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Show THE WAY TO OREGON. 395 For fifty miles the river is a series of cascades; and though, through our ups and downs, we but kept even with the stream, we must have been gaining rapidly in general elevation. The sun rose clear, and the bright day and sublime scenery made us forget the fatigues of the way. The immense timber through which this road runs is a constant astonishment to the traveler. For two hundred miles, broken only by two or three open spaces, stretches a vast forest of firs and pines of every diameter, from one to ten feet. Southward the big trees grow more numerous, till they culminate in the Calaveras Grove and the thirty- two- feet stump, on which there is room for a dancing party, with musicians and spectators. Here is inexhaustible wealth in lumber. The fir is harder to work than the pine, but more durable. With good facilities for shipping, every acre of this forest would be worth two hundred dollars. Near night we left the river, and toiled slowly up- hill for two hours to a mountain plateau. To our right was Mount Shasta, 14,400 feet high, a scene of indescribable beauty in the cold, clear moonlight. The lower portion looked like polished marble, shading off by degrees to the bright green of the pine- forests on the foot- hills; the summit, covered nearly all the year with snow and ice, shone a monument of dazzling whiteness. But sentiment was soon overpowered by sense, as the drivers had lost time, and now took advantage of the down- grade; the coach bumped over great bowlders, throwing us against the roof and back against the seats till phrenological development went on at both ends with uncomfortable rapidity. Lean men can not endure coaching like plump ones; and if Darwinism be true, in my many years of travel I should have " developed " a series of gristle- pads. Our present anatomy is all very well for home life in a level country; for mountaineering I could suggest an improvement : a cast- iron back-bone with a hinge in it, terminating below in a sole- leather copper-lined flap. At Yreka I had to stop and rest between stages ; and, after nine hours' sleep, still felt as if I had been pounded all over with a clap-board. Yreka has the coldest climate of any city in California, and a location of wonderful beauty. From the town a gently undulating valley extends in every direction, rising by a succession of timbered foot- hills to the lofty mountains, whose notched and pointed summits, now dazzling white with snow, seem to join the blue heavens or lose themselves in clouds. But it is only on the points of the mountains that any mist can be seen ; above us the sky is cloudless, and the cool air is exhilarating as some ethereal gas. A few miles eastward was the |