gs in the High
Sierras_. These were privately printed in 1875, and from a copy
given to me many years ago by the distinguished author, I make the
following extracts on Lake Tahoe:

_August_ 20, (1870). I am cook to-day. I therefore got
up at daybreak and prepared breakfast while the rest enjoyed
their morning snooze. After breakfast we hired a sail-boat,
partly to fish, but mainly to enjoy a sail on this beautiful
Lake.

Oh! the exquisite beauty of this Lake--its clear waters,
emerald-green, and the deepest ultramarine blue; its pure
shores, rocky or cleanest gravel, so clean that the chafing of
the waves does not stain in the least the bright clearness of
the waters; the high granite mountains, with serried peaks,
which stand close around its very shore to guard its crystal
purity,--this Lake, not _among_, but _on_, the
mountains, lifted six thousand feet towards the deep-blue
overarching sky, whose image it reflects! We tried to fish for
trout, but partly because the speed of the sail-boat could
not be controlled, and partly because we enjoyed the scene far
more than the fishing, we were unsuccessful, and soon gave
it up. We sailed some six or eight miles, and landed in a
beautiful cove on the Nevada side. Shall we go in swimming?
Newspapers in San Francisco say there is something peculiar
in the waters of this high mountain Lake. It is so light, they
say, that logs of timber sink immediately, and bodies
of drowned animals never rise; that it is impossible to swim
in it; that, essaying to do so, many good swimmers have
been drowned. These facts are well attested by newspaper
scientists, and therefore not doubted by newspaper readers.
Since leaving Oakland, I have been often asked by the young
men the scientific explanation of so singular a fact. I have
uniformly answered, "We will try scientific experiments when
we arrive there." That time had come. "Now then, boys," I
cried, "for the scientific experiment I promised you!" I
immediately plunged in head-foremost and struck out boldly. I
then threw myself on my back, and lay on the surface with
ray limbs extended and motionless for ten minutes, breathing
quietly the while. All the good swimmers quickly followed. It
is as easy to swim and float in this as in any other water.
Lightness from diminished atmospheric pressure