I told Col.

Whitman, in times past, that the neighborhood of Dayton (Nevada) betrayed no present or previous manifestations of a ligneous foundation, and that hence I had no confidence in his lauded coal mines.

I repeated the same doctrine to the exultant coal discoverers of Humboldt.

I talked with my friend Captain Burch on the subject.

My pyrhanism vanished upon his statement that in the very region referred to he had seen petrified trees of the length of two hundred feet.