HUMBOLDT RIVER.
The Humboldt River rises in the northwestern corner of Utah, passes into the northeastern corner of Nevada, in Elko County, and thence through Eureka, Lander, and Humboldt Counties, to its terminus in its lake and sink, just across the line in Churchill County. The total length of the river is nearly 350 miles, while its width is only about thirty or forty feet, and its average depth less than eighteen inches. The line of the Central Pacific Railroad follows the course of the stream a distance of about 320 miles, its channel forming a natural depression through the country which greatly facilitated the construction of the road. Down its course also lay the route followed by the emigrants who flocked across the “Plains” to California after the discovery of the gold mines. The water of the Humboldt is very bright and sweet toward the head, but near the “sink” the stream becomes rather sluggish and is somewhat tainted by the alkali absorbed in the lower part of its course. Owing to the increased use of water for the irrigation of bordering lands above, the quantity flowing into the lake each year grows smaller. The water carried out of the river by means of ditches to the valley ranches is dissipated by absorption and evaporation and never reaches the terminal lake. Thus it is seen as a result that the lake is gradually drying up. It will probably eventually become extinct, or survive as a mud marsh. In the spring, when the snow is melting about the head-waters of the river, Humboldt Lake has a length of about fifteen miles and a width of nine or ten miles. In summer and toward fall it becomes much smaller. At the south end of this lake is an outlet into a sink, or shallow lake, twenty-five or thirty miles long by about fifteen wide. This sink at times of high water connects with a similar sink formed by the overflow from Carson Lake, the terminal basin of the Carson River. In these sinks are found in the alkaline waters myriads of small fish. These attract immense flocks of pelicans, gulls, cranes, and other fish-eating water fowl. At certain seasons the lakes, sinks, and surrounding tule marshes are filled with ducks and geese. Large flocks of swan are also often seen out in the middle of the lakes. There is much fine agricultural and grazing land along down the Humboldt River, and about the lake and sink.