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The Lake with its peculiar attractions is left entirely behind, with not another glimpse of it until we stand on the flume at Lake Marlette. Hence it is a complete change of scenery, for now we are looking ahead to tree-clad summits where eagles soar and the sky shines blue.
Under the latter, to the southwest, is Marlette Lake, largely an artificial body over a mile long and half a mile wide, which is the reservoir for the water supply of Virginia City. The course of the conveying flume may distinctly be traced, for part of its twenty-four miles of length.
On leaving Marlette Lake through an opening at the lower portion of the dam the water is conducted five miles in a covered flume and thence through a tunnel four thousand feet long through the summit of the dividing ridge or rim of the Tahoe basin to its easterly side.
So the native guides refused to continue the venture, and then every body deserted except a stranger named Marlette. He said he had been in the crater a dozen times in daylight and believed he could find his way through it at night. He thought that a run of three hundred yards would carry us over the hottest part of the floor and leave us our shoe-soles. His pluck gave me back-bone.
It had to pass across the deep depression of Washoe Valley with water at a perpendicular pressure of 1720 feet, equivalent to 800 pounds to the square inch. The first operations were so successful that as needs grew the supply flume was extended eight and a half miles to Marlette Lake, thus making the total distance to Virginia City thirty-one and a half miles.
This Lake was named after S.H. Marlette, formerly Surveyor General of Nevada, who was associated with W.S. Hobart, of San Francisco, the owner of the land and one of the original projectors of the Water Company. The site was a natural basin, the dam of which had been broken down or eroded centuries ago.
These both overshadow Marlette Lake, a full description of which is given elsewhere. All these peaks afford excellent views of Lake Tahoe on the one side and of the valleys and mountains of western Nevada on the other.
Supplementing the timber supply the water from Marlette Lake, a tributary to Lake Tahoe, was diverted by a remarkable engineering achievement for supplying Virginia City and the deep mines.
As the steamer leaves Glenbrook one may gain clear and distinct views of the four prominent peaks of the Nevada side. Above Lakeside, at the southeast end, is Monument Peak, then, about midway between Lakeside and Glenbrook is a sharp-pointed bare mass of rock known as Genoa Peak. Marlette Peak is to the northeast, 8864 feet, with Snow Valley Peak, 9214 feet, a little to the South.
Both peak and lake were named after S.H. Marlette, once Surveyor-General of Nevada, and a well-known character of the earlier mining days. Just below Marlette Lake, almost directly facing Tahoe Tavern, are several scarrings, running almost parallel to each other and going in the most direct fashion to Lake Tahoe.