res of scientific and descriptive
literature that have Lake Tahoe as their object. Not the least service
this unpretentious volume will accomplish is the gathering together of
these little-known jewels.

It will be noticed that I have used the word _Sierran_ rather
than _Alpine_ throughout these pages. Why not? Why should the
writer, describing the majestic, the glorious, the sublime of the
later-formed mountain ranges of earth, designate them by a term coined
for another and far-away range?

I would have the reader, however, be careful to pronounce it
accurately. It is not _Sy-eer-an_, but _See-ehr-ran_, almost
as if one were advising another to "See Aaron," the brother of Moses.

Tahoe is not _Teh-o_, nor is it _Tah-ho_, nor _Tah-o_.
The Washoe Indians, from whom we get the name, pronounce it as if it
were one syllable _Tao_, like a Chinese name, the "a" having the
broad sound _ah_ of the Continent.

Likewise _Tallac_ is not pronounced with the accent on the last
syllable (as is generally heard), but _Tal['x]-ac_.

While these niceties of pronunciation are not of vast importance, they
preserve to us the intonations of the original inhabitants, who, as
far as we know, were the first human beings to gaze upon the face of
this ever-glorious and beautiful Lake.

When Mark Twain and Thomas Starr King visited Tahoe it was largely in
its primitive wildness, though logging operations for the securing of
timber for the mines of Virginia City had been going on for some time
and had led to the settlement at Glenbrook (where four great saw mills
were in constant operation so long as weather permitted), and
the stage-road from Placerville to Virginia City demanded
stopping-stations, as Myers, Yanks, Rowlands and Lakeside.

But to-day, while the commercial operations have largely ceased, the
scenic attractions of Lake Tahoe and its region have justified the
erection of over twenty resorts and camps, at least two of them
rivaling in extent and elaborateness of plant any of the gigantic
resort hotels of either the Atlantic or Pacific coasts, the others
varying in size and degree, according to the class of patronage they
seek. That these provisions for the entertainment of travelers, yearly
visitors, and health seekers will speedily increase with the years
there can be no doubt, for there is but one Lake Tahoe, and its lovers
will ultimately be legion. Already, also, it has begun to assert
itself as a place of summer residenc