but never fully
conceive the joy and radiant happiness, the satisfaction and content
that Lake Tahoe inspires and produces.

Lake Tahoe covers about 190 square miles, and its watershed is about
500 square miles. The boundary line between Nevada and California
strikes the Lake on the northern border at the 120th meridian, and
a point at that spot is called the State Line Point. The latitude
parallel of this northern entrance is 39 deg. 15". The boundary line goes
due south until about 38 deg. 58" and then strikes off at an oblique angle
to the southeast, making the southern line close to Lakeside Park, a
few miles east of the 120th meridian.

CHAPTER II

FREMONT AND THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE TAHOE

Like so many other great discoveries that were to have an important
effect upon the lives of countless numbers of people, the discovery
of Lake Tahoe was accidental. Nor did its finder comprehend the vast
influence it was to possess, not only upon the residents of California
and Nevada, but upon the travel-loving and sight-seeing portion of the
population of the whole world.

John C. Fremont, popularly acclaimed "the pathfinder," was its
discoverer, on the 14th day of February, 1844. In the journal of his
1843-44 expedition he thus records the first sight of it:

Accompanied by Mr. Preuss, I ascended to-day the highest peak
to the right from which we had a beautiful view of a mountain
lake at our feet, about fifteen miles in length, and so nearly
surrounded by mountains that we could not discover an outlet.

It cannot be deemed out of place in these pages, owing to the
significance of the discovery by Fremont, to give a brief account of
the exploration and its purposes, in the carrying out of which Tahoe
was revealed to the intrepid and distinguished explorer.

Fortunately for us, Fremont left a full story of his experiences in
the Nevada country, complete in detail, and as fresh and vivid as if
but written yesterday. This account, with illuminating Introduction,
and explanatory notes by James U. Smith, from whose pioneer father
Smith Valley is named, was republished in the _Second Biennial
Report of the Nevada Historical Society_, from which, with the
kind permission of the secretary, Professor Jeanne Elizabeth Wier, the
following extracts are made.

Fremont had already made his first exploration of the Rocky Mountains
and South Pass in the summer of 1842. It was in this expedition that,
standi