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Show 150 PERSONAL ADVENTURES is broken and varied, and rendered eminently picturesque, by the several islands with which it is studded, and which rise to the height of from 300 to 400 feet; preserving in the main the bold and rugged character of their parent shores ; some being mere masses of rock, whilst others are luxuriantly clad with a n1antle of the very richest verdure, bespotted with flowers of the gaudiest hues. In1mediately opposite the entrance to the Bay, and forn1ing a back-ground of un· surpassed majesty of appearance, rises, at a few miles distant from the shore, a chain of mountains, which shoot aloft to an eleva· tion of two thousand feet above the level of the water, and whose surnmits are crowned by a splendid forest-growth of ancient cy· press, distinctly visible from the Pacific, and presenting a conspicuous landmark for vessels entering the Bay. Towering be· hind these, again, like the master-sentinel of the golden regions which it overlooks, is the rugged peak of Mount Diablo, rearing its antediluvian, granite head, hoar with un· IN CALIFORNIA. 151 melted snows, to the height of 3, 770 feet above the level of the sea. The immediate shores of the Bay are known by the name of contra costa (the counter, or opposite coast), this designation being derived from their proximity and opposite relation to the sea. Their character is varied, presenting a front of broken and ru<rged hills 0 ' rolling and undulating lands, and rich, allu-vial shores, having in their rear fertile and wooded ranges, admirably adapted as a site for towns, villages, and farms; with which latter they were already dotted. The foot of the mountains around the southern arm of t.h e Bay is a low, alluvial bottom-land ' extend-mg several miles in breadth, being inter-spersed with and relieved by occasional open woods of oak, and terminating, on a breadth of twenty miles, in the fertile valley of San Josef. . A narrower examination of the Bay show·s th~t it is divided by straits and projecting P.Olnts, or small promontories, into three distmct bays, that of San Francisco beinO' of O' |