ALBERT: The great wealth of Nevada is in its silver mines. The famous Comstock lode is partly beneath Virginia City.

THE PRESIDENT: I see that we have a sketch of Silver City, which might be, by its looks, the scene of several of Bret Harte's stories-" Smith's Pocket," for instance. I know no better way of familiarizing oneself with the peculiarities of

this wonderful section of our country than by reading Bret Harte. Take, for instance, his graphic description of a snow-bound party in the Sierras in 'The Outcasts of Poker Flat." This is suggested to me by the picture before me of Talulowehack Cañon. Imagine winter setting in suddenly, as it always does, in such a scene, and a party of outcasts snow-bound at the foot of one of those hills.

MRS. MERRIMAN: Do you think Bret Harte a good writer?

MR. GOLDUST I have been so much interested that I ought not to refuse to contribute a little to the fund of entertainment. You all know that I have lived twenty-five years and more in California. I went there in 1856, a poor man. I became interested in gold-mining, and have been rich and poor alternately on an

average every three years. Fortunately I have been able to retire at last from active business, and unless I become tired of traveling, or doing nothing, shall in future carefully avoid all mining speculations, or speculations of any kind. I have been looking at the sketch of a Californian miner, and I can only say that it reminds me of some of my earlier days. I worked hard I assure you to get my first capital out of the dust of the earth.

LILIAN: What are those men doing?

MR. GOLDUST: The man holding the hose is directing two powerful hydraulic streams against the rock to loosen the earth and so cause it to wash down the sluice. The other man in the picture is shoveling the loosened gravel or earth into the sluice, from which, by various mechanical or chemical contrivances, the gold is finally extracted.

THE PRESIDENT: It is now time for the club to take its departure from the land of the Sierras. I invite you, therefore, to take your places in the train. The journey is long and not destitute of interest or of peril. You will be thankful to pass in safety over the long trestle bridges across the creeks in the Sacramento Valley, and will duly admire the snow-sheds and deep cuttings through which you are traveling at the moderate pace of twenty-two miles

per hour.

GRACE I intended to state that there is an interesting article on the Coniferous Forests of the Sierra Nevada in the Century Magazine for last September (1881). The writer says that these forests are the noblest and most beautiful on earth, though, owing to the shortness of the time which has elapsed since their discovery, they are as yet but little known. He asserts that the soils on which the forests are growing are in fact glacier moraines, that is, soil deposited by the ice glaciers after being crushed and ground from the solid flanks of the mountains. I would like to know something more about these glacier moraines, and the action of ice in preparing beds for the growth of these immense forests.

THE PRESIDENT: We have not time this evening to go into so large and interesting a subject, but it will certainly come before us again, and your curiosity may then be gratified. I have read the article you speak of with great interest, and consider it an excellent contribution to the natural history of this region.

The proceedings of the club then assumed an informal character.

CHAPTER V.

THE GREAT AMERICAN BASIN AND UTAH.

HE second meeting of the J. U. T. C. was held at the house of Dr.
Every member was present, and also several invited

Paulus.

guests.

The routine business having been disposed of, the President invited Dr. Paulus to conduct the club through its second tour.

DR. PAULUS: If you look at the map of America, you will find on the western portion two lofty mountain chains or systems. One is comparatively close to the Pacific Coast, and includes the Coast range and the Sierra, which, though separated by an extensive and rich valley, may be regarded for our present purpose as one system; the other is the great Rocky Mountain system, running from the extreme north to the peninsula. Between these two mountain systems is a vast undulating and broken valley, called by geographers the Great American Basin. KATE: A very matter of fact name.

JOHN German bach, brook, or place of flowing water: geographically, a dip on the surface.

DR. PAULUS: We are now descending into this Great Basin on its western side, hastening down the Sierra's slopes as fast as the railroad people think it prudent to draw us. Remember, however, that the Great American Basin, though it includes the whole of Nevada, and parts of Utah, Arizona, and California, is far surpassed in extent by the basin or valley of the Mississippi, which lies to the east of the Rocky Mountains. Indeed, geographers not uncommonly ignore, as it were, the Great American Basin, by including all the three mountain systems of which I have spoken-the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra, and the Coast range-in one grand system, which they speak of as the Rocky Mountains, or Pacific coast range, in opposition to the great Appalachian or Eastern mountain system. But for the present we have to do with this great valley, and not with the whole of it either.