Geographical memoir upon upper California : in illustration of his map of Oregon and California

Page 18

[ 148] 28 the afternoon, 88°. at four, and 77°. at sunset; ranging at sunrise from 51°. to 61°.; at 4 from 81°. to 97°., and at sunset from 71°. to 85°. The dew point at corresponding times was 52° .8, 58°.8, 62°.L, 66°.8, 62°.5, 60°.7, and the quantity of moisture in a cubic foot of air being 4.685 grs., 5.709 grs., 6.320 grs., 7.217 grs., 6.377 grs., 5.973 grs., respectively. Western slope-of the Sierra Nevada.-The western flank of this Sierra belongs to the maritime region of California, and is capable of adding greatly to its value. It is a long, wide slope, timbered and grassy, with intervals of arable land, copiously watered with numerous and bold streams, and without the cold which its name and altitude might imply. In length it is the whole extent of the long valley at its base, five hundred miles. In breadth, it is from forty to seventy miles from the summit of the mountain to the ter-~ mination of the foot hills in the edge of the valleys below, a?d almost the whole of it available for some useful purpose­timber, pasturage, some. arable land, mills, quarries-and so sit­ua~ ed as to be convenie.nt for use, the wide slope of the mountain ~eing of easy and practicable descent. Timber hplds the first place In the .advantages ?f this slop.e, the wh(\le being heavily wooded, first With oaks, whtch predominate to about half the elevation of the mo~ntai.n; and then with pines, cypress, and cedars, the pines predominating; and hence, called the pine region, as that below is called. the oak reg~on, though mixed with other trees. The highest s~mm1ts of. the Sierra are naked, massive granite rock, covered With snow, In sheltered places, all the year round. The oaks are several varieties of white and black oak and evergreens sotne of the~ resembJi~g live oak. Of the white' oak there are ~ome new s~ec1es, attaining a handsozne elevation, upon a stem six feet in dtaweter. Acorns of un~ommon size, and not bad taste, used regu­larly for food ·by the Indians, abound on these trees and will be of great value for sto?k. The cypress, pine, and cedar are between 100 and 250 feet high, and five to twevle feet in diameter· with clean solid stems-. G:rass abounds. on almost all parts of the ~lope; except toward~ the h.1ghest .summits, and ~s fre~h and green all the year round, h~1n~ neither kdled by cold In the winter, nor dried by w~nt of rat~ m the summer. The foot hills of the sl'ope ate sufficiently fertile and gentle to admit of good settlements· while valleys, coves, beaches, and meadows of arable land are' found !hroug~out .. Many of the numerous streams, some of them amount­Ing to considerable rivers, which flow down the mountain side make handsome, fertile valleys. All these streams furnish good water po~er_. The .climate in the lower' part of the slope is that of consta.nt spnng, ~hlle above, the cold is not in proportion to the elevatt~n. Such 1s th~ general view of the western slope of the gre~t. Sterra; hut deemmg that all general views · should rest upon posih~e ~ata, I add some notes taken from actual observations . made ,m ddfere.nt ascents and descents in the winter and spring of. 1845- 46, and In different degrees of latitude from 35° to 41° Dece"!'ber4, 1~45.-Descent from the pass, at the head of S~lmon Trout nver, latttude 39Q 17', elevation 7,200 feet. At 3 in the • 29 [ 148] afternoon the temperature at 46°, at sunset 34~, at sunrise next morning 22°; the sky perfectly clear; no snow in the pass, but much • on the mountain tops. Here the present emigrant road now crosses. A fork of bear river (a considerable stream tributary to Feather river, which falls into the Sacramento) leads from the pass, and the • - road follows it; but finding this a rugged way, we turned to the south, and encamped in a mountain meadow of good green grass. ·A yellow moss very abundant on the north sides of the pines. December 6.-The route was over good travelling ground, through open pi:ne forest on a broad, leading ridge, affording an excellent road. A species of cedar ( Thuya gigantea) occurred, often of extraor­dinary height and size. Pinus tambertian'i was one of the IDQst fre­quent trees, distinguisherl among cone-bearing tribes by the length of its cones, sometimes sixteen or eighteen inches long. The In-dians eat the inner part of the burr, and large heaps of them were seen where they had been collected. Leaving the higher ridges, and gaining the smoother spurs, 3;nd descending abo~t 4,000 feet, the face of the country changed rapidly. The country became low, rolling, and pretty; the pines began to disappear, and varieties of oak, and principally an evergreen resembling live oak, became the predominating forest growth. These oaks bear great quantities of 1arge acorns, the principal food of all the wild InJians. At a vil-lage of a fev; huts which we came upon, there was a large supply of these acorns-eight or ten c.ribs of wicker work, containing about twenty bushels each. The best acorns are obtained from a large tree belonging to the d!vision of white oaks, which -is very abund-ant, and generally forms the groves on the bottom lands of the streams-· standing apart, with a clean undergrowth of grass, giving them:the appearance of cultivated parlts. It is a noble forest tree, already mentioned· as a new species, sixty to eighty feet high, with . a tufted summit of spreading branches, and frequently attains a diameter of six feet. The largest we measured reached eleven feet. The evergreen oaks gener.ally have a low growth, with long branches and spreading tops. Some of them are suitable for ship tin1ber, and have already been used for that purpose: . . At our evening encampment of the 8th, which was at an elevahon of five hundred feet above the sea, 'latitude 38° 53', and distant from the seacoast about one hundred miles, the temperature at sun­set w·as 48°, the sky clear and calm, weather delightful, and the vegetation that of early spring. We were still upon the foot hills of the mountain, where the soil is sheltered by woods, and where rain falls much more frequently than in the open Sacramento val­ley, near the edge of which we then were. I have been in copious, continuous rains of eighteen or twenty hours' duration in the oak region of the· tnountain, when not a drop fell in the valley below. • Innumerable small streams have their rise and course through these foot hills, which never reach the river of ihe valley, but are ab­sorbed in its light soil. The large streams coming from the upper parts of the mountain make yalleys of their own, of fertile soil, covered with luxuriant grass and in terspetsed with groves. This is the general character of the foot hills throughout the entire length ' I