The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California / To which is Added a Description of the Physical Geography of California, with Recent Notices of the Gold Region from the Latest and Most Authentic Sources

by John Charles Frémont

"The peninsula of Lower California, extending from Cape San Lucas to the Bay of Todos Santos, in lat. 32° N., on the Pacific, and to the mouth of the Colorado on the Gulf side, is a pile of volcanic debris and scoriae. Much of the surface is still heated by subterranean fires. No craters are in action; but hot springs of water and bitumen, and frequent earthquakes, and the scorched face of the whole region, demonstrate it to be a mere mass upheaved from the sea, and burned to cinders. The range of mountains that comes up through Lower California, runs on northwardly into Upper California, at an average distance of sixty or seventy miles from the sea, till it falls away into low hills south of the bay of San Francisco. This, also, is a volcanic range; though not so strongly marked to that effect in the Upper as in the Lower Province.

"Some portions of this range are lofty. That part lying east and southeast of El Pueblo de los Angelos, is tipped with perpetual snows. But the greater part of it presents a base covered up to more than half of the whole elevation with pine and cedar forests; the remaining height being composed of bare, dark, glistening rocks, lying in confused masses, or turreted in the manner observed on the Black Hills in the Great Prairie Wilderness---spires, towers, and battlements, lifted up to heaven, among which the white feathery clouds of beautiful days rest shining in the mellow sun.

"The Snowy Mountain range is perhaps the boldest and most peculiar of the California highlands. Its western terminus is Cape Mendocino, a bold snow- capped headland, bending over the Pacific in 40° north latitude. Its western terminus is in the Wind River Mountains, latitude 42° N., about seven hundred miles from the sea. Its peculiarity consists in what may be termed its confused geological character. Near the sea its rocks are primitive, its strata regular. A hundred miles from the sea where the President's range crosses it, everything is fused--burned; and at the distance of seventy miles northeastwardly from the Bay of San Francisco, a spur comes off with a lofty peak, which pours out immense quantities of lava, and shoots up a flame so broad and bright as to be seen at sea, and to produce distinct shadows at eighty miles' distance. Here is an extensive tract of this range which has been burned, and whose strata have been torn from their natural positions; displaying an amalgamated mass of primitive rock ex loco, mingled with various descriptions of volcanic remains. From this point eastward, it is a broken irregular chain of peaks and rifted collateral ranges, and spurs running off northwardly and southwardly, some of which are primitive and others volcanic.

"Another range of mountains which deserves notice in this place, is that which bounds the valley of the San Joaquim on the east. This is a wide and towering range. It is in fact a continuation of the President's range, and partakes very strongly of its volcanic character. That part of it which lies eastwardly from the Bay of San Francisco, is very broad and lofty. One of its peaks, Mount Jackson, as it is called, is the highest in all the President's range. Mountains of great size are piled around it, but they appear like molehills beside that veteran mount. Its vast peak towers over them all several thousand feet, a glittering cone of ice.

"All over the Californias, the traveler finds evidences of volcanic action. Far in the interior, among the deserts; in the streams; in the heights; in the plains; everywhere, are manifestations of the fact, that the current of subterranean fire which crossed the Pacific, throwing up that line of islands lying on the south of the Sea of Kamschatka, and passed down the continent, upheaving the Oregon territory, did also bring up from the bed of the ocean the Californias.

"The peninsula, or lower California, which extends from Cape San Lucas in N. lat. 22° 48', to the Bay of Todos Santos in lat. 32° N., is a pile of barren, volcanic mountains, with very few streams, and still fewer spots of ground capable of sustaining vegetation. The territory lying north and south of the Colorado of the west, and within the boundaries of the Californias, is a howling desolation.

"From the highlands near the mouth of the Rio Colorado, a wild and somewhat interesting scene opens. In the east appears a line of mountains of a dark hue, stretching down the coast of the Gulf as far as the eye can reach. These heights are generally destitute of trees; but timber grows in some of the ravines. The general aspect, however, is far from pleasing. There is such a vastness of monotonous desolation; so dry, so blistered with volcanic fires; so forbidding to the wants of thirsting and hungering men, that one gladly turns his eye upon the water, the Mar de Cortez, the Gulf of California. The Colorado, two and a half miles in width, rushes into this Gulf with great force, lashing as it goes the small islands lying at its mouth, and for many leagues around the waters of the Gulf are discolored by its turbulent flood. On the west, sweep away the mountains of Lower California. These also are a thirsty mass of burned rocks, so dry that vegetation finds no resting-place among them.

"That province of Lower California varies from thirty to one hundred and fifty miles in width, a superficial extent almost equal to that of Great Britain; and yet on account of its barrenness, never will, from the products of the soil, maintain five hundred thousand people in a state of comfort, ordinarily found in the civilized condition. Every few years tornadoes sweep over the country with such violence, and bearing with them such floods of rain, that whatever of soil has been in any manner previously formed, is swept into the sea. So that even those little nooks among the mountains, where the inhabitants from time to time make their fields, and task the vexed earth for a scanty subsistence, are liable to be laid bare by the torrents. In case the soil chance to be lodged in some other dell, before it reach the Ocean or the Gulf, and the people follow it to its new location, they find perhaps no water there and cannot cultivate it. Consequently they are often driven by dreadful want to some other point in quest of sustenance, where they may not find it, and perish among the parched highlands. The mean range of temperature in the whole country in the summer season is from 60° to 74° Fahrenheit. The rains fall in the winter months; are very severe, and of short duration. During the remainder of the year the air is dry and clear; and the sky more beautiful than the imagination can conceive.

"The range of mountains occupying the whole interior of this country, vary in height from one to five thousand feet above the level of the sea. They are almost bare of all verdure, mere brown piles of barrenness, sprinkled here and there with a cluster of briars, small shrubs, or dwarf trees. Among the ridges are a few spots to which the sweeping rains have spared a little soil. These, if watered by springs or streams, are beautiful and productive. There are also a few places near the coast which are well adapted to tillage and pasturage.

"But the principal difficulty with this region, is one common to all countries of volcanic, origin,--a scarcity of water. The porousness of the rocks allows it to pass under ground to the sea. Consequently one finds few streams and springs in Lower California. From the Cape San Lucas to the mouth of the Colorado, six hundred miles, there are only two streams emptying into the Gulf. One of these is called San Josef del Cabo. It passes through the plantations of the Mission bearing the same name, and discharges itself into the bay of San Barnabas. The other is the Mulege, which waters the Mission of Santa Rosalia, and enters the Gulf in latitude 27° N. These are not navigable. The streams on the ocean coast, also, are few and small. Some of them are large enough to propel light machinery, or irrigate considerable tracts of land, but none of them are navigable. In the interior are several large springs, which send out abundant currents along the rocky beds of their upper courses; but when they reach the loose sands and porous rocks of the lower country, they sink and enter the sea through subterranean channels. A great misfortune it is too, that the lands which border those portions of these streams which run above the ground, consist of barren rocks. Where springs, however, and arable land occur together, immense fertility is the consequence. There is some variety of climate on the coasts, which it may be well to mention. On the Pacific shore the temperature is rendered delightfully balmy by the sea breezes, and the humidity which they bring along with them. Fahrenheit's thermometer ranges on this coast, during the summer, between fifty-eight and seventy-one degrees. In the winter months, while the rains are falling, it sinks as low as fifty degrees above zero. On the Gulf coast there is a still greater variation. While at the Cape, the mercury stands between sixty and seventy degrees, near the head of the Gulf it is down to the freezing point.