Page:Route Across the Rocky Mountains with a Description of Oregon and California.djvu/88

Rh is sixty miles in length, and about ten in width; is very crooked, containing many small islands; and has numberous creeks and coves, every where indenting its shores. The St. Wakine and Sacramento Rivers, empty at the head of this arm of the Bay; the former from the South East, and the latter from the North. They are both streams susceptible of navigation, and their valleys uniting, form the most extensive body of level land, found any where on the Western coast; being from the head of one valley to that of the other, about four hundred miles in length: and in width, from the California Mountains West, about fifty miles. There are numerous small streams running through these valleys, from the mountains, and from the highlands on the West, into the rivers; on all of which, there are rich and productive strips of land, from three to four miles in width, and extending back to the mountains. There are generally, along these streams, narrow belts of Oak timber, of which there are three kinds; White, Black, and an inferior kind of Live Oak. The trunks are short, and none are well calculated for fencing. Between the streams, the land is less fertile, very dry, and not at all adapted to cultivation; it, nevertheless, produces an abundance of the richest kind of grass, capable of affording support, during the whole year, to large herds of cattle and horses.

On the California Mountains, and on many of the inclinations, between them and the valleys, there is a timber 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 are five or six—run from the 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 Sacremento Valley and the coast, is the Great Lake, which is, in