here we turned off from the valley it still stretched on
for another forty miles. It looked as if it might go on to the world's
end. Just out of Ely we passed through McGill and visited the immense
smelting works. There we saw the "concentrators," interesting machines
to shake down the heavy grains of copper from the lighter grains of sand
and earth. These big, slanting boards keep up a continual shake, shake,
shake while a thin stream of water pours over them. They are a little
less slanting than the board of a woman's washtub would be, and yet they
lie somewhat like a washboard. The shaking of the board and the action
of the water combine to roll down the heavy grains of copper. It seems a
simple process, and yet the regulation of the board's motion and the
angle of its slant are calculated to a nicety. There were hundreds of
these "concentrators" at work separating the copper from its native
earth. We saw also the great smelting furnaces and realized how it must
have been possible for the men who prepared the furnace for the burning
of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to be burned to death themselves.
What a fearful heat rolled out as one of the furnace doors was opened
and a molten stream of white-hot slag was raked into the gutter below!
And how the copper glowed as we saw it in its enormous melting caldron!
For the first time I saw a traveling crane at work. A characteristic
sign was near it in both English and Greek. It read, "Keep away from
crane. Keep clear and stand from under."

[Illustration: 1. Ely, Nevada. 2. Homesteader's Ranch near Lahontan Dam.
3. Copper Mine at Ely. 4. Ely, Nev.]

As we left Steptoe Valley and came down a long slope into Spring Valley,
we crossed Shellbourne Pass under the shadow of the Shellbourne range.
We passed some young people from Detroit, the gentleman driving his car.
We also passed some men with their laden burros taking supplies to the
sheepmen in the mountain ranges. These sheepmen live their lives apart
from the world for months at a time, seeing only the man who brings
their supplies at intervals.

[Illustration: 1. American Baptist Home Mission Touring Wagon. 2.
Fish Springs Ranch, Utah.]

We had luncheon at Anderson's ranch, where they treated us very
hospitably. I judged that this was a Mormon's household, as Mormon
marriage certificates hung upon the wall and as the Deseret Weekly was
evidently its newspaper connection with the outside world. Here our
friend Mr. N.