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Show THE WONDERS OF CALIFORNIA. 149 old shares the same fate, and lastly was introduced " piping " and com-plete hydraulic raining. Little by little this great industry has passed away ; the works are fallen to decay ; the placers are mostly worked out ; three- fourths of the mining camps are abandoned ; picks and " long toms " lie among rocks and debris, and California, from an annual production of forty millions in gold, has sunk to half that amount. " Ranching " came next, and all this industry is not lost ; the flumes and water are used for irrigation, without which the smaller vegetables and fruits are not a perfect cess. Six miles through mines bring us to Sonora, where we gladly take a Con-cord coach for the rest of the trip. Sonora Valley, opening to the south- west, enjoys an Italian clime, and from February to December is glorified by flowers of all hues. Here we see giant oleanders, fifteen feet high, which grow out doors all the year, and gardens excelling the utmost flights of my fancy. Apples, peaches, pears, apricots, figs, damsons, grapes, and quinces we see growing lux-uriantly in the same inclosure, many now ripe, and affording most grateful refreshment to our heated excursionists. All along the route to Yosemite fruit is abundant and cheap all one can eat for ten cents growing even to within half a day's staging of the valley. But this beauty is brief. Right beside these blooming gardens, right up against the walls, are worked- out mines, hundreds of acres of bare boulders in beds, all the soil " piped " away in search of the " pay dirt," which lies below the soil and upon the rocks. A massive brick church stands in the south part of the town, around it lies an acre of ground dotted with tombstones, the city grave- yard, and up EL CAPITAN. |