Page:Rocky Mountain life.djvu/232

 now, rugged superfices of naked rock; then, beautiful valleys arrayed in all the loveliness of perennial verdure, and profuse in vegetation of extraordinary growth, intermixed with wild-flowers of unrivalled hues and lavish fragrance, till he finally reaches his destination.

The Sacramento and its tributaries water the greater part of Western California.

This river is formed by the confluence of two large streams which rise in the Cascade Mountains, properly termed the North and South Forks the former heading near lat. 41° 43' north, long. 114° 51' west. (The South Fork is the stream defining the waggon route from the U. States, via South Pass.)

The Sacramento, measured by its windings, is about eight hundred and fifty miles in length. It receives many important auxiliaries above the junction of its two forks, which greatly increase the volume and depth of its waters. From its mouth it is said to afford a good stage of navigation for crafts of tolerable burthen, as high up as three hundred miles, —tide water setting back for one hundred and fifty miles.

Three other rivers, flowing from the southeast, have their discharge in the Bay of San Francisco. These streams are severally called the Rio del Plumas, American Fork, and Tulare.

The former derives its name from the great abundance of water-fowls which congregate upon it at all seasons of the year, so numerous and tame that the natives not unfrequently kill large quantities of them with clubs or stones as they fly through the air.

The del Plumas is said to be navigable, for boats of a light draught, till within a hundred miles of its head, —its whole length is about two hundred and fifty miles. The American Fork, or the Rio de los Americanos, is a clear and beautiful stream about one hundred and fifty miles long, emptying into the Sacramento Bay below the del Plumas, and between it and the Tulare. Owing to frequent rapids, however, its navigation is destroyed.

The Tulare is said to be four hundred miles long, and navigable for one half that distance. It is represented as watering one of the most interesting sections of Western California, and hence is considered next in importance to the Sacramento. This stream affords some of the finest localities for settlements found in the whole country.

Below the Bay of San Francisco several other small streams find their way into the Pacific, but none of them are navigable to any great extent. The principal of these empty as follows: into the Bay of Monterey, into the Ocean near Point del Esteros, Point Arguello, St. Barbara Channel, San Pedro Bay, and opposite the island of St. Clement.

Above the Bay of San Francisco, Russian river is discharged into Bodega Bay; further on, Smith's river empties into Trinidad Bay; and two other small streams find their discharge near Point St. George, a few miles below the boundary line between Oregon and California.

Smith's river is the largest stream either above or below the Bay of San Francisco, and is about two hundred miles in length, though unnavigable.

All these various rivers and their affluents are stored with innumerable supplies of delicious fish, the principal of which are salmon and salmon-trout. The Ocean too affords an exhaustless quantity of the piscatorial family,