in the back lanes and valleys of nature. But the high price of all kinds of farm-products tempted many of even the keen Yankee prospectors made wise in California to bind themselves down to this sure kind of mining. The wildest of wild hay, made chiefly of kerises and rushes, was sold at from two to three hundred dollars per ton on ranches. The same kind of hay is still worth from fifteen to forty dollars per ton, according to the distance from mines and comparative security from competition. Barley and oats are from forty to one hundred dollars a ton while all sorts of garden products find ready sale at high prices. With rich mine markets and salubrious climate, the Nevada farmer can make more money by loose, ragged methods than the same class of farmers in any other state I have yet seen, while the almost savage isolation in which they live seems grateful to them. Even in those cases where the advent of neighbors brings no disputes concerning water rights and ranges, they seem to prefer solitude, most of them having been elected from adventures from California, the pioneers of pioneers. The passing stranger, however, is always welcomed and supplied with the best, the home of Fords, and around the fireside, while he smokes his pipe, very little encouragement is required to bring forth the story of the farmer's life, hunting, mining, fighting in the early Indian times, etc. Only the few who are married hope to return to California to educate their children, and the ease with which money is made renders the fulfillment of these hopes comparatively sure. After dwelling, thus long, on the farms of this dry wonderland, my readers may be left to fancy them of more importance as compared with the unbroken fields of nature than they really are. Making your way along any of the wide gray valleys that stretch from north to south seldom will your eye be interrupted by a single mark of cultivation. The smooth lake-like ground sweeps on indefinitely, growing more and more dim in the glowing sunshine, while a mountain range from eight to ten thousand feet high bounds the view on either hand. No singing water, no green sod, no moist nook to rest in. Mountain and valley alike naked and shadowless in the sun glare, and though perhaps traveling a well-worn road to a gold or silver mine and supplied with repeated instructions you can scarcely hope to find any human habitation from day to day so vast and impressive is the hot dusty alkaline wildness. But after riding some thirty or forty miles and while the sun may be sinking behind the mountains you come suddenly upon signs of cultivation. Clumps of willows indicate water, and water indicates a farm. Approaching more narrowly you discover what may be a patch of barley spread out unevenly along the bottom of a flood bed, broken perhaps, and rendered less distinct by boulder piles and the fringing willows of a stream. Speedily you can confidently say that the green patch is surely such, its ragged bounds become clear, a sand roofed cabin comes to view littered with sun-cracked implements and with an outer girdle of potato, cabbage, and alfalfa patches. The immense expanse of mountain-kirt valleys on the edges of which these hidden ranches lie make even the largest fields seem comic in size. The smallest, however, are by no means insignificant in a pecuniary view. On the east side of the Toyabe range I discovered a jolly Irishman who informed me that his income from fifty acres reinforced by a sheep range on the adjacent hills was from seven to nine thousand dollars per annum. His irrigating brook is about four feet wide and eight inches deep, flowing about two miles per hour. On Dunkwater Creek, Nye County, Mr. Irwin has reclaimed a tool swamp several hundred acres in extent which is now chiefly devoted to alfalfa. On twenty-five acres he claims to have raised this year thirty-seven tons of barley. Indeed I have not yet noticed a meager crop of any kind in the state. Fruit alone is conspicuously absent. On the California side of the Sierra grain will not ripen at much greater elevation than four thousand feet above sea level. The valleys of Nevada lie at a height of from four to six thousand feet and both wheat and barley ripen wherever water may be had up to seven thousand feet. The harvest, of course, is later as the elevation increases. In the valleys of the Carson and Walker Rivers, four thousand feet above the sea, the grain harvest is about a month later than in California. In Reese River Valley, six thousand feet, it begins near the end of August. Winter grain ripens somewhat earlier while occasionally one meets a patch of barley in some cool, high-lying canyon that will not mature before the middle of September. Unlike California, Nevada will probably be always richer in gold and silver than in grain. Utah farmers hope to change the climate of the east side of the basin by prayer and point to the recent rise in the waters of the Great Salt Lake as a beginning of moisture times. But Nevada's only hope in the way of any considerable increase in agriculture is from artesian wells. The experiment has been tried on a small scale with encouraging success. But what is now wanted seems to be the boring of a few specimen wells of a large size out in the main valleys. The encouragement that successful experiments of this kind would give to immigration seeking farms forms an object well worthy the attention of the government. But all that California farmers in the Grand Central Valley require is the preservation of the forests and the wise distribution of the glorious abundance of water from the snows stored on the west flank of the Sierra. Whether any considerable area of these sage plains will ever thus be made to blossom in grass and wheat experience will show. But in the meantime Nevada is beautiful in her wildness and if tillers of the soil can thus be brought to see that possibly nature may have other uses even for rich soils besides the feeding of human beings then will these foodless deserts have taught a fine lesson. For more information or to volunteer please visit Librebox.org Recording by Jim Plevinger Steep Trails by John Muir Chapter 13 Nevada Forests When the traveler from California has crossed the Sierra and gone a little way down the eastern plank the woods come to an end about as suddenly and completely as if going westward he had reached the ocean from the very noblest forest in the world he emerges into free sunshine and dead alkaline lake levels. Mountains are seen beyond rising and bewildering abundance range beyond range but however closely we have been accustomed to associate forests and mountains these always present a singularly barren aspect appearing gray and forbidding and shadeless like heaps of ashes dumped from the blazing sky but where so ever we may venture to go in all this good world nature is ever found richer and more beautiful than she seems and nowhere may you meet with more varied and delightful surprises than in the byways and recesses of this sublime wilderness lovely asters and abronias on the dusty plains rose gardens round the mountain wells and rosiny woods where all seem so desolate adorning the hot foothills as well as the cool summits fed by cordial and benevolent storms of rain and hail and snow all of these scant and rare as compared with the immeasurable exuberance of california but still amply sufficient throughout the barest deserts for a clear manifestation of god's love though nevada is situated in what is called a great basin no less than 65 groups and chains of mountains rise within the bounds of the state to a height of about from 8 000 to 13 000 feet above the level of the sea and as far as i have observed every one of these is planted to some extent with coniferous trees though it is only upon the highest that we may find anything that may fairly be called a forest the lower ranges and the foothills and slopes of the higher are roughened with small scrubby junipers and nutpines while the dominating peaks together with the ridges that swing in grand curves between them are covered with a closer and more erect growth of pine spruce and fir resembling the forest of the eastern states both as to size and general botanical characteristics here is found what is called the heavy timber but the tallest and most fully developed sections of the forest growing down in sheltered hollows on moist moraines would be regarded in california only as groves of saplings and so relatively they are for by careful calculation we find that more than a thousand of these trees would be required to furnish as much timber as may be obtained from a single specimen of our seara giants the height of the timber line in eastern nevada near the middle of the great basin is about 11 000 feet above sea level consequently the forests in a dwarfed storm beaten condition pass over the summits of nearly every range in the state broken here and there only by mechanical conditions of the surface rocks only three mountains in the state have as yet come under my observation whose summits rise distinctly above the tree line these are wheelers peak 12 300 feet high mountain mariah about 12 000 feet and a granite mountain about the same height all of which are situated near the boundary line between nevada and utah territory in a rambling mountaineering journey of 1800 miles across the state i have met nine species of coniferous trees four pines two spruces two junipers and one fur about one third the number found in california by far the most abundant and interesting of these is the pinus fremontiana or nut pine in the number of individual trees and extent of range this curious little conifer surpasses all the others combined nearly every mountain in the state is planted with it from near the base to a height of from 8 000 to 9 000 feet above the sea some are covered from base to summit by this one species with only a sparse growth of juniper on the lower slopes to break the continuity of these curious woods which though dark looking at a little distance are yet almost shadeless and without any hint of the dark glens and hollow so characteristic of other pine woods tens of thousands of acres occur in one continuous belt indeed viewed comprehensively the entire state seems to be pretty evenly divided into mountain ranges covered with nut pines and planes covered with sage now a swath of pine stretching from north to south now a swath of sage the one black the other gray one severely level the other sweeping on complacently over ridge and valley and lofty crowning dome the real character of a forest of this sort would never be guessed by the inexperienced observer traveling across the sage levels in the dazzling sunlight you gaze with shaded eyes at the mountains rising along their edges perhaps 20 miles away but no invitation that is at all likely to be understood is discernible every mountain however high it swells into the sky seems utterly barren approaching nearer a low brushy growth is seen strangely black in aspect as though it had been burned this is a nut pine forest the bountiful orchard of the red man when you ascend into its midst you find the ground beneath the trees and in the openings also nearly naked and mostly rough on the surface a succession of crumbling ledges of lava limestone slate and quartzite coarsely stoned with soil weathered from them here and there occurs a bunch of sage or linoceros or a purple aster or a tuft of dry bunch grass the harshest mountain sides hot and waterless seem best adapted to the nut pines development no slope is too steep none too dry every situation seems to be gratefully chosen if only it be sufficiently rocky and firm to afford secure anchorage for the tough grasping roots it is a sturdy thick set little tree usually about 15 feet high when fully grown and about as broad as high holding its naughty branches well out in every direction in stiff zigzags but turning them gracefully upward at the ends in rounded bosses though making so dark a mass in the distance the foliage is a pale grayish green in stiff all shaped fascicles when examined closely these round needles seem inclined to be too leave but they are mostly held firmly together as if to guard against evaporation the bark on the older sections is nearly black so that the bowls and branches are clearly traced against the prevailing gray of the mountains on which they delight to dwell the value of this species to nevada is not easily overestimated it furnishes fuel charcoal and timber for the mines and together with the enduring juniper so generally associated with it supplies the ranches with abundance of firewood and rough fencing many a square mile has already been denuded in supplying these demands but so great is the area covered by it no appreciable loss has as yet been sustained it is pretty generally known that this tree yields edible nuts but their importance and excellence as human food is infinitely greater than is supposed in fruitful seasons like this one the pine nut crop of nevada is perhaps greater than the entire wheat crop of california concerning wits so much is said and felt throughout the food markets of the world the indians alone appreciate this portion of nature's bounty and celebrate the harvest home with dancing and feasting the cones which are bright grass green in color and about two inches long by one and a half in diameter are beaten off with poles just before the scales open gathered in heaps of several bushels and lightly scorched by burning a thin covering of brushwood over them the rosin with which the cones are bedraggled is thus burned off the nuts slightly roasted and the scales made to open then they are allowed to dry in the sun after which the nuts are easily thrashed out and are ready to be stored away they are about half an inch long by a quarter of an inch in diameter pointed at the upper end rounded at the base light brown in general color and handsomely dotted with purple like birds eggs the shells are thin and may be crushed between the thumb and finger the kernels are white and waxy looking becoming brown by roasting sweet and delicious to every palate and are eaten by birds squirrels dogs horses and a man when the crop is abundant the indians bring in large quantities for sale they are eaten around every fireside in the state and oftentimes fed to horses instead of barley looking over the whole continent none of nature's bounties seems to me so great as this in the way of food none so little appreciated fortunately for the indians and wild animals that gather around nature's board this crop is not easily harvested in a monopolizing way if it could be gathered like wheat the whole would be carried away and dissipated in towns leaving the brave inhabitants of these wilds to starve long before the harvest time which is in september and october the indians examined the trees with keen discernment and in as much as the cones require two years to mature from the first appearance of the little red rosettes of the fertile flower the scarcity or abundance of the crop may be predicted more than a year in advance squirrels and worms and clark crows make haste to begin the harvest when the crop is ripe the indians make ready their long-beating poles baskets bags rags mats are gotten together the squaws out among the settlers at service washing and dredging assemble at the family huts the men leave their ranch work all old and young are mounted on ponies and set off in great glee to the nutlands forming cavalcade curiously picturesque flaming scarfs and calico skirts stream loosely over the naughty ponies usually two squaws astride of each with the small baby midgets bandaged in baskets slung on their backs or balanced upon the saddle while the nut baskets and water jars project from either side and the long beating poles like old-fashioned lances angle out in every direction arrived at some central point already fixed upon where water and grass is found the squaws with baskets the men with poles ascend the ridges to the laden trees followed by the children beating begins with loud noise and chatter the burrs fly right and left lodging against stones and sagebrush the squaws and children gathered them with fine natural gladness smoke columns speedily mark the joyful scene of their labors as the roasting fires are kindled and at night assembled in circles garrulous as jays the first grand nut feast begins sufficient quantities are thus obtained in a few weeks to last all winter the Indians also gather several species of berries and drive them to vary their stores and a few deer and grass are killed on the mountains besides immense numbers of rabbits and hares but the pine nuts are the main dependence their staff of life their bread insects also scarce noticed by man come in for their share of this fine bounty eggs are deposited and the baby grubs happy fellows find themselves in a sweet world of plenty feeding their way through the heart of the cone from one nut chamber to another secure from rain and wind and heat until their wings are grown and they are ready to launch out into the free ocean of air and light end of chapter 13 recording by jim clevenger little rock arkansas jim at joccldv.com chapter 14 of steep trails this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox.org recording by jim clevenger steep trails by john murr chapter 14 nevada's timber belt the pine woods on the tops of the nevada mountains are already shining and blooming in winter snow making a most blessedly refreshing appearance to the weary traveler down on the gray plains during the fiery days of summer the whole of this vast region seems so perfectly possessed by the sun that the very memories of pine trees and snow are in danger of being burned away leaving one but little more than dust and metal but since these first winter blessings have come the wealth and beauty of the landscapes have come fairly into view and one is rendered capable of looking and seeing the grand nut harvest is over as far as the indians are concerned though perhaps less than one bushel in a thousand of the whole crop has been gathered but the squirrels and birds are still busily engaged and by the time that nature's ends are accomplished every nut will doubtless have been put to use all of the nine nevada conifers mentioned in my last letter are also found in california accepting only the rocky mountain spruce which i have not observed westward of the snake range so greatly however have they been made to vary by differences of soil and climate that most of them appear as distinct species without seeming in any way dwarfed or repressed in habit they nowhere develop to anything like california dimensions a height of 50 feet and a diameter of 12 or 14 inches would probably be found to be above the average size of those cut for lumber on the margin of the Carson and Humboldt sink the larger sage brushes are called heavy timber and to the settlers here any tree seems large enough for saw logs mills have been built in the most accessible canyons of the higher ranges and sufficient lumber of an inferior kind is made to supply most of the local demand the principal lumber trees of nevada are the white pine floxtail pine and Douglas spruce or red pine as it is called here of these the first named is most generally distributed being found on all the higher ranges throughout the state in botanical characteristics it is nearly allied to the way myth or white pine of the eastern states and to the sugar and mountain pines of the Sierra in open situations it branches near the ground and tosses out long down curving limbs all around often gaining in this way a very strikingly picturesque habit it is seldom found lower than 9 000 feet above the level of the sea but from this height it pushes upward over the roughest ledges to the extreme limit of tree growth about 11 000 feet on the hot creek white pine and golden gate ranges we find a still hardier and more picturesque species called the foxtail pine from its long dense leaf tassels about a foot or 18 inches of the ends of the branches are densely packed with stiff outstanding needles which radiate all around like an electric fox or squirrel tail the needles are about an inch and a half long slightly curved elastic and glossily polished so that the sunshine sifting through them makes them burn with a fine silvery luster while their number and elastic temper tell delightfully in the singing winds this tree is preeminently picturesque far surpassing not only its companion species of the mountains in this respect but also the most noted of the lowland oaks and elms some stand firmly erect feathered with radiant tail tassels down to the ground forming slender tapering towers of shiny bird gir others with two or three specialized branches pushed out at right angles to the trunk and densely clad with the tassel sprays take the form of beautiful ornamental crosses again in the same woods you find trees that are made up of several bowls united near the ground and spreading in easy curves at the sides of a plane parallel to the axis of the mountain with the elegant tassels hung in charming order between them the whole making a perfect heart ranged across the main wind lines just where they may be most effective in the grand storm harmonies and then there is an infinite variety of arching forms standing free or in groups leaning away from or toward each other in curious architectural structures innumerable tassels drooping under the arches and radiating above them the outside glowing in the light masses of deep shade beneath giving rise to effects marvelously beautiful while on the roughest edge of crumbling limestone are lowly old giants five or six feet in diameter that have braved the storms of more than a thousand years but whether old or young sheltered or exposed to the wildest gales this tree is ever found to be irrepressibly and extravagantly picturesque offering a richer and more varied series of forms to the artist than any other species i have yet seen one of the most interesting mountain excursions i have made in the state was up through a thick spicy forest of these trees to the top of the highest summit of the trey range about 90 miles to the south of hamilton the day was full of perfect indian summer sunshine calm and bracing jays and clark crows made a pleasant stir in the foothill pines and junipers grasshoppers danced in the hazy light and rattled on the wing in pure glee reviving suddenly from the torpor of a frosty october night to exuberant summer joy the squirrels were working industriously among the fallen nuts ripe willows and aspen's made gorgeous masses of color on the russet hill sides and along the edges of the small streams that threaded to higher ravines and on the smooth sloping uplands beneath the foxtail pines and furs the ground was covered with brown grasses enriched with sunflowers columbines and larks furs and patches of linoceros mostly frost nipped and gone to seed yet making fine bits of yellow and purple into general brown at a height of about ninety five hundred feet we passed through a magnificent grove of aspen's about a hundred acres in extent through which the mellow sunshine sifted in ravishing splendor showing every leaf to be as beautiful in color as the wing of a butterfly and making them tell gloriously against the evergreens these extensive groves of aspen are a marked feature of the nevada woods some of the lower mountains are covered with them giving rise to remarkably beautiful masses of pale translucent green and spring and summer yellow and orange and autumn while in winter after every leaf has fallen the white bark of the bowls and branches seen in mass seems like a cloud of mist that has settled close down on the mountain conforming to all its hollows and ridges like a mantle yet roughened on the surface with innumerable ascending spires just above the aspen's we entered a fine close growth of foxtail pine the tallest and most evenly planted I had yet seen it extended along a waving ridge tending north and south and down both sides with but little interruption for a distance of about five miles the trees were mostly straight in the bowl and their shade covered the ground in the densest places leaving only small openings to the sun a few of the tallest specimens measured over 80 feet with a diameter of 18 inches but many of the younger trees growing in tufts were nearly 50 feet high with a diameter of only five or six inches while their slender shafts were hidden from top to bottom by a close fringy growth of tasseled branchlets a few white pines and balsam furs occur here and there mostly around the edges of sunny openings where they enrich the air with their rosiny fragrance and bring out the peculiar beauties of the predominating foxtails by contrast birds find a grateful homes here grouse chickadees and linets of which we saw large flocks that had a delightfully enlivening effect but the woodpeckers are remarkably rare thus far I have noticed only one species the golden winged and but few of the streams are large enough or long enough to attract the blessed oozle so common in the Sierra on Wheeler's Peak the dominating summit of the snake mountains I found all the conifers I had seen on the other ranges of the state accepting the foxtail pine which I have not observed further east in the white pine range but in its stead the beautiful rocky mountain spruce first as in the other ranges we find the juniper and nut pine then higher the white pine and balsam fir then the Douglas spruce and this new rocky mountain spruce which is common eastward from here though this range is as far as I have observed its western limit it is one of the largest and most important of Nevada conifers attaining a height of from 60 to 80 feet and a diameter of nearly two feet while now and then an exceptional specimen may be found in shady dels a hundred feet high or more the foliage is bright yellowish and blueish green according to exposure and age growing all around the branchlets though inclined to turn upward from the undersides like that of the plushy furs of california making remarkably handsome fern like plumes while yet only mere saplings five or six inches thick at the ground they measure 50 or 60 feet in height and are beautifully clothed with broad level fronded plumes down to the base preserving a strict arrow we outline though a few of the larger branches shoot out in free exuberance relieving the spire from any unpicturous stiffness of aspect while the conical summit is crowded with thousands of rich brown cones to complete its beauty we made the ascent of the peak just after the first storm had whitened its summit and brightened the atmosphere the foot slopes are like those of the Troy range only more evenly clad with grasses after tracing a long rugged ridge of exceedingly hard quartzite said to be vain here and there with gold we came to the north dome a noble summit rising about a thousand feet above the timber line its slopes heavily tree clad all around but most perfectly on the north here the rocky mountain spruce forms the bulk of the forest the cones were ripe most of them had shed their winged seeds and the shell-like scales were conspicuously spread making rich masses of brown from the tops of the fertile trees down halfway to the ground cone touching cone in lavish clusters a single branch that might be carried in the hand would be found to bear a hundred or more some portions of the wood were almost impenetrable but in general we found no difficulty in mazing comfortably on overfallen logs and under the spreading bowels while here and there we came to an opening sufficiently spacious for standpoints where the trees around their margins might be seen from top to bottom the winter sunshine streamed through the clustered spires glinting and breaking into a fine dust of spangles on the spiky leaves and beads of amber gum and bringing out the reds and grays and yellows of the lichen bowls which had been freshened by the late storm while the tip of every spire looking up through the shadows was dipped in deepest blue the ground was strung with burrs and needles and fallen trees and down in the dales on the north side of the dome where strips of aspen are embedded in the spruces every breeze sent to ripe leaves flying some lodging in the spruce bowels making them bloom again while the fresh snow beneath looked like a fine painting around the dome and well up toward the summit of the main peak the snowshed was well marked with tracks of the mule deer and pretty stitchings and embroidery of field mice squirrels and grouse and on the way back to camp i came across a strange track somewhat like that of a small bear but more spreading at the toes it proved to be that of a wolverine in my conversations with hunters both Indians and white men assure me that there are no bears in Nevada notwithstanding the abundance of pine nuts of which they are so fond and the accessibility of these basin ranges from their favorite haunts in the sierra nevadas and wasatch mountains the mule deer antelope wild sheep wolverine and two species of wolves are all of the larger animals that i have seen or heard of in the state end of chapter 14 recording by jim cleventure little rock arkansas jim at j-o-c-c-l-e-v dot com chapter 15 of steep trails this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org steep trails by john mur chapter 15 glacial phenomena in Nevada written at Eureka, Nevada in november 1878 the monuments of the ice age in the great basin have been greatly obscured and broken many of the more ancient of them having perished altogether leaving scarce a mark however faint of their existence a condition of things do not alone to the long continued action of post-glacial agents but also in great part to the perishable character of the rocks of which they were made the bottoms of the main valleys once grooved and planished like the glacier pavements of the sierra library beneath sediments and detritus derived from the adjacent mountains and now form the arid sage plains characteristic u-shaped canyons have become v-shaped by the deepening of their bottoms and straightening of their sides and decaying glacier headlands have been undermined and thrown down in loose talises while most of the moraines and strayi and scratches have been blurred or weathered away nevertheless enough remains of the more recent and the more enduring phenomena to cast a good light well back upon the conditions of the ancient ice sheet that covered this interesting region and upon the system of distinct glaciers that loaded the tops of the mountains and filled the canyons long after the ice sheet had been broken up the first glacial traces that i noticed in the basin are on the wassak augusta and toyabi ranges consisting of ridges and canyons whose trends contours and general sculpture are in great part specifically glacial though deeply blurred by subsequent denudation these discoveries were made during the summer of 1876 and 77 and again on the 17th of last august while making the ascent of mount jefferson the dominating mountain of the tochima range i discovered an exceedingly interesting group of moraines canyons with v-shaped cross sections wide neve amphitheaters mutinied rocks glacier meadows and one glacier lake all as fresh and telling as if the glaciers to which they belonged had scarcely vanished the best preserved and most regular of the moraines are two laterals about 200 feet in height and two miles long extending from the foot of a magnificent canyon valley on the north side of the mountain and trending first in a northerly direction then curving around to the west while a well characterized terminal moraine formed by the glacier towards the close of its existence unites them near their lower extremities at a height of 8500 feet another pair of older lateral moraines belonging to a glacier of which the one just mentioned was a tributary extend in a general northwesterly direction nearly to the level of big smoky valley about 5500 feet above sea level four other canyons extending down the eastern slopes of this grand old mountain into minito valley are hardly less rich in glacial records while the effects of the mountain shadows in controlling and directing the movements of the residual glaciers to which all these phenomena belonged are everywhere delightfully apparent in the trends of the canyons and ridges and in the massive sculpture of the neve wombs at their heads this is a very marked and imposing mountain attracting the eye from a great distance it presents a smooth and gently curved outline against the sky as observed from the plains and is whitened with patches of enduring snow the summit is made up of irregular volcanic tables the most extensive of which is about two and a half miles long and like the smaller ones is broken abruptly down on the edges by the action of the ice its height is approximately 11300 feet above the sea a few days after making these interesting discoveries i found other well preserved glacial traces on arc dome the culminating summit of the toyabi range on its northeastern slopes there are two smaller glacier lakes and the basins of two others which have recently been filled with downwashed detritus one small residual glacier lingered until quite recently beneath the coolest shadows of the dome the moraines and knee fountains of which are still as fresh and unwaisted as many of those lying at the same elevation on the sierra 10 000 feet while older and more wasted specimens may be traced on all the adjacent mountains the sculpture too of older ridges and summits of this section of the range is recognized at once as glacial some of the larger characters being still easily readable from the planes at a distance of 15 or 20 miles the hot creek mountains lying to the east of the tokima and munito ranges reach the culminating point on a deeply serrate ridge at a height of 10 000 feet above the sea this ridge is found to be made up of a series of imposing towers and pinnacles which have been eroded from the solid mass of the mountain by a group of small residual glaciers that lingered in their shadows long after the larger ice rivers had vanished on its western declivities are found a group of well characterized moraines canyons and rush mutinets all of which are unmistakably fresh and telling the moraines in particular could hardly fail to attract the eye of any observer some of the short laterals of the glaciers that drew their fountain snows from the jagged recesses of the summit are from 1 to 200 feet in height and scarce at all wasted as yet notwithstanding the countless storms that have fallen upon them while cool rills flow between them watering charming gardens of arctic plants saxophrages, lockspurs, dwarf birch rives and parnassia etc beautiful memories of the ice age representing a once greatly extended flora in the course of the explorations made to the eastward of here between the 38th and 40th parallels I observe glacial phenomena equally fresh and demonstrative on all the higher mountains of the white pine golden gate and snake ranges varying from those already described only as determined by differences of elevation relations to the snow bearing winds and the physical characteristics of the rock formations on the Jeff Davis group of the snake range the dominating summit of which is nearly 13,000 feet in elevation and the highest ground in the basin every marked feature is a glacial monument peaks valleys ridges meadows and lakes and because here the snow fountains lay at a greater height while the rock and exceedingly hard courtsight offered superior resistance to postglacial agents the ice characters are on a larger scale and are more sharply defined than any we have noticed elsewhere and it is probably here that the last lingering glacier of the basin was located the summits and connecting ridges are mere blades and points ground sharp by the glaciers that descended on both sides to the main valleys from one standpoint I counted nine of these glacial channels with their moraines sweeping grandly out to the plains to deep sheer walled knee fountains at their heads making a most vivid picture of the last days of the ice period I have thus far directed attention only to the most recent and appreciable of the phenomena but it must be borne in mind that less recent and less obvious traces of glacial action abound on all the ranges throughout the entire basin where the fine strie in grooves have been obliterated and most of the moraines have been washed away or so modified as to be no longer recognizable and even the lakes and meadows so characteristic of glacial regions have almost entirely vanished for there are other monuments far more enduring than these remaining tens of thousands of years after the more perishable records are lost such are the canyons ridges and peaks themselves the glacial peculiarities of whose trends and contours cannot be hid from the eye of the skilled observer until changes have been wrought upon them far more destructive than those to which these basin ranges have yet been subjected it appears therefore that the last of the basin glaciers have but recently vanished and that the almost innumerable ranges trending north and south between the Sierra and the Wasatch Mountains were loaded with glaciers that descended to the adjacent valleys during the last glacial period and that it is to this mighty host of ice streams that all the more characteristic of the present features of these mountain ranges are due but grand as is this vision delineated in these old records this is not all for there is not wanting evidence of a still grander glaciation extending over all the valleys now forming the sage plains as well as the mountains the basins of the main valleys alternating with the mountain ranges and which contained lakes during at least the closing portion of the ice period were eroded wholly or in part from a general elevated table land by immense glaciers that flowed north and south to the ocean the mountains as well as the valleys present abundant evidence of this grand origin the flanks of all the interior ranges are seen to have been heavily abraded and ground away by the ice acting in a direction parallel with their axes this action is most strikingly shown upon projecting portions where the pressure has been greatest these are shorn off in smooth plains and bossy out swelling curves like the outstanding portions of canyon walls moreover the extremities of the ranges taper out like those of dividing ridges which have been ground away by dividing and confluent glaciers furthermore the horizontal sections of separate mountains standing isolated in the great valleys are lens shaped like those of mere rocks that rise in the channels of ordinary canyon glaciers and which have been overflowed or past flowed while in many of the smaller valleys Roche-Montenay occur in great abundance again the mineralogical and physical characters of the two ranges bounding the sides of many of the valleys indicate that the valleys were formed simply by the removal of the material between the ranges and again the rim of the general basin where it is elevated as for example on the southwestern portion instead of being a ridge sculptured on the sides like a mountain range is found to be composed of many short ranges parallel to one another and to the interior ranges and so modeled as to resemble a row of convex lenses set on edge and half buried beneath a general surface without manifesting any dependence on synclinal or anti-clinal axes a series of forms and relations that could have resulted only from the outflow of vast basin glaciers on their courses to the ocean I cannot however present all the evidence here bearing upon these interesting questions much less discuss it in all its relations I will therefore close this letter with a few of the more important generalizations that have grown up out of the facts that I have observed first at the beginning of the glacial period the region now known as the great basin was an elevated table land not furrowed as at present with mountains and valleys but comparatively bald and featureless second this table land bounded on the east and west by lofty mountain ranges but comparatively open on the north and south was loaded with ice which was discharged to the ocean northward and southward and in its flow brought most if not all the present interior ranges and valleys into relief by erosion third as the glacial winter drew near its close the ice vanished from the lower portions of the basin which then became lakes into which separate glaciers descended from the mountains then these mountain glaciers vanished in turn after sculpturing the ranges into their present condition fourth the few immense lakes extending over the lowlands in the midst of which many of the interior ranges stood as islands became shallow as the ice vanished from the mountains and separated into many distinct lakes whose waters no longer reached the ocean most of these have disappeared by the filling of their basins with detritus from the mountains and now form sage plains and alkali flats the transition from one to the other of these various conditions was gradual and orderly first a nearly simple table land then a grand maire de glace shedding its crawling silver currents to the sea and becoming gradually more wrinkled as unequal erosion roughened its bed and brought the highest peaks and ridges above the surface then a land of lakes an almost continuous sheet of water stretching from the Sierra to the Wasatch adorned with innumerable island mountains then a slow desiccation and decay to present conditions of sage and sand end of chapter 15 chapter 16 of steep trails this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Jim Clevenger steep trails by John Muir chapter 16 Nevada's Dead Towns Nevada is one of the very youngest and wildest of the states nevertheless it is already strewn with ruins that seem as gray and silent and time-worn as if the civilization to which they belonged had perished centuries ago yet strange to say all these ruins are results of mining efforts made within the last few years wanderer where you may throughout the length and breadth of this mountain-barred wilderness you everywhere come upon these dead mining towns with their tall chimney stacks standing forlorn amid broken walls and furnaces and machinery half buried in sand the very names of many of them already forgotten amid the excitements of later discoveries and now known only through tradition tradition 10 years old while exploring the mountain ranges of the state during a considerable portion of three summers I think that I have seen at least five of these deserted towns and villages for every one in ordinary life some of them were probably only camps built by bands of prospectors and inhabited for a few months or years while some specially interesting canyon was being explored and then carelessly abandoned for more promising fields but many were real towns regularly laid out and incorporated containing well-built hotels churches schoolhouses post offices and jails as well as the mills on which they all depended and whose well-graded streets were filled with lawyers doctors brokers hangman real estate agents etc the whole population numbering several thousand a few years ago the population of Hamilton is said to have been nearly 8000 that of treasure hill 6000 of Sherman town 7000 of swansea 3000 all of these were incorporated towns with mayors councils fire departments and daily newspapers Hamilton has now about 100 inhabitants most of whom are merely waiting and jury in action for something to turn up treasure hill has about half as many Sherman town one family and swansea none while on the other hand the graveyards are far too full in one canyon of the toy be range near Austin I found no less than five dead towns without a single inhabitant the streets and blocks of real estate graded on the hillsides are rapidly falling back into the wilderness sagebrushes are growing up around the forges of the blacksmith shops and lizards bask on the crumbling walls while traveling southward from Austin down big smoke valley I noticed a remarkably tall and imposing column rising like a lone pine out of the sagebrush on the edge of a dry gulch this proved to be a smokestack of solid masonry it seems strangely out of place in the desert as if it had been transported entire from the heart of some noisy manufacturing town and left here by mistake I learned afterwards that it belonged to a set of furnaces that were built by a New York company to smelt ore that never was found the tools of the workmen are still lying in place beside the furnaces as if dropped in some sudden Indian or earthquake panic and never afterwards handled these imposing ruins together with the desolate town lying a quarter of a mile to the northward present a most vivid picture of wasted effort coyotes now wonder unmolested through the brushy streets and of all the busy throng that so lavishly spent their time and money here only one man remains a lone bachelor with one suspender mining discoveries in progress retrogression and decay seem to have been crowded more closely against each other here than on any other portion of the globe some one of the band of adventurous prospectors who came from the exhausted placers of California would discover some rich ore how much or little mattered not at first these specimens fell among excited seekers after wealth like sparks in gunpowder and in a few days the wilderness was disturbed with a noisy clang of miners and builders a little town would then spring up and before anything like a careful survey of any particular load would be made a company would be formed and expensive mills built then after all the machinery was ready for the ore perhaps little or none at all was to be found meanwhile another discovery was reported and the young town was abandoned as completely as a camp made for a single night and so on until some really valuable load was found such as those of Eureka, Austin, Virginia, etc. which formed a substantial groundwork for a thousand other excitements passing through the dead town of Shellborn last month I asked one of the few lingering inhabitants why the town was built for the mines he replied and where are the mines on the mountains back here and why were they abandoned I ask are they exhausted oh no he replied they are not exhausted on the contrary they have never been worked at all for unfortunately just as we were about ready to open them the Cherry Creek mines were discovered across the valley in the Egan Range and everybody rushed off there taking what they could with him houses, machinery and all but we are hoping that somebody with money and speculation will come and revive us yet the dead mining excitements of Nevada were far more intense and destructive in their action than those of California because the prizes at stake were greater while more skill was required to gain them the long trains of gold seekers making their way to California had ample time and means to recover from their first attacks of mining fever while crawling laboriously across the plains and on their arrival on any portion of the Sierra Gold Belt they at once began to make money no matter in what gulch or canyon they were some measure of success was sure however unskilled they might be and though while making ten dollars a day they might be agitated by hopes of making twenty or of striking their picks against hundred or thousand dollar nuggets men of ordinary nerve could still work on with comparative steadiness and remain rational but in the case of the Nevada miner he too often spent himself in years of weary search without getting a dollar traveling hundreds of miles from mountain to mountain burdened with wasting hopes of discovering some hidden vein worth millions enduring hardships of the most destructive kind driving innumerable tunnels into the hillsides while his assate specimens again and again proved worthless perhaps one in a hundred of these brave prospectors would strike it rich while ninety nine died alone in the mountains or sank out of sight in the corners of saloons in a haze of whiskey and tobacco smoke the healthful ministry of wealth is blessed and surely it is a fine thing that so many are eager to find the gold and silver that lie hid in the veins of the mountains but in the search the seekers too often become insane and strike about blindly in the dark like raving madmen 750 tons of ore from the original Eberhardt mine on Treasure Hill yielded a million and a half dollars the whole of this immense sum having been obtained within 250 feet of the surface the greater portion within 140 feet other ore masses were scarcely less marvellously rich giving rise to one of the most violent excitements that ever occurred in the history of mining all kinds of people shoemakers tailors farmers etc as well as miners left their own right work and fell in a perfect storm of energy upon the white pine hills covering the ground like grasshoppers and seeming determined by the very violence of their efforts to turn every stone to silver but with few exceptions these mining storms pass away about as suddenly as they rise leaving only ruins to tell of the tremendous energy expended as heaps of giant boulders in the valley tell of the spent power of the mountain floods in marked contrast with this destructive unrest is the orderly deliberation into which miners settle in developing a truly valuable mine at Eureka we were kindly led through the treasure chambers of the Richmond and Eureka Consolidated our guides leisurely leading the way from level to level calling attention to the precious ore masses which the workmen were slowly breaking to pieces with their picks like navies wearing away the day in a railroad cutting while down at the smelting works the bars of bullion were handled with less eager haste than the farmer shows in gathering his sheaths the wealth Nevada has already given to the world is indeed wonderful but the only grand marble is the energy expended in its development the amount of prospecting done in the face of so many dangers and sacrifices the innumerable tunnels and shafts bored into the mountains the mills that have been built these would seem to require a race of giants but in full view of the substantial results achieved the pure waste manifest in the ruins one meets never fails to produce a saddening effect the dim old ruins of Europe so eagerly sought after by travelers have something pleasing about them whatever their historical associations for they at least lend some beauty to the landscape their picturesque towers and arches seem to be kindly adopted by nature and planted with wild flowers and wreath with ivy while their rugged angles are soothed and freshened and embossed with green mosses fresh life and decay mingling in pleasing measure and the whole vanishing softly like a ripe tranquil day fading in tonight so also among the older ruins of the east there is a fitness felt they have served their time and like the weather beaten mountains are wasting harmoniously the same is in some degree true of the dead mining towns of california but those lying to the eastward of the seara throughout the ranges of the great basin waste and the dry wilderness like the bones of cattle that have died of thirst many of them do not represent any good accomplishment and have no right to be they are monuments of fraud and ignorance sins against science the drifts and tunnels and the rocks may perhaps be regarded as the prayers of the prospectors offered for the wealth he so earnestly craves but like prayers of any kind not in harmony with nature they are unanswered but after all effort however misapplied is better than stagnation better toil blindly beating every stone in turn for grains of gold whether they contain any or not then lie down in apathetic decay the fever period is fortunately passing away the prospector is no longer the raving wandering ghoul of 10 years ago rushing in random lawlessness among the hills hungry and foot sore but cool and skillful well supplied with every necessity and clad in his right mind capitalist too and the public in general have become wiser and do not take fire so readily from mining sparks while at the same time a vast amount of real work is being done and the ratio between growth and decay is constantly becoming better End of Chapter 16 Recording by Jim Clevenger Little Rock, Arkansas Jim at JOCCLEV.com