Carson City
Nevada
Aug[ust] 12 [18]77
Dearest wife*1,
I wrote last from Salt Lake City on the 8th from where Dr Gray & I took a botanical excursion into the Wahsatch [Wasatch] M[oun]t[ain]s, a high & very rugged range E[ast] of Salt Lake City we were two days away went over a pass about 12000 f[ee]t high saw the famous "Emma mine" & got a great number of most interesting plants, many connecting the Flora of Colorado & Utah with that of California.
We left S[alt] L[ake] City for Ogden on the 9th & there Gen[era]l & Mrs Strachey left us, for England to our great regret. They were to catch the train Eastward by Cheyennes & Omaha

to Chicago, without stopping, then on to Niagara & to down the Hudson to New York whence they will embark on the 22nd for England.
We took the train in the opposite Westerly direction at 7 pm on the 9th & travelling all night & next day over the desert desert salt region very hot & fatiguing arrived at midnight of the 10th at Reno whence a rail runs 30'south to Carson City. This dry treeless & waterless region is terribly hot but water is every where[sic] near the surface & the brilliant green & luxuriant irrigated crops near the railway stations formed a really marvellous contrast to the surrounding sterility. Carson City is also in the desert region & is

the capital of Nevada state -- it is 20 miles from Virginia City where Dr Gray & Mr Hayden & I went to day[sic] -- a most wonderful place 6000 f[ee]t up amongst the most horrid barren rocky hills[?] you ever beheld. Yet here are the richest gold & silver mines ever discovered. They were discovered but a few years ago, & in some 10 years several large towns with grand Hotels, Banks & halls grow shot up around them. They have already yielded 76,000,000 dollars of pure gold & silver, & in one day one mine turned out $360,000 worth. The works for crushing the quartz, washing, amalgamating with mercury[,] reducing & assaying ore are the most perfect principles, & the gigantic machinery steam engines &c &c &c are amongst the finest in the world. The owners of these mines

are millionaires & their wealth is increasing every minute & will till the lode is exhausted. The miners work at upward of 1000 f[ee]t depth in a steamy atmosphere of 120° degrees. They get 16 s a day. The climate is horrid, terribly hot by day, it was 93° in the shade at 11 am & very cold in winter. The gentlemen who took us over the works gave us a capital luncheon in the Hotel which is a perfect palace -- any gold goes here & small silver, & nothing smaller than a 10 cent piece (nearly 6d) is taken which is very hard on the poor. Though in fact there are no poor tens of thousands have been ruined hunting for lodes all about here finding perhaps a little superficial one & then setting up works to be ruined thereby. The steep M[oun]tain slopes are riddled by prospectors for miles in every direction.
Tomorrow we leave early for Silver city & so across the mountains to Yosemite & Calaveras Groves & so to San Francisco where*2 we cannot arrive till 10 days & where I do so long to be & get letters*3 from you. I did so long to go home with the Stracheys, but my work will end with the Forest region of the Pacific coast. I have a very large collection of plants & a good general idea of the flora of the whole continent from East to West, it will be a splendid achievement in Geographical Botany, but a very laborious one. I am so sick of railway cars and perpetual hacking of traps drying plants writing notes & seeing endless people & things. Ever dearest wife y[ou]r aff[ectionate | J D Hooker [signature]
I cannot tell you how I long to hear from you.