The Wadsworth dispatch. [volume] (Wadsworth, Nev.) 1892-1899, 1893-01-28
SATURDAY, JANUARY %, 1898.
ANCIENT CORAL FOR THE WORLDS
FAIR.

IDe lover III 1lHbuTc VINO uellSutS III
view her handiwork in sculptured
rock and cnriously ehiseled stone,
will do well and be a hu idredfold
repaid for tronble and expense by tax
ing n drive of three hours from Wads-
worth to Pyramid Lake and vicinity
of the Indian Agency. The Agency
is distant about twenty miles from
Wadsworth and when you have driven
about ten miles on the journey, by the
desert route, you will come upon reef
after reef of old coral extending along
the sides Of the canyon, marking the
shoieline of an ancient sea. Erag-
ments are strewn along the wayside,
and by their strange forms and beau
tiful resemblance to vegetable growtbs
will attract attention and excite curl
osity. This coral is in a wonderful
state Of preservation considering the
immense lapse of time since II was
placed in its position by the coral
polyp. The cabbage, turnip, canli-
flower, and many understandable shapes
are here represented in coral. Many
have suffered but little loss of beauty
by the wear and tear of the clements
except the loss of their pristine SNOWY
luster, which has faded into dali gray
or brown. Extending across the point
of the peninsula that divides the Va
ters of the TIuckee, turning a portion
into Lake Pyramid. is a lofty hill
(Mt. Echo) that rises abruptly like II
wall tO a height OF nearly II thousand
feet above the surface Of the lake.
The mountain is Isolated and II team
can be easily driven around it, and at
every point OF view the beholder is
filed with astonishment. From its
base, which is buried in the sands of
the lake, to its summit its sides are
lined with huge masses of coral, tina.
seem to be twisted or carved into
many strange and fantastic forms.
Sometimes it rises in dome-shaped
masses that would weigh thousands of
tons; at other points it resembles
great fountains of water, rising up
near the summit of the mountain
in columns twenty or thirty feet high,
the overflow of which seems to be
falling into huge nrns or basins, that
group themselves into curious clus-
tiers near the crest and at lower alti-
tudes. There are in other places
g%rottoes and caves into which the
roaring breakers dashed thousands of
years before the foundations of Baby
Ion were laid. 1t must be seer to he
appreciated, and, like all OF natures
great wonders, it cannot be accurately
described.
The Pyramid-shaped islands that
suggested the name Of the lake, and
which rise to an altitude of several
hundred feet, are chiefly huge masses
OF coral. The formation is found all
along the shores of both lakes, on the
mountain sides and along on the sides
of the canyon for fifteen miles above
the mouth of the Truekee. 1t skirts
with a level watermark the sides Of
the mountains that hem in the Sinks
of Cursor and Humboldt rivers and
marks the shoreline of an arm of the
that sea might have been and proba-
bly, was a prolongafion OF the Gulf of
California. The depth OF the water at
the time here spoken OF, MS indicated
by the hight OF the corai on the noun.
tain ut the head az the lake, must
have been at least eight or nine hun
dred feet above its present surface.
The Tfuckee river, from WaAisworth TO
Pyramid, has cut its way through the
old sea-bed, leaving nearly L'erpen-