The Sacramento runs from north to south through an inclined alluvial prairie, and is described as a deep, broad and beautiful stream. It flows through a fine region, and is navigable for vessels of considerable draught as high as the settlements in the neighborhood of Sutter's original location. The principal tributaries of this river, also, originate in the melting snows of the Eastern Sierra, and are known as the Antelope, Deer, Mill and Chico creeks, and the Butte, Dorado, Plumas or Feather, Yuba, Bear and American rivers. Cottonwood creek and some other smaller streams are disgorged into it from the slopes of the Western or Coast Range. The Trinity and a few at the north, run into the Pacific.
In order to comprehend the agricultural and mineral value of California, it is necessary to glance at the structure of the region. Upon the forty-first parallel of latitude, in a fork of the Sierra
Nevada, is a tract of high table land, about one hundred miles in length, surrounded on all sides by mountains, and called by Frémont the Upper Valley of the Sacramento. Here the growth of timber is vigorous and immense, for the climate and productions are modified by altitude as well as latitude. The Sacramento river, rising in the mountains at its northern extremity, reaches the Lower Valley through a gorge or cañon on the line of Shastl Peak, falling two thousand feet in twenty miles.
The Lower Valley is subdivided, as we have stated, into the valleys of the two great rivers, both of which are, at most, only a few hundred feet above the level of the sea, and gradually slope towards the bay. The foot hills of the Sierra Nevada limiting the valleys, make a woodland country diversified with undulating grounds and pretty vales or glens watered by numerous small streams. These afford many advantageous spots for farms, occasionally forming large bottoms of rich, moist land. Below 39° of latitude, and west of the foot hills, the forests are limited to scattering groves of oak in the valleys and on the borders of streams; or, of red wood on the ridges and in the gorges. With these exceptions, the whole region presents a surface without shrubbery or trees, though a few hills are shaded by dwarfed and stunted groves which may be used as fuel. California is covered, however, with various kinds of grasses and with wild oats, which grow luxuriantly in the valleys for many miles from the coast, but, ripening early in the season, they soon cease to protect the soil from the sun's scorching rays. As summer advances, the moisture in the atmosphere, and to a considerable depth in the earth, is completely exhausted, and the radiation of heat from the parched plains and naked hill sides becomes insufferable. North of the Bay of San Francisco, between the Sacramento and Joaquin valley and the coast, the country is cut up by mountain ridges and rolling hills, with many fertile, watered valleys. Immediately along the coast, lie open prairies, belted or broken by occasional forests, and interspersed with extensive fields of wild grain. Around the southern arm of the bay, a low, alluvial bottom land, sometimes overgrown by oaks, borders the western foot of the Coast Range, terminating, on a breadth of thirty miles, in the valley of San José. In this neighborhood, too, is the lovely valley of San Juan, which is probably the garden of the new State. These two valleys form a continuous plain of fifty-five miles in length, and from one to twenty miles in breadth, opening with smaller valleys among the hills. The balmy region, enclosed between the coast range and the lower hills upon the ocean, is blessed with a soil of singular fertility, a fine, dry atmosphere, and a soft, delicious climate. It is wooded with majestic trees, covered with rich grasses, brilliant with an endless variety of flowers, and produces profusely the fruits of the temperate and tropical zones.
South of Point Concepcion the climate and general appearance of the country are changed. From that point the coast bends almost directly east; the face of the country obtains a more southern exposure, and is sheltered by ranges of low mountains or hills from the bleak violence of north-west storms. The climate accordingly is more genial, and fosters a richer variety of productions than is found on the northern coasts.