SITUATION OF CALIFORNIA.

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are over 1,000,000 acres, are for sale at $1.25 to $2 per acre, and the forfeited and unconfirmed swamp lands, about 1,600,000 acres, are for sale at fifty cents per acre and fees, or are donated to the settler in quantities of 160 acres on proof of residence and cultivation and improvement of five acres, and the fees, which are about six dollars.

The railways in the State have lands to the amount of about 2,600,000 acres for sale on several years' time at $2.50 per acre.

With these facilities for purchase and settlement, the lands of Arkansas offer to the immigrant homes which are within the reach of all. The land may not all of it be of the highest quality, though there is much excellent land there, but there is none of it from which an industrious man cannot make a comfortable living.

CHAPTER III.

CALIFORNIA.

ITS SITUATION-TOPOGRAPHY-MOUNTAINS, VALLEYS, LAKES, RIVERS, HARBORS, ISLANDS-GEology and Mineralogy-Soils and Vegetation-ZooLOGY— WONDERS PROF. E. W. HILGARD ON CLIMATES OF Tthe State-AgriculTURAL PRODUCTS-ManufactuRES, MINES AND MINING INDUSTRY-RAILROADS-STEAMERS-Its Commerce and NavIGATION, IMPORTS AND EXPORTS, BANKS, ETC.-California as a Health Resort-POPULATION, HOW CLASSIFIED-EDUCATION—Churches-COUNTIES AND PRINCIPAL TOWNS—ITS HIS, TORY AND PROBABLE FUTture.

It

CALIFORNIA is one of the largest States of "Our Western Empire," and stretches for 700 miles along the Pacific coast. is between the parallels of 32° 28′ and 42° north latitude, and between the meridians of 114° 30′ and 124° 45' of west longitude from Greenwich. It formed a part of the territory ceded by Mexico to the United States at the close of the Mexican war, and is bounded north by Oregon, east by Nevada and Arizona, south by Lower California, and west by the Pacific Ocean. The Pacific coast of California trends southward from the Oregon line

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to Cape Mendocino in latitude 40°, and thence in a nearly southeasterly direction to the coast of Lower California. The area of the State is 188,981 square miles, or 120,947,840 acres, or about the combined areas of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan. Its length is 700 statute miles, and its average breadth more than 200 miles.

Topography.-The mountain systems of California are vast in extent, diversified in character, rich in mineral wealth, and unsurpassed in beauty and grandeur of scenery. They may be considered under two great divisions: the Sierra Nevada or Snowy Mountains, on the eastern border, stretching with its spurs over a breadth of about seventy miles in a series of ranges; and the Coast Range, which, in its several chains, includes about forty miles in breadth, extends near the coast the whole length of the State and into Lower California. These two ranges unite near Fort Tejon in latitude 35° and again in latitude 40° 35', and separating again form the extensive and fertile valleys of the San Joaquin and Sacramento. The two lines of ranges of the Sierra Nevada may be traced in regular order for a distance of nearly seven degrees by their two lines of culminating crests, which rise in varying heights from 10,000 to 15,000 feet above the sea. There does not seem to be as much order in the position and direction of the summits of the Coast Range, peaks of widely varying heights and entirely clifferent mineral constitution being found in close proximity. The summits of the Coast Range vary in altitude from 1,500 to 8,000 feet. The highest peaks of the Sierra Nevada are Mount Shasta, Lassens Butte, Spanish Peak, Pyramid Peak, Mounts Dana, Lyell, Brewer, Tyndal, Whitney, and several others of less note. Those of the Coast Range, though richer in minerals, are less lofty and less noted.

On the eastern side of the crest line of the Sierra Nevada are a chain of lakes, including the Klamath lakes, Pyramid, Mono and Owen lakes, lying wholly east of the range, and Lake Tahoe, a gem of the purest crystal water, far up in the mountains, occupying a depression between two summits. The depression, in which most of these lakes are situated, continues southward

TOPOGRAPHY OF CALIFORNIA.

553 to the entrance of the Gila river into the Colorado. For a considerable distance northward from the southern limit of the State it is many feet below the ocean level, and geological investigations show that it was once the bed of a large lake or estuary communicating with the ocean by a somewhat narrow strait. It has recently been proposed to reopen this strait as a ship canal, which could be done at a very moderate expense, and thus restore this ancient land-locked sea, to modify the climate, and remove the drought from a region once populous, but now excessively arid.

A similar depression, though not quite so extensive, exists on the western slope of these mountains for a width of about fifty miles, and contains several lakes.

The region lying east of the Sierra Nevada is called the eastern slope; that between the foot-hills of the Sierras and the Coast Range is known as the California Valley, and that west of the Coast Range is called the Coast Valley, or simply the Coast. Another geographical division is made by drawing an east and west line across the State in the latitude of Fort Tejon, that part of the State lying south of this line being called Southern California. The country between this line and one extending east and west through Trinity, Humboldt, Tehama and Plumas counties is called Central California; all north of this is known as Northern California. Central California contains about three-fourths of the known wealth and population of the State.

The Monte Diablo division of the Coast Range, about 150 miles long by 50 miles wide, is a striking landmark of the State when approached by sea, and from its summit may be obtained the finest views of the varied scenery and landscapes of California which can be found anywhere.

The valleys of the Sacramento and the St. Joaquin, though the largest, are by no means the only valleys of California. There are hundreds of them of greater or less extent, and many of them remarkable for fertility and beauty. East of the Sierras, in Southern California, some of these valleys, the deepest portions of a former extensive inland sea, are now salt lakes and