Mountains, I found
all the conifers I had seen on the other ranges of the State, excepting
the foxtail pine, which I have not observed further east than the White
Pine range, but in its stead the beautiful Rocky Mountain spruce. First,
as in the other ranges, we find the juniper and nut pine; then, higher,
the white pine and balsam fir; then the Douglas spruce and this new
Rocky Mountain spruce, which is common eastward from here, though this
range is, as far as I have observed, its western limit. It is one of
the largest and most important of Nevada conifers, attaining a height of
from sixty to eighty feet and a diameter of nearly two feet, while now
and then an exceptional specimen may be found in shady dells a hundred
feet high or more.

The foliage is bright yellowish and bluish green, according to exposure
and age, growing all around the branchlets, though inclined to turn
upward from the undersides, like that of the plushy firs of California,
making remarkably handsome fernlike plumes. While yet only mere saplings
five or six inches thick at the ground, they measure fifty or sixty feet
in height and are beautifully clothed with broad, level, fronded plumes
down to the base, preserving a strict arrowy outline, though a few of
the larger branches shoot out in free exuberance, relieving the spire
from any unpicturesque stiffness of aspect, while the conical summit is
crowded with thousands of rich brown cones to complete its beauty.

We made the ascent of the peak just after the first storm had whitened
its summit and brightened the atmosphere. The foot-slopes are like those
of the Troy range, only more evenly clad with grasses. After tracing a
long, rugged ridge of exceedingly hard quartzite, said to be veined here
and there with gold, we came to the North Dome, a noble summit rising
about a thousand feet above the timberline, its slopes heavily tree-clad
all around, but most perfectly on the north. Here the Rocky Mountain
spruce forms the bulk of the forest. The cones were ripe; most of
them had shed their winged seeds, and the shell-like scales were
conspicuously spread, making rich masses of brown from the tops of the
fertile trees down halfway to the ground, cone touching cone in lavish
clusters. A single branch that might be carried in the hand would be
found to bear a hundred or more.

Some portions of the wood were almost impenetrable, but in general we
found no difficulty in mazing comfortably on over fall