Then on thundered the train by the great Salt Lake, one hundred miles long and forty miles wide, so salt that it buoys you up on its surface like a feather; then on over the sage-brush desert to Reno, Nevada, where is the world-renowned Comstock mine, from which over one hundred millions of dollars' worth of silver has already been taken. Then we climbed the Sierra Nevada Mountains, around and around in a circle, shot through a snow shed forty miles long; then lumber chutes appear many miles in length, through which enormous logs are shot down by water power from the mountain lake. Four billion feet of lumber are cut here in a year. Then on we go past Lake Tahoe, twenty-two miles long, surrounded by mountains two miles in height; then past Cape Horn, along precipices down which I threw a stone which fell 2,500 feet into the American River. We slide down the mountains to Auburn, California, and find fruit trees in blossom, grass green, and crops several inches high. A sudden change in a few minutes from deep snow and severe cold to blossoms and roses. On we go to Sacramento, surrounded by great ranches with vast herds of cattle and sheep feeding on the wild grasses; then on to San Francisco, the Golden Gate, and the unpacified Pacific. The principal occupation of the street cars in 'Frisco, is climbing almost perpendicular heights, and then sliding down hill. All very pleasant except when the cogs in the cable slip, and you become part and parcel of a promiscuous mix-up, all passengers tumbling over and on to each other into the front end of the car, and if you are at the bottom of the struggling heap, with your nose banged against the door, and suffocating fat parties wedged on top of you, this rapid transit slide is not quite so delightful as when you ride on the top of the crowd. Here you can get a good meal with a bottle of wine thrown in for "two bits" (twenty-five cents), you can buy three different kinds of newspapers for the same price as one, as they have no coins smaller than a nickel. For a nickel you can ride for miles to the Cliff House which is at the Golden Gate, where are acres of giant flowers of every conceivable variety, all beautiful, but odorless; you watch the sea lions nearly the size of oxen, and who roar and fight on the boulders. Then we enter a bath-house, acres in extent, covered with glass, where you can swim in sea water warmed by steam-pipes, listen to the band, examine the multitude of wild animals and curiosities collected from all parts of the world. [Illustration: The Golden Gate of the Unpacified Pacific.] Then we visit the city park of twelve hundred acres, once nothing but flying sand. At first they planted on these dunes, grass roots from South America; these fastened themselves to the sand and formed a little soil; then were planted shrubs to stop the sand storms, then trees, and now the real estate is not all in the air.