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 wheresoever 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 around the mountain wells, and resiny
woods, where all seemed 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 the "Great Basin," no less
than sixty-five groups and chains of mountains rise within the bounds
of the State to a height of about from eight thousand to thirteen
thousand 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 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 nut pines, 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
forests of the Eastern States both as to size and general botanical
characteristics.
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