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Show 40 The outlying mountains show mineral wealth, gold, silver, lead, and antimony, although little prospecting and less developing has been done. It may be said that very fewof tbe mountain ranges in the interior of California have been fully and fairly prospected. Prospecting- parties usually traverse well- known routes or trails, and have in view certain objective points, to which their attention is entirely directed. Failing in good results there, they usually return to their old stamping- ground and wait for an occasion to call them in another direction. It need not astonish any one to bear of most remarkable mineral discoveries in the coast range and Sierra Nevada for many years to come, or if further developments upon mining- claims taken up* heretofore and abandoned as worthless shall prove the contrary. The creek, the main source of which is the one that flows by old Fort ^ Tejon, thence down the caiion toward the great plains, and through which until the railroad had reached Caliente, on Tehachipi Creek, the stage- line to the south had usually passed. The road from the mouth of this creek to Caliente passes a little north of Tejon ranch, and likewise of the old Indian reservation, which has now passed into private hands, and traverses the passes of a series of foot- hills of remarkably pleasant contour, well grassed, and covered irregularly with copses of oak aud pine. Although brown aud seared at the date of our visit, still the landscape presented was one not easily to be forgotten. Bueua Vista Lake, lying in the great Tulare plain in front of us, acts as the reservoir of Kern River, evidently like Lake Tulare, which during seasons of great rain fall and the spring melting of snows overflows its banks. Tulare Lake, however, as a reservoir will reach approximately to 100 square miles in size, and loses by evaporation throughout the months of the year characterized by uou- precipitation or by a minimum raiu fall all that is obtained from the regular river source of supply that reaches it. I am informed that it was found by Maj. R. M. Brereton, late of the royal engineers, that tbe average amount of annual evaporation from its surface was approximately 6 feet. Tbe question of irrigation has of late years been agitated in the State of California by the gentleman to whom allusion has been made and others, aud his aid is likely to promote the same by his engineering skill and experience in works of this class in India. The lines of proposed canals and opportunities for utilizing water- supply gathered in the various basins, especially those upon the western flanks of Sierra Nevadas, can be found in the report of the commissioners upon irrigation of the great valleys of of California. ( See Executive Document No. 290, 43d Coug., 1st sess.) NATURAL RESOURCES. As time has permitted, a number of tbe assistants have been employed in laying down upou the preliminary maps and in tabulating tbe areas whose natural resources permit of use for agricultural, raiuiug, grazing, and timber purposes as iu contradistinction to those absolutely worthless, being arid and barren. The table, with remarks, is submitted herewith, and it is proposed to gather complete statistics upon these important points in all the areas traversed hereafter, and as time shall permit to make comparison of larger areas after material shall have been worked up in connection with the surveys of prior years. A uum-ber of colored maps, graphically illustrating the same, cau then be prepared. In addition to the determination of the natural resources of the sec- |