Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/299

Rh called Red Wood; a large and very fine tree, of the Pine species, peculiar to California; Cedar and Sugar Pine, in inexhaustible abundance. But that part is generally considered the best portion of the Province, which lays West of the Sacramento Valley, and North of the Bay of San Francisco. It consists of alternate hills and valleys. Many of the hills are high; but they are gradual and unbroken. The valleys are from three to four miles in width, and from fifty to sixty in length; are all traversed by small streams of water, and have an excellent soil. Those which connect with the Bay—of which there five or six—run from North to South. Those which connect with the coast, and with the valley of the Sacramento, run to the West, and East. Immediately on the coast North of the Bay there is a range of very high, rolling hills, which increase in height to the North. They are covered with oats, which is a spontaneous production of this country; with excellent grass, and with groves and forests of Red Wood and Oak.

One hundred miles North of the Bay, and at about an equal distance from the Sacramento Valley and the coast, is the Great Lake, which is, in length from North to South, sixty miles, and fifteen in width. It is said to be a beautiful, clear sheet of water, surrounded by a belt of fine alluvial prairie, which also is encircled by a wall of high Mountains, covered in many places with groves of Red Wood and Oak, and giving rise to numerous rivulets, which meander across the plain, and empty into the Lake.—This is, perhaps, the most beautiful, romantic, and picturesque portion of the Province; but its very secluded situation, having, as far as has yet been learned, no good natural communication with the surrounding country, renders it less valuable. North of the Great Lake the country is, as far as the Clamuth Valley, little else than a vast cluster of mountains, which, connected