ndred and forty feet long, three hundred and fourteen feet wide, and
four stories high! In one wall of a neighboring building of stone less
carefully dressed it is estimated that there were originally no less
than thirty million pieces, which were transported, fashioned, and laid
by men without a beast of burden or a trowel, chisel, or hammer of
metal....

At the time of the Spanish conquest the Pueblo tribes were worshippers
of the sun and fire, like all the races of this continent which were
above barbarism. To-day, even in those pueblos where a corrupted form of
the Roman faith is accepted, there are traces of the old sun-worship
mingled with it, and in all pueblos there are large circular rooms,
called estufas, reserved for councils and for worship. The invariable
appearance of estufas among the ruined towns, and even on the ledges of
the cliffs, shows what sacredness was attached to the circular room,
which, perhaps, was symbolic of the sun's orb: it indicates a unity of
religious faith between the ancients and moderns.

LAKE TAHOE AND THE BIG TREES.

A. H. TEVIS.

[To Rev. A. H. Tevis, author of "Beyond the Sierras; or,
Observations on the Pacific Coast," we owe the following
description of a most charming example of American lake
scenery, one of the varied and striking regions of beauty which
California offers to the tourist.]

Of the many curiosities that nature has scattered over the length and
breadth of this coast, Lake Tahoe is one of the most charming.

This is a land of wonders, certainly of curiosities. Providence has made
this vast area, between the Rocky Mountains and the sea, his chief
receptacle of the wealth of the country. And what folly to travel in
foreign countries to see the sights until you have at least seen some of
the wonders and treasures of our own great Commonwealth! You can spend
your life in exploring these various wonders, and then not find an
end,--petrified forests; lost rivers, whose _termini_ no one knows, and
of whose source there is great doubt; brackish lakes, whose waters are
worse than the Dead Sea, and in which no living thing can exist;
bubbling, hissing, thundering geysers, whose awfulness impresses the
hardest heart; roaring cataracts, that with a band of silver seem to
bind together earth and sky; boiling springs, hither and yon in almost
countless profusion, that send their breath of steam as through the
throats of some great furna