| OCR Text |
Show [ 148] 12 highest are bet ween t~n and elevell: t~ousand feet ab~ve the sea. They are thinly wooded with some vaneties of ptne, (p~nus monophyllus characteristic,) cedar, aspen, and a fe\v other trees; and afford an excellent quality of bunch grass, equal to any found in the Rocky mountains. Black tailed deer and·mountain sheep are frequent in the3e mountains; which, in consideration of their grass, water and wood, and the alluvion at their base, may be called fertile, in the radical sense of the vvorJ, as signifying a capacity to produce, or bear, and in contradistinction to sterility. In this sense these interior mountains may be called fertile. Sterility, on the contrary, is the absolute characteristic of the valleys between the mountains-no wood, no water, no grass; the gloomy artemisia the prevailing shrub-no animals, except the hares, which shelter in these shrubs, and fleet and timid antelope, always on the watch for danger, and finding no place too dry and barren \Thich gives it ~wide horizon for its vie'v and a ci-ear field for its flight. No birds are seen in the plains, and few on the mountains. But few Indians ~re found, and those in the lowest ·state of human existence; living not even in communities, but in the elementary state of fatnilies, and sometimes a single individual to himself-except about the lakes stocked with fi~h, which become the property and resort of a small tribe. The abundance and excellence of the fish, in most of these lakes, is a charac.teristic; and the fishing season is to the Indians the h :tppy season of the year. Climate of the Great Basin.-The climate of the Great Basin does not present the rigorous w·inter due to its elevation and mountainous structure. Observations made during the last expedition, show that around the southern shores of the Salt lake, latitude 40° 30', to 41°, for two weeks of the month of October, 1845, from the 13th to the 27th, the mean temperature was 40° at sunrise, 70° at noon, and 54° at sunset; ranging at sunrise, from 28° to 57° ; at noon, from 6~0 to 76° ; at four in the afternoon, from 58° to 69° ; and at sunset, from 47° to 57°. Until the middle of the month. the weather remained fair and very pleasant. On the 15th, it began to rain in occasional showers, which whiten ed with snow the tops of the mountains on the southeast side of the lake valley. Flowers were in bloom during all the month. About the 18th, on one of the large islands in the south of the lake, Aelianthus, several species of aster, erod1·um cicutarium, and several oth~ plants, were in fresh and full bloom; the. grass of the second growth was coming up finely, and vegetation, generally, betokened the lengthened summer of the climate. The 16th, 17th, and 18th, stormy with rain; heavy at night; peaks of the Bear river range and tops of the mountains covered with snow. On the 18th, cleared with weather like that of late spring, and continued mild and clear until the end of the month, when the fine weather was again interrupted by a dav or two of rain. No snow within 2,000 feet above the level of the valley. Across the interior, b.et ween 1 at itudes 41° and 38°, during the month of November, (5th to 25th,) the mean temperature ,vas 29° at sunrise, and 40° at sunset; ranging at noon (by detached obser- 13 [ 148] t . ) between 41° and 60°. There was a snow s.torm between va 1ons l h falh. ng pn·n c1· pa 11 y a t n1g ht , and sun the 4~h and ~~~~~i:gs~~~ in the day. The lower hills and val-1oe c yc as sw1oenrea cY d · th h · ch th..e sun 0 v ere d a few inches e e p w 1 sn o 'v, w 1 carried off in a fP.'v hours after t~e storm was over. . The weather then continued un1n terrupted.Iy open un ti 1 ~he close f the ear without rain or snow; and dunng the rema1nde~ .of ; ovember, 'generally clear and beautiful; nigh t.s and mornings calm a light breeze during the day, and strong w1nds of very r.are ' Snow remained only on the peaks of the mountains. oc~u:~~~c~estern side of the basin, along the base of the Sierra .;'7 "\{. r eva d a' dur·1ng two weeks ' frotu the 25. th Nove1m1boe r toI tth e litht December, the mean temperature at sunr~se ·was , an( a sunseo 34 o. ran gino- at sunrise from zero to 21 , and at su~set from. 23 t 44o Fo~ ten consecutive days of the same penod, the mean t~mpe;ature at noon was 45°, ranging from 33o to 56° · . The weather remainecd open, usually very clear, and the nvers ,vere frozen. . k bl f th The winter of '43-'44, within the basin, was remar .a e or e same open, pleasant wea~her, rar~ly interru~ted by. rain. or sn.ow. In fact, there is nothing In the chmate of tlns great Intenor regton, elevated as it is, and surrounded and tr~ver~ed. by snowy mountains, to pr€vent civilized man from mak1ng It l...1s hom.e, and. findin in its arable parts the means of a comfo:table subsistence, and thfs the Mormons will probably soon yrove tn the _parts about the Great Salt lake. The progress of thetr settlement IS already gre~t. On the first of Apr-il of the prtsent year, they had 3,000. acres In wheat, seven saw and grist mills, seven hundred houses ~n a fortified enclosure of 'Sixty acres, stock, and other accompaniments of a flourishing settlement. . Such is the Great Basin, heretofore char~ctenzed as a desert, and in some respects meriting that appel~ahon; but alre~dy demanding the qualification of great exce.Ptlons, and deserv1ng the full examination of a thorough explor tlon. MARITIME REGION WEST OF THE SIERRA NEVADA. W f the SIERRA NEVADA and between that mountain and the sEeSaT i0s the second grand div' ision of c a I*1 forn1. a, an d th e on 1y part td which the name. applies. in t~e current langua~e of t~e coun t ry. It I·s the occup1ed and Inhabited pafr t, ha nds ·s o d-ifff erentt hI n character-so divided by . the m_oun tain 'v~ll o t. e 1err~ rom e Great Basin above-as to constitute a region to Itself, ~Ith a str~cture and configuration-a soil, climate, and productions-of It£ · own; and as northern Persia may be referred t~ as some typ~ of the, f - so may Italy be referred to as some point of companson for OI mer' . . b b t t d the latter. North and south, this regton em races a ou en . ~gr~es of latitude- from 32°, where it touches the pen1nsu la of Ca hlo:nia, t 42° where it bounds on Oregon. East and west, from the S1.erra ;evada to the sea, it 'vill average, in the middle parts, 150 miles; in the northern parts 200-giving an area of above one hundred |
