Nevada

“ 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. ”

“ From the summits of the Sierra Nevada you can stand at midsummer in a forest where wreaths of snow lie on the trees, and can gaze far down into valleys, thousands of feet beneath, where there are rippling streamlets, and masses of flowers of the most brilliant and the most delicate hues. This wonderful country, that is still in its infancy, that is nursing men of every nation to form a new nation ”

“ All open country, north and south, as far as the eye could see. Eastward rose the noble blue barrier of the Sierra, with here and there a field, a slope, a spot, or a pinnacle of the snow that names it Nevada. A landscape of larger feeling than any we can show in the old States, on the tame side of the continent. ”

“ The Water Ouzel. [Harriet Monroe]
Little brown surf-bather of the mountains!
Spirit of foam, lover of cataracts, shaking your wings in falling waters!
Have you no fear of the roar and rush when Nevada plunges —
Nevada, the shapely dancer, feeling her way with slim white fingers?
How dare you dash at Yosemite the mighty —
Tall, white limbed Yosemite, leaping down, down over the cliff?
Is it not enough to lean on the blue air of mountains?
Is it not enough to rest with your mate at timberline, in bushes that hug
the rocks? ”

“ 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. ”

“ Arrived at Nevada City, with its steep streets, compactly built up at the centre of the town, church and county court-house on the hillside, the traveler finds himself fairly out of the mountains, the luring fatal mountains, whose very soil has now the color of gold and now the color of blood. ”

“ From its crest, brooded over by cloud, glittering with crusted snows, the traveler can look over crag and precipice, mounting files of pines and ravines swimming in unfathomable shadow, to where, vast, pale, far-flung in its dreamy adolescence, lies California, the garden. On the other side—gaunt, hostile, gray—is Nevada, the desert.
In other lands nature and man have ended their struggle for supremacy. Man has conquered and nature, after long years of service, is glad to work for him, to quicken the seed he sows, to swell the fruit on the branch, and ripen the heads of grain. ”

“ She slit the envelope, and read the missive with swift-traveling eyes; read it again, and cast a quick, shrewd glance at Nevada, who, for the time, seemed to consider gloves as the world of her interest, and letters from rising artists as no more than messages from Mars. ”

“ And he, cosily content, knows her as his loving slave, no more rebellious, happy to serve.
But in Nevada, nature is still unconquered, savage and supreme. It is the primordial world, with man a shivering stranger amid its grim aloofness. ”

“ Though tempted to pass the night in Grass Valley, impelled by curiosity, we pushed on four miles farther, to Nevada City. It is useless to attempt to convey in words the fascination of Nevada City. My friend, who is familiar with the country, said it reminded him of Italy. Houses rise one above the other on the hillside; while down below, the winding streets with their quaint old-time stores and balconied windows, are equally attractive. The horrors of the previous night at Colfax made the quiet peacefulness of Nevada City the more refreshing. ”

“ I love to come up here just before nightfall, when the snowy top of Sierra Nevada seems sprinkled with roses, and a soft floating haze, now purple, now golden, settles upon the plain, the hills, and the beautiful old city—when the insects are nestling themselves down to sleep, and the nightingales send gushes of music through the woods. ”

“ The majestic chain of mountains of the Sierra Nevada looked most beautiful from this spot. The whole eastern horizon was bounded by these masses of ice, and before them the low land lay spread out like a verdant sea. From the Bay of St. Francisco, the Sierra Nevada are nowhere visible; but they first come in sight after having passed the point where the Pescadores and the Sacramento unite. ”

“ The wealth Nevada has already given to the world is indeed wonderful, but the only grand marvel 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 California, the land of promise, was their goal. With the western sun in their eyes they looked at the mountain wall and spoke of the Eldorado beyond where the gold lay yellow in the sluice box, and flecked with glittering flakes the prospector’s pan.
That was in forty-nine. Ten years later they were hurrying backward over the mountains to the streams that drain Mount Davidson. Nevada had its wealth too, a hidden, rock-ribbed wealth, jealously buried. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No State nor Territory will derive such inestimable advantage from the road as the Territory of Nevada. Situated, as we are, in what, during a great portion of the year, is an almost inaccessible isolation of wealth; with mountains covered with perpetual snow frowning down directly upon us at the west, and with a series of ranges, difficult to cross, at the east of us, with a wilderness fit only for the original inhabitants of the waste, stretching away a thousand miles, and intervening between us and the frontier of agricultural enterprise ”

“ The organization and admission of the State of Nevada has been completed in conformity with law, and thus our excellent system is firmly established in the mountains which once seemed a barren and uninhabitable waste between the Atlantic States and those which have grown up on the coast of the Pacific Ocean.
“The Territories of the Union are generally in a condition of prosperity and growth. ”

“ Nevada was erected into a Territory, and has made rapid and gigantic strides in all the essentials of a high civilization. Her mines are celebrated throughout the world, and she annually adds millions of dollars to the circulation of the country. ”

“ Nevada (46) , one of the western States of the American Union, occupying a wide stretch of territory on the Great Plateau or Basin, between the Rocky Mountains on the E. and the Cascades and the Sierra Nevada on the W., has Oregon and Idaho on the N., and California on the S. and W.; elevated, cold, dry, and barren, it offers little inducement to settlers, and is in consequence the least in population of the American States; the great silver discoveries of 1859 brought it first into notice, and mining still remains the chief industry; Virginia City and Carson (capital) are the chief towns ”

“ Since the surface of Nevada is a basin surrounded by mountains, a very small part of it drains into the ocean. In the extreme north rises the Uwyhee, a tributary of the Columbia River system, and the extreme southeastern portion drains into the Colorado, which flows on the southeastern boundary. A large part of the State, especially the south-central and southwestern portion, is without any rivers at all, the small streams running down the mountain slopes during the wet season being lost in the plains where the water evaporates. ”

“ They would have believed his story to be but the wild speech of his wandering mind, had they not found in his tangled hair, mingled with dirt and blood, flakes of gold.
Vermont. Poor old chap.
Silas. With a gold-mine in his hair. Rich old beggar.
Tom. Nevada is no beggar; though no cabin is shut against him, no miner's friendly hand withheld. He will neither eat nor sleep until he has earned both food and shelter. For a willing mate in an ugly tunnel, with a steady grip and a strong arm, give me Nevada.
Nevada (outside) . Who calls Nevada? (Dashes down run, and stands C.; music pianissimo.) ”

“ When we add that Nevada, like all parts of the arid plateau, is distinguished for pure dry air, an extraordinary amount of sunshine, and consequently a very high degree of healthfulness, it can be scarcely maintained that the state is destitute of attractions. ”

“ All is a mere waiting for the turbid floods of seething human life to settle down. In the newer discoveries of Nevada, in the suspense of the war, the railroads are yet only half finished, croaked at mournfully by the befogged Solons of the press. All is transition. ”

“ Nevada is in great part the bed of an ancient ocean ribbed with lean mountains. Multitudes of travelers have noted that the rain, driven in from the Pacific, falls heavily in the valleys of California and up the western slopes of the Sierra, and on the summit of the mountains creates a deep blanket of snow, but to thirsty Nevada gives little save the snow fed rivers that flow down the mountain sides. ”

“ Nevada is a trading centre for the surrounding country, and a fine farming and stock-raising region, in which Indian corn, oats, wheat, clover, timothy and blue-grass are grown; coal is mined in the vicinity. ”

“ Those were dark days in the financial and political history of the United States, and Nevada, maligned and despised as she is today in some quarters, was the savior of her country in that most critical period of her history. The State that furnished the sinews of war should have some standing in the hearts and minds of the American people, even if Republics are ungrateful. ”

“ The men of Nevada deserve the thanks of the people of the Territory for their activity, brave conduct and indomitable resolution. Without their aid, the Virginians could never have faced the roughs, or conquered them in their headquarters—their own town. ”

“ At Reno is the Nevada State University, and as this is a silver region there are extensive smelting mills. Thirty-one miles southward is Carson, the capital of Nevada, and twenty-one miles farther the famous silver-mining town of Virginia City, with ten thousand people, built half-way up a steep mountain slope and completely surrounded by mountains. ”

“ The Mountain Nevada, near the City De los Angelos, deserves no small admiration; for it begins at thirty Leagues end to rise exceeding high, and being flat on the top, hath a wide gaping Mouth, whose bottom is fathomless; from which at Sun-rising and setting rises a Smoak up directly towards the Skie, but immediately after spreading like a Plume of Feathers, it is dispers’d by the Wind, and no more seen till it appears in a dusky Cloud. ”

“ The ebb and flow of the tide of battle from the great centres where the armies of Lee, Meade, Grant, Buell, and Bragg struggled reached this far-off frontier and drew a line of cleavage between the fiery Southerners and the steadfast Northerners who made up the population. Nevada had been made a territory and the fight was on for statehood. ”

“ A large car, driven by strangers in the land, means hunters, prospectors from the outside brought in by some special tale of hidden wealth,—or just plain simpletons who only want to see what lies over the mountain. There aren't many of the last-named variety up in the Nevada wastes. Even your nature-loving rovers oddly keep pretty much to the beaten trails of other nature lovers, where gas stations and new tires may be found at regular intervals. The Painted Desert, the Petrified Forest, the National Old Trails they explore,—but not the high, wind-swept mesas of Nevada's barren land. ”

“ After Nevada, these Territories offered the earliest promise of becoming States. They were both parts of the old Louisiana purchase from France, and had in popular estimation and in the classification of the earlier geographers been included within the borders of the Great American Desert. But settlers has swarmed upon the plains of Nebraska, and the waving fields of grain and the innumerable herds of cattle browsing on her rich pasture-land soon dispelled that misconception, and gave promise of the prosperous development which the State has since attained. ”

“ Nevada has within her borders no large rivers. In the Middle and Western States, her so-called rivers would be rated as large brooks or creeks. In England and some other European countries her streams might pass for rivers. The largest river we have is but a rill in comparison with the rivers of the West and South. Our Nevada rivers, too, are peculiar in that they nearly all remain in the State. But one goes outside of our boundaries to wander away in search of the great ocean. ”

“ When I first enjoyed this superb view, one glowing April day, from the summit of the Pacheco Pass, the Central Valley, but little trampled or plowed as yet, was one furred, rich sheet of golden compositae, and the luminous wall of the mountains shone in all its glory. Then it seemed to me the Sierra should be called not the Nevada, or Snowy Range, but the Range of Light. ”