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Near Vallecita, on Cayote creek, in Calaveras county, is a striking display of volcanic action, in the shape of what are called the natural bridges: two immense arches, thrown over the above-named creek, and covered with imitations of clusters of fruits and flowers, doubtless formed when the mass was first upheaved in a molten state. In the same vicinity is 'Cayote Cave,' a deep, semicircular chasm, entered by a perpendicular descent of 100 feet, aud then proceeding by a gradual slope till it reaches a depth of nearly 200 feet below the surface, where you come to a chamber called "The Cathedral," from its containing two stones resembling hells, which, when struck, produce a chiming sound. Proceeding 100 feet farther, always on the descent, a lake is reached of great depth, and apparently covering many acres; but the exploration has not yet been carried beyond this point. The roof of the cave is studded with stalactites, assuming various fantastic forms." Benecia is 30 miles from San Francisco, on the Straits of Carquinez. Vessels of the largest class can reach this point, and here the steamers of the Pacific Mail Steamship Line are refitted. Vallejo is a few miles nearer San Francisco, on the north side of the same straits. Benecia, Vallejo and San Jose have been by turns the seat of government of California. San Jose is at the head of the San Francisco Bay, some 50 miles from San Francisco. It is at the entrance of a most beautiful and fertile valley, and was long the headquarters of the native Californians, many of whom owned immense estates and herds of wild cattle. The celebrated New Almaden quicksilver mine is 12 miles south of the town.

On the Pacific coast,south of San Francisco, the first important place is Monterey, 90 miles distant. It was, under Mexican rule, the principal commercial point in, and capital of California. Next in order on the coast are Santa Barbara, Los Angeles and San Diego, the latter 490 miles from San Francisco, the southernmost port in the state, and the termination of the branch from Texas of the overland mail route. In the rear of Los Angeles, at the distance of 80 miles inland, the snow-capped peak of Mount St. Bernardino is seen. It marks the site of the beautiful valley in which is the Mormon settlement of Bernardino.

On the Pacific coast, north of San Francisco, the points of interest are Humboldt City, Trinidad, Klamath, and Crescent City. The latter is the sea-port of the south part of Oregon, being distant only a few miles from the southern boundary line of that state.

Fort Yuma is at the south-eastern angle of the state, at the junction of the Colorado and Gila Rivers. It was built about the year 1851, by Major S. P. Heintzelman, U.S.A.

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NEVADA.

NEVADA was formed into a territory in February, 1861, and was taken from Western Utah. It was admitted into the Union as a State in October, 1864. Estimated area eighty thousand square miles. The eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains, inclusive of the famous Carson Valley, is within it. Originally it was called Washoe, from Mt. Washoe, a peak over nine thousand feet high, in the vicinity of Virginia City.

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Lying along the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada range, the country has a very different climate from that of California. gigantic wall of the Sierra Nevada, on the California side, receives the hot winds that blow from the Pacific Ocean, and fall there in rain and snow, leaving the opposite or eastern declivity exposed to droughts. and freezing blasts. Consequently you may find, at the same time, in the same latitude, and at the same hight, mildness of climate, fertility, vegetable riches, in fact, summer rejoicing on one side, while sterrility, cold and winter exist, with more or less intensity, on the opposite slope of these mountains, whose sublime beauty is perhaps unequaled throughout the world."

With the exception of Carson valley and a few small valleys, the whole country for hundreds of miles, north, south and east, is, like most mineral regions, a barren desert, and of no value but for its minerals. There is a great scarcity of wood and water. Aside from the timber on the slope of the Sierra Nevada range, the only wood of the country is a species of scrub pine, fit only for fuel and to feed the Pi-Ute Indians, for it bears very nutritious nuts, which constitutes their principal staple article of food. This nut pine makes excellent fuel for steam works, being exceedingly hard and full of pitch. The whole face of the country is mostly covered with sage brush, like garden sage. Greasewood, another shrub, is also common.

Carson Valley was pronounced by Mr. Greeley, who was here in 1859, as one of the most beautiful he had ever seen. He said:

This valley, originally a grand meadow, the home of the deer and the antelope, is nearly inclosed by high mountains, down which, especially from the north and west, come innumerable rivulets, leaping and dancing on their way to join the Carson. Easily arrested and controlled, because of the extreme shallowness of their beds, these streams have been made to irrigate a large portion of the upper valley, producing an abundance of the sweetest grass, and insuring bounteous harvests also of vegetables, barley, oats, etc. Wheat seems to do fairly here; corn

For this not so well; in fact, the nights are too cold for it if the water were not. spring water, leaping suddenly down from its mountain sources, is too cold, too pure, to be well adapted to irrigation; could it be held back even a week, and exposed in shallow ponds or basins to the hot sunshine, it would be vastly more useful. When the whole river shall have been made available, twenty to forty miles below, it will prove far more nutritious and fertilizing.

If the new gold mines in this valley shall ultimately justify their present promise, a very large demand for vegetable food will speedily spring up, here, which can only be satisfied by domestic production. The vast deserts eastward can not meet it, the arable region about Salt Lake is at once too restricted and too distant; inland California is a dear country, and the transportation of bulky staples over the Sierra a costly operation. The time will ultimately come-it may or may not be in our day-when two or three great dams over the Carson will render the irrigation of these broad, arid plains on its banks perfectly feasible; and then this will be one of the most productive regions on earth. The vegetable food of one million people can easily be grown here, while their cattle may be reared and fed in the mountain vales north and south of this valley. And when the best works shall have been constructed, and all the lights of science and experience brought to bear on the subject, it will be found that nearly everything that contributes to human or brute sustenance can be grown actually cheaper by the aid of irrigation than without it. As yet we know little or nothing of the application of water to land and crops, and our ignorance causes deplorable waste and blundering. Every year henceforth will make us wiser on this head.

Previous to the discovery of the Washoe silver mines, in the summer of 1859, there were not one thousand white inhabitants in all of Nevada. Virginia City at once sprung up at that point, which is about two hundred miles easterly, in an air line from San Francisco. The circumstances, as told of its discovery, are somewhat romantic:

"The Washoe silver mines were first discovered by Mr. Patrick McLaughlin, an 'honest miner, who was working for gold in a gulch or ravine, and where he was making $100 a day to the hand. As he and his companions followed up the gulch, it paid even better, until, on arriving at a certain point, it gave out altogether, and they struck a vein of pure sulphuret of silver, which they at first supposed to be coal, but observing that it was very heavy, they concluded it must be valuable, and sent one of their number to San Francisco with some of the black ore to ascertain its value. It was given to a Mr. Killaley, an old Mexican miner, to assay. Killaley took the ore home and assayed it. The result was so astounding that the old man got terribly excited. The next morning poor Killaley was found dead in his bed. He had long been in bad health, and the excitement killed him.

Immediate search was made for the original deposit, which resulted in the since famous Comstock lode. Where first found, this lode has no outcropping or other indication to denote its presence. The first assay of the rock taken from the lode when first struck gave a return of $265 of gold and silver, there being a larger proportion of gold than silver. Subsequent assays of ore taken from the vein, as it was sunk upon, showed a rapid increase in richness, until the enormous return was made of $7,000 to the tun-$4,000 in gold and $3,000 in silver. Still later assays of choice pieces of ore have given a return of $15,000 to the tun." In this case these ounce assays did not mislead, but a vast difference is to be observed between rich ore and a rich mine. A poor mine often yields specimens of rich ore, which, through the ounce assay, serves but to delude. The true test of the value of a silver mine is the quantity of the ore, and the average yield of the ore in bulk after the establishment of reduction works.

The changes that grew from this discovery almost vied in the wonderful with the transformations of Aladdin and his lamp. The next year Virginia City contained over one thousand houses, of brick, stone and cloth, and a population of four thousand. In 1864, Virginia City,

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