OCR Text |
Show 158 NATIONAL WAGON ROAD GUIDE. this· but it is based upon the certain belief that to own ' r a gnltl-bearing quartz vein, that has been extensively and carefully prospected, the rock put to th(e test, and by actual experiment knovfn to be rich, is to possess a fortune. And we are positive in asserting that there are hundreds, yes hundreds of known gold-bearing quartz veins in California, awaiting capital for the erection of the necessary machinery, to yield up fortunes to their proprietors. There is hardly a mechanical pursuit that cannot be carried on here to better profit than in almost any other part of the world; but many of these pursuits require at the outset, usually, a larger expenditure of capital than in many oth~r countries, for the very reason of the value of labor, and the cost of materials necessary to commence the manufacture; but once established and the profits are proportionably great. We might continue the subject indefinitely, speaking of other projects and enterprises, the prosecution of which would most certainLy be attended with large profits upon the investn1ent. Capital can be profitably employed, if judiciously, in almost a~y country, and California is not an exception. CALIFORNIA A LAND OF CONTRARIETIES. California, with the western portion of Utah, is of all other& a land of contrarieties. For six or eight months of the year, our climate-we are speaking of the gold • APPENDIX. 159 .. . region and mountain country-is one of genial mildness and almost uninterrupted sunshine, and this is our summer, followed by months of alternate rain, snow, cloud, and sunshine, and this is our winter, upon the mountains. Our lower valleys, plains, and hill-sides, in the early year, for months together, present ahnost a continuous bed of flowers~ followed by months of sunshine, when, to the inexperienced eye, they appear but little else than arid wastes, except where fruit and forest trees abound ; and this is summer, in the valleys ; and then · again for months, rain, cloud, and sunshine withont the · snow, and this is winter in the valleys. And though with hardly a shower for six months in summer, Californi~ produces . the finest fruits, grains and vegetables, and the largest trees in the world. Her largest lakes lie almost upon the summits of her highest mou~tains, and though surrounded by eternal snows their "vaters never freeze. On the ea~t of the Sierra Nevada the rivers run inland, and instead of discharging their waters into the ocean they are dried up. With magnificent forests of great beauty we have very few birds, and those we have seldom if ever sing, high among the mountains. The face of the country one uninterrupted fuccession of ups and downs; high hills and ridges, deep go1·ges and canons, characterise the mountain slopes on either side. Our valleys are almost on a .leYel with the ocean, and our mountains are so high that they are ever decked with snow. |