When the glaciers in the infinite past were set in flow, grinding rocks to make soil from which food could be raised for races of men not then in existence save in the mind of God, Nevada and Utah were not left valueless. Rather, when the world was freighted for its long voyage, some of the richest stores were given this intermountain land to keep, and jealously has she guarded them with barren mountains for sentinels and lusterless sage for a cloak. “A wide domain of mysteries And signs that men misunderstood A land of space and dreams; a land Of seas, salt lakes and dried up seas. A land of caves and caravans, And lonely walls and pools; A land that has its purposes and plans.” [Illustration: CROSSING WEBER BRIDGE THE TRAIN PLUNGES INTO A TUNNEL HEWN THROUGH THE ROCK, LEAVING THE SERPENTINE RIVER FOR AWHILE] [Illustration: ALL DAY LONG HEAVY SHADOWS HANG OVER DEVIL’S GATE AND THE FOAMING WATERS CHAFE AGAINST ITS ROCKY PORTALS] So wrote Joaquin Miller thirty years ago; more and more the “purposes and plans” of the great basin become apparent. In forty-seven years Nevada alone has yielded in treasure $1,700,000,000. But the store of riches is not alone in mines. Silt-laden rivers born in snow-clad mountain heights for untold centuries have carried their riches into the great basin. The principal streams of Nevada have no outlet but disappear in sinks. The Truckee, rising at Lake Tahoe almost at the summit of the Sierra, tumbles down the mountain side to a last resting place in Pyramid and Mud Lakes. The Carson River, rising in equally lofty heights, sinks in a lake of the same name, and the Humboldt, companion to the railway through central Nevada, flows from the Great Wells at the base of the Ruby Range and westerly finds its way 120 miles to a vanishing point in Humboldt Lake. To give life to the desert by joining again these streams with the silt-surface earth of the Nevada valleys through irrigation, is the task now in hand. Ere finished, the commonwealth should be as great in agriculture and horticulture as in mining. In Nevada’s 110,000 square miles are many thousands of fertile acres requiring but the touch of water to make them productive. Here are some of the great grazing lands of America. A total of not far from 10,000 carloads of cattle, horses and sheep is exported from Nevada every year. [Illustration: IN OGDEN CANYON IS THE HERMITAGE, BUILT AMID ROMANTIC SURROUNDINGS AND ATTRACTING MANY LOVERS OF TROUT AND SCENERY]