The proper vehicle for mountain study is not yet available. A great mountain range is like a great public character, there is much more to it than is presented to the observation, and it is not open to familiarity. But if one could fly high and wide over its cloud-lifting summits, one might learn something of its private relations. From such a vantage it would instantly appear how distinct are the Nevadas (_nieve_, snowy) among the Sierras of California. A very Bonaparte of mountains, new-born and lording it over the ancient ranges, not content with its vast empery but swinging north into the unpre-empted icy regions. San Bernardino and San Jacinto are as far from it as the Faubourg St. Germain from an island in the sea. Sierra Madre is of the Coast Range; Shasta a fire-hole, a revolutionist; the true Sierra is the midriff of a continent. From its northern extremity one sees the sun in a circle and the Northern Lights; that portion of it we know as Sierra Nevada swings into the state above Honey Lake, and ends southward in a tumble of blunt peaks below Kern River. This is quite enough, however, for Californians to make free with, and more than they can appreciate. Geographically the range begins on the south at Tehachapi, but at Walker's Pass, a day's journey to the north, is the first appearance of its most salient characteristic, the great Sierra Fault. In its youth the range suffered incredible cataclysms. For two hundred miles the great eastern plain dropped; weighted as it was with its withered aristocracy of hills--how weazened and old you can see to this day--it tore sharply downward, and the depth of that fall from the heaven-affronting peak of Whitney to the desert valley of Inyo is a matter of two miles of sheer descent. The whole Sierra along the line of faultage has the contour of a wave about to break. It swings up in long water-shaped lines from the valley of the San Joaquin, and rears its jagged crest above the abrupt desert shore. Seen from close under, some of these two- and three-thousand-foot precipices have the pitch of toppling waters. As they rose new-riven from the earth their proportions must have been more than terrifying.