Across the Coast Range of mountains, eastward from San José, is the extensive San Joaquin Valley, noted as the "granary of California," two hundred miles long and thirty to seventy miles wide between the mountain ranges. It produces almost limitless crops of grain, fruits and wines. Through this great valley the San Joaquin River flows northward, and the Sacramento River southward in another valley as spacious, and uniting, they go out westward to San Francisco Bay. We are told that in the days when the earth was forming, the sea waves beat against the slopes of the Sierra Nevada, but ultimately the waters receded, leaving the floor of this vast valley of central California stretching nearly five hundred miles between the mountain ranges. The first comers among the white men dug gold out of its soils, but now they also get an enormous revenue from the prolific crops. Railways traverse it in all directions. The chief city is Stockton, at the head of navigation on the San Joaquin, a town of twenty thousand people, having numerous factories. Here in the slopes and gulches of the Sierras, stretching far away, were the first gold-mines of California, when the discoveries of the "Forty-niners" set the world agog. Here, at Jackson, was tapped the famous "Mother Lode," the most continuous and richest of the three gold belts extending along the slope of the Sierras, and so-called by the early miners because they regarded it as the parent source of all the gold found in the placers. This lode is in some parts a mile wide, and extends a hundred miles, being here a series of parallel fissures filled with gold-bearing quartz-veins, while farther south they unite in a single enormous fissure. The mineral belts paralleling it on both sides are rich in copper and gold. The country all about is a mining region with prolific "diggings" everywhere, and smokes arising from the stamp-mills at work reducing the ores. Here are Tuttletown and Jackass Hill, the home of "Truthful James," and the localities made familiar by Bret Harte and Mark Twain. Here is Carson Hill, there having been picked up on its summit the largest gold-nugget ever found in California, worth $47,000. What this gold-mining has meant is shown by the results, aggregating since California first produced the metal a total of nearly $1,350,000,000 gold given the world. As the San Joaquin Valley is ascended, it develops its wealth of grain-fields, orchards and vineyards, and displays the grand systems of irrigation which have contributed to produce so much fertility.
Eastward from San Joaquin Valley are the famous groves of Big Trees, the gigantic sequoias, which Emerson has appropriately called the "Plantations of God." There are two forests of giants in Calaveras and Mariposa Counties displaying these enormous trees, of which it is significantly said that some were growing when Christ was upon the earth. The Calaveras Grove, the northernmost, is at an elevation of forty-seven hundred feet above the sea, upon a tract about two-thirds of a mile long and two hundred feet wide, there being a hundred large trees and many smaller. The tallest tree standing is the "Keystone State," three hundred and twenty-five feet high and forty-five feet in circumference. The "Mother of the Forest," denuded of its bark, is three hundred and fifteen feet high and sixty-one feet girth, while the "Father of the Forest," the biggest of all, is prostrate, and measures one hundred and twelve feet in circumference. There are two trees three hundred feet high, and many exceeding two hundred and fifty feet, the bark sometimes being a foot and a half thick. This grove, however, being less convenient, is not so much visited as the Mariposa Grove to the southward. It is in Mariposa (the butterfly) County, at sixty-five hundred feet elevation, and near the Yosemite Valley. The tract of four square miles is a State Park, there being two distinct forests a half-mile apart. The lower grove has a hundred fine trees, the largest being the "Grizzly Giant," of ninety-four feet circumference and thirty-one feet diameter, the main limb, at two hundred feet elevation, being over six feet in diameter. The upper grove contains three hundred and sixty trees, and the road between the groves is tunnelled directly through one of them, which is twenty-seven feet in diameter. Through this living tree, named "Wawona," the stage-coach drives in a passage nearly ten feet wide. These trees are not so high as in Calaveras Grove, but they are usually of larger girth. The tallest is two hundred and seventy-two feet, ten exceed two hundred and fifty feet, and three are over ninety feet in circumference, while twenty are over sixty feet. Many of the finest have been marred by fires. There are eight groves of these Big Trees in California, these being the chief.
YOSEMITE VALLEY.
Into the San Joaquin flows Merced River, coming from the eastward down out of the Sierras through the famous Yosemite Valley. Most of its waters are diverted by irrigation canals leading for many miles over the floor of the broad San Joaquin Valley. The road to the Yosemite leads eastward up the slope, crosses the crest, and at Inspiration Point, fifty-six hundred feet elevation, gives the first view, then steeply descending to the river bank, it enters the western portal. Yosemite is a corruption of the Indian word "A-hom-e-tae," which means the "full-grown grizzly bear," and is supposed to have originally been the name of an Indian chief. This magnificent canyon, on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, is a deep gorge eight miles long, traversed by Merced River, its nearly level floor being about thirty-eight hundred feet above the sea-level. The enclosing rocky and almost vertical walls rise from three thousand to five thousand feet above the river, the space between varying from a half-mile to two miles. Over the valley floor winds the beautiful green current of the diminutive Merced, bordered by trees and vegetation, the surface being generally grass-grown. The high vertical walls, the small amount of débris at their foot, and the character of the Yosemite chasm itself, have led the geologists to ascribe its formation not to erosion or glacial action, but to a mighty convulsion in the granite rocks, whereby part of them subsided along lines of fault-crossing nearly at right-angles. The observer, standing on the floor, can see no outlet anywhere, the almost perpendicular walls towering on high in every direction.
The Valley is a Government Park, which also includes the watershed of the streams flowing into it. Originally it was the home of the Digger Indians, a tribe of Shoshonés, and a rather low type, of whom a few still survive. It was first seen by white men in 1851, when a detachment of troops pursuing these Indians came unexpectedly upon it. The attractions soon became widely known, and visitors were numerous, especially after the opening of the Pacific Railways. Entering the Valley, the most striking object is its northwestern buttress, the ponderous cliff El Capitan, rising thirty-three hundred feet, at a very narrow part, its majestic form dominating the view. There are two vertical mountain walls almost at right angles, these enormous bare precipices facing west and south. On the opposite side, forming the other portal, rise the imposing Cathedral Rocks, adjoined by the two slender Cathedral Spires of splintered granite, nearly three thousand feet high. Over these rocks on their western side pours the Bridal Veil Fall, about seventy feet wide, and descending vertically six hundred and thirty feet. As the winds often make the foaming column flutter like a white veil, its title has been appropriately given. Adjoining El Capitan descends the Ribbon Fall, or the Virgin's Tears, falling two thousand feet, but losing much of its waters as the summer advances. Eastward of El Capitan are the peaks called the Three Brothers, the highest also named the Eagle Peak, rising three thousand feet. To the eastward of this peak and in a recess near the centre of the Valley are the Yosemite Falls, one of the highest waterfalls in the world. Yosemite Creek, which comes over the brink with a breadth of thirty-five feet, descends twenty-five hundred feet in three leaps. It pours down a vertical wall, the Upper Fall descending nearly fifteen hundred feet without a break, the column of water swaying as the winds blow with marvellous grace of motion, the eddying mists fading into light summer clouds above. The Middle Fall is a series of cascades descending over six hundred feet, and the Lower Fall is four hundred feet high. This is one of the grandest features of the Valley, but its vigor, too, dwindles as the season advances. There is a high and splendid ice cone formed at the foot of the Upper Fall in the winter. Alongside, upon a projection called Yosemite Point, at over thirty-two hundred feet elevation, is given one of the best views of the famous Valley.
At the head of the Yosemite, it divides into three narrow tributary canyons, each discharging a stream, which uniting form the Merced. The northernmost is the Tenaya, and overshadowing it rises the huge North Dome, more than thirty-seven hundred feet high, having as an outlying spur the Washington Column. Opposite, and forming the eastern boundary of the valley, is the South or Half Dome, of singular shape, towering almost five thousand feet, and like El Capitan, at the other extremity, being a most remarkable granitic cliff. Its top is inaccessible, although once it was scaled by an adventurous explorer by means of a rope attached to pegs driven into the rock. It is one of the most extraordinarily formed mountains in existence, standing up tall, gaunt and almost square against the sky, the dominating pinnacle of the upper valley. Upon the southern side rises Glacier Point, nearly thirty-four hundred feet, giving a splendid view over the valley, having to the westward the Sentinel Dome, nearly forty-three hundred feet high, ending in the conspicuous face of the Sentinel Rock. Thus environed by vast cliffs, this grand valley displays magnificent scenery. Within the upper canyons are also attractions, that of the Merced River, the central gorge displaying the Vernal and Nevada waterfalls. The Vernal Fall is seventy feet wide and descends three hundred and fifty feet, having behind it the Cap of Liberty, a picturesque cliff. Farther up the river is the Nevada Fall, a superb cataract, having a slightly sloping descent of six hundred feet. Just within Tenaya Canyon is the Mirror Lake, remarkable for its wonderful reflections of the North and South Domes and adjacent mountains. Some distance to the eastward is the Cloud's Rest, a peak rising more than six thousand feet above the valley and nearly ten thousand feet above sea-level, that is ascended for its splendid view of the surrounding mountains and the enclosing walls of the valley, which can be plainly seen throughout its length, stretching far away towards the setting sun. This view of the Yosemite surpasses all others in its comprehensiveness and grandeur.
THE ROCKIES
The great "backbone" of the American Continent is the Rocky Mountains, and the summits of its main range make the parting of the waters, the "Continental Divide." Its name of the Rockies is appropriate, for on these mountains and their intervening plateaus, naked rocks are developed to an extent rarely equalled elsewhere in the world. The leading causes of this are the great elevation and extreme aridity, the scanty moisture preventing growth of vegetation, and the high altitudes promoting denudation of the rock-material disintegrated at the surface. Enormous crags and bold peaks of bare rocks, mostly compose the mountains, while the streams flow at the bases of towering precipices in deep chasms and canyons filled with broken rocks. Being unprotected by vegetation, the winds sweep the hills clean of soil and sand, the steep slopes of the valleys are strewn with fragments of the enclosing cliffs, and the rivers are usually without flood-plains or intervales, where soils may gather. In the extensive and highly-elevated plateaus, the streams usually run in the bottoms of deep canyons, their channels choked with débris. Added to this the whole Rocky Mountain region has in the past been a scene of great volcanic activity, many extinct volcanoes appear, broad plains are covered with lava, and scoria and ashes are liberally deposited all about. The aridity is not a feature of the Pacific coast ranges, however, for the moisture from that ocean abundantly supplies water; there are good soils, and in the northern parts usually dense forests. The Rocky Mountain system extends from Mexico up to Alaska and the Arctic Ocean, its greatest development being between 38° and 42° north latitude, where the various ranges cover a breadth of a thousand miles. The highest peak of the Rockies is Mount Logan, in British America, on the edge of Alaska, rising nineteen thousand five hundred and thirty-nine feet. In the United States these mountains rise from a general plateau extending across the country, and reaching its maximum elevation of about ten thousand feet in Colorado, whilst towards the north the surface descends, entering Canada at an elevation of four thousand feet. The plateau descends westward into the basin of the Colorado River, then the surface rises in Nevada to six thousand feet, and thence farther westward it gradually descends to the base of the Sierra Nevada in California. To the eastward the plateau throughout steadily descends in the long, undulating and generally treeless slope of the Great Plains to the Mississippi, the many tributaries of the Father of Waters carving their valleys down through its surface. There are numerous mountain ranges, plateaus and parks, under different names in this extensive mountain region, and the higher peaks in the United States generally rise to thirteen to fifteen thousand feet elevation. These mountains and the plains to the eastward compose the vast arid region constituting fully two-fifths of the United States, where irrigation is necessary to agriculture, and, in consequence, less than ten per cent. of this large surface bears forests of any value. We are told that so scant is the moisture, if the whole current of every water-course in this district were utilized for irrigation it would not be possible to redeem four per cent. of the land. Some of this surface, however, bears grasses and plants that, to an extent, make pasturage. The precious metals and other useful minerals are found in abundance, and various parts of the region have been developed by the many valuable mines, making their owners enormous fortunes.
Through this vast mountain district, over deserts and along devious defiles, a half-dozen great railways lead from the Mississippi Valley to the Pacific slope. The Southern Pacific Railway we have already followed from New Orleans across to Southern California. Northward from its route at El Paso a railway leads through New Mexico to the next great transcontinental line, the Atchison system, coming from Chicago by way of Kansas City and Santa Fé southwestward The main line traverses Kansas, and branches go south into the Indian Territory and Oklahoma. In the former are the reservations of the civilized tribes of Indians originally removed from east of the Mississippi—the Choctaws, Cherokees, Creeks, Chickasaws and Seminoles, with some others—who number nearly two hundred thousand souls, most of them engaged in agriculture. To the westward, south of Kansas and Colorado, is the "Boomers' Paradise" of Oklahoma, or the "Beautiful Land," a fertile and well-watered region, originally part of the Indian reserved lands, but bought from them by the Government. People from Kansas long had a desire to occupy this prolific land, and only with great difficulty were they kept out. The portion first got ready was opened to settlement by proclamation at noon on April 22, 1889, a large force of troops being in attendance to preserve order. Over fifty thousand people crossed the boundaries and entered the Territory the first day, taking up farms and starting towns. The "Cherokee Strip" along the northern line was subsequently obtained and opened to settlement in September, 1893, when ninety thousand people rushed in. These great invasions of the "Oklahoma boomers" became historic, cities of tents springing up in a night; but while there then was much suffering and privation from want of food and shelter, yet the new Territory has since become a most successful agricultural community.
The Atchison route, after crossing Kansas, enters Colorado, passing La Junta and Trinidad, and then turning southward rises to the highest point on the line, crossing the summit of the Raton Pass, at an elevation of seventy-six hundred and twenty feet, by going through a tunnel, and emerging on the southern side of the mountain in New Mexico. The railway is then laid along the slope of the Santa Fé Mountains, and on their side are Las Vegas Hot Springs, about forty of them being in the group, their waters used both for bathing and drinking, and having various curative properties. The Glorieta Pass is subsequently crossed at seventy-five hundred feet elevation, and beyond is Santa Fé, the capital of New Mexico. This is a curious and antique town, the oldest in the United States next to St. Augustine in Florida. It was an Indian pueblo or town in the very early times, and in 1605 the Spaniards came along, captured it, reduced the Indians to slavery, and worked the valuable gold and silver mines. In 1680 the Indians revolted, expelled the Spaniards and destroyed their churches and buildings, but they recovered control a few years later. There are now about seven thousand people of all races, having a good trade, and being chiefly employed in mining. It is a quaint old place, with crooked and narrow streets and adobé houses surrounding the central Plaza, on one side of which is the ancient Governor's Palace, a long, low adobé structure of one story, wherein the Governors of Spanish, Mexican and American rule have lived for nearly three centuries. It contains various historical paintings and relics, and here General Lew Wallace wrote Ben Hur while Governor of New Mexico in 1880.