In 1883, Edward's Tourist Guide and Directory of the Truckee Basin portrayed Lake Tahoe's virgin forest as inexhaustible, yet historians estimate that between 1870 and 1900 two-thirds of Lake Tahoe's accessible trees were clear-cut, leaving mainly trees too small or crooked, too difficult to reach, or less useful species such as red fir, white fir, and lodgepole pine. Some remains of that early forest still survive near Marlette Lake, where old growth red fir and very old stumps cut three to four feet above the ground endure, preserved for more than 125 years by the arid climate. The great demand for timber grew after silver was discovered in Nevada's Virginia Range in 1859, launching the Comstock silver strike and a rush to Virginia City, where soft crumbling mine tunnels required square-set timbering to prevent collapse. Supplying the mines required enormous quantities of high quality timber and cordwood, and logging companies built railways, barges, wagon roads, flumes, reservoirs, wood camps, and mills, much of the network centered on Spooner Summit and Incline Village. Tahoe's east and south shores were logged most heavily because of their access to mills and transportation and, on the south shore, flatter ground that eased cutting and hauling. The Carson Tahoe Lumber and Fluming Company dominated the Comstock market and within 25 years harvested 750 million board feet of lumber and 500,000 cords of wood, enough to build 50,000 average homes. By 1900 large-scale cutting had ended, but its effects remained, including an estimated ten-fold increase in soil erosion into Lake Tahoe during the Comstock era. Although the forest has regrown and now covers Tahoe's mountains, it differs from the earlier forest, with white fir now dominant where Jeffrey and sugar pines once grew, and land managers across the Tahoe Basin work to restore forest health and diversity through controlled burns and tree plantings.