done in mining, although mines of considerable importance have been discovered.

The population of Lassen county is 1,327; consisting of 1,178 native Americans and 149 foreigners. Susanville, the county-seat, has a population of 640. The other towns are all small.

Siskiyou county, lying directly north of Lassen county, and extending to the Oregon line, and already described, is the last or most northern one of the tier of mountain counties, following the range of the Sierra Nevada mountains, and forming the great gold-producing region of California.

CHAPTER XXXI.

Pacific coast-Oregon-Nevada- Utah-Arizona-Idaho-Washington Territory-British Columbia and Alaska.

THE vast region lying west of the Rocky mountains, designated the Pacific coast, in which is embraced California, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Idaho, a part of Montana, Washington Territory, British Columbia, and Alaska, contains an area equal to one-half of the whole territory of the Republic of America. The three States and five Territories in this division belonging to the United States contain an area of 1,259,234 square miles, and British Columbia is estimated at 300,000 square miles in extent.

Until a recent period this wide domain, with its genial climate, vast forests, great mountains, magnificent rivers and harbors, broad and fertile valleys, and great mineral wealth, was comparatively unknown, even to the people of America; and although new States have sprung up, cities been built, rivers navigated, and mountains pierced, and the track of the iron horse is found on mountain side and valley, and the seat of new, vigorous, and happy communities find permanent lodgment in the rich soil of the new civilization of the Far West, yet but little is known of the country, even in the States east of the Rocky mountains, and thousands of well-informed persons in Europe and America have never heard of the divisions of this section, nor know their location nor their names.

In preceding chapters, that portion of the Pacific coast more generally known abroad on account of the

great mineral wealth, agricultural productions, and matchless natural beauties developed and brought to light since the discovery of gold in 1848, has been presented to the reader; and now the following chapters will be devoted to briefly setting forth the physical features, climate, and vast resources and wonders of that wide area extending from the scorching sands of the Colorado to the stern heights of Oregon and the grim, ice-bound shores of northern Alaska.

The area embraced within the succeeding chapters is entirely distinct in climate, soil, productions, animals, fish, and birds, from any section of the United States east of the Rocky mountains; and, together with California, contain more of the precious metals than all the world besides so far as yet discovered, and its still unexplored and unoccupied regions afford the last remaining refuge for that large element of wanderers and adventurers always pushing ahead of civilization, seeking new discoveries, new homes, and new acquaintances beyond the sound of church-bell and the echo of the steam-whistle. The range for this class is still wide. the red man and the mountain deer have still uncertain tenure of the soil, and the stately elk and grim bear look out from their forest homes, tempting sport for the unerring rifle of the frontiersman; and when the vast regions from the Colorado to Behring Strait cease to afford attractions to the pioneer, man's condition will be so changed that the new civilization built upon the lonely wastes will afford him solace; or other planets will be discovered in which the primitive forests and howling deserts will afford him an asylum.

The marked physical features of that portion of America lying west of the Rocky mountains, so well