Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 04.djvu/46

CALIDIUS. CALID′IUS, (?- 47 ). A Roman orator and a contemporary of Cicero, whose recall from exile he advocated. He was prætor in 57 and after  49 was made Governor of Cisalpine Gaul, where he died. His oratory is praised by Cicero (Brutus, 75-80). For the fragments of his orations, consult Meyer, Fragmentum Oratorum Romanorum, 2d ed. (Zurich, 1842); also Quintilian (X. 1 and XII. 10).  CAL′IDORE. A knight representing courtesy in Spenser's Faerie Queene. He stands in the allegory for Sir Philip Sidney.  CALIF DE BAGDAD, , . See  CALIFOR′NIA (a name applied in Spanish romance as early as 1520 to a fabulous island near the Indies, and “very near the Terrestrial Paradise”). A State on the Pacific Coast of the United States of America, ranking second in area (not reckoning the Territory of Alaska), twenty-first in population, and eighteenth in order of admission, and popularly known as the “Golden State,” or in the West simply as the Coast (Map:, Western Part, B 3). The State is bounded on the north by Oregon, in the east by Nevada and a small portion of Arizona, on the south by Lower California (Mexico), and on the west by the Pacific Ocean. It stretches along the coast from latitude 32° 40′ N. to latitude 42°, a distance, measured along the centre of the State, of 750 miles, and its eastern boundary conforms to the curve of the seacoast, so that its breadth is approximately the same throughout, averaging about 200 miles. The meridian of 120° W. longitude marks the eastern boundary of the northern third of the State, and bisects the eastward-trending southern part, dividing the whole into two nearly equal parts. The total land area is 155,980 square miles.

. The physiography of this immense State is strikingly varied, but, broadly stated, consists of two parallel mountain systems, extending northwest and southeast, inclosing between them a very extensive valley, in addition to which is included in the northeast a part of the Great Basin, and in the southeast a part of the Colorado Plateau. Of the two mountain systems, the longer is that known collectively as the Coast Range, being a part of the uplift which defines the continental west coast from the extremity of Lower California to the edge of Oregon, and which reappears in the Olympic range of Washington and the islands of British Columbia, and southern Alaska. Within the limits of California, beginning at the south, it is made up of the San Jacinto, Santa Ana, San Bernardino, and San Gabriel ranges, then of the San Rafael and Santa Lucia mountains along the lofty coast between Los Angeles and Santa Cruz. Interior to these is a second lesser range, called by the Mexican settlers Sierra Madre, which becomes more prominent northward, is broken by the Bay of San Francisco and outlet-valley of the Sacramento River, and extends thence to the border of Oregon, where the watershed bends eastward and forms the very lofty Shasta and Salmon River ranges; but Shasta belongs orographically to the Cascade system of Oregon. Notable altitudes in this system are as follows: San Bernardino Mountain, 11,600 feet; San Jacinto Mountain, 10,987 feet; San Gabriel Peak, 6152 feet; Tehachapi Peak, 9214 feet; Mount Pinos, 9214 feet; Mount Diablo, 2849 feet; Thunder Mountain, 9125 feet; Eddy Mountain, 9161 feet; Scott Mountain, 7850 feet; China Mountain, 8000 feet; Siskiyou Peak, 7662 feet. The altitude of Mount Shasta, a volcimic mass, is 14,380 feet, and its group contains several other peaks approaching 10,000 feet in height.

East of the Coast Ranges, and parallel with them, lies the Sierra Nevada (‘Snowy Range’), at a distance of 100 to 140 miles, stretching from the 36th parallel northwestward nearly to the 41st, where it ends at the valley of Pitt River, which separates it from the Shasta Range. This system, one of the grandest on the continent, consists of a massive uplift of ancient stratified rocks, which have been worn into an area of clustered peaks, averaging 50 miles wide and over 400 miles long. The eastern side is abrupt and rises from the plateau of Nevada, but the western slope, receiving nearly all the rainfall and delivering all the drainage, has been worn into a series of tremendous cañons, of which those of the Merced (Yosemite) Kings, Tuolumne, and American rivers are far-famed. The Sierra Nevada is characterized by its extreme ruggedness, the sharp, precipitous, deeply sculptured profile of its peaks and gorges, and by the great average altitude of its central mass, as well as by the prevalence of many peaks, which not only reach into the zone of perpetual snow, but bear remnants of the vast glaciers which, until comparatively recent times, covered the crests of the whole range and took so large a part in its erosion. The principal peaks and their measurements, from south to north, are as follows, beginning with the highest mountain in the United States proper: Mount Whitney, 14,898 feet; Kaweah Peak, 14,000 feet; Mount Brewer, 13,886 feet; Mount Lyell, 13,042 feet; Merced Peak, 11,413 feet; Gray Peak, 11,174 feet; Dunderberg, 13,320 feet; Twin Peak, 8924 feet; Matterhorn, 12,175 feet; Tower Peak, 11,704 feet; Leavitt's Peak, 11,553 feet; Sonora Mountain, 11,478 feet; Stanislaus Peak, 11,209 feet; Pyramid Peak, 10,052 feet. The fact that the southern end of the range is loftier than the northern may indicate the greater work of erosion at the north, due to the greater rainfall there. From Sierra County there runs straight northward along the Nevada boundary a line of elevations of igneous origin, called the Warner Range, containing many high peaks. West of this line of peaks a plateau formed by a lava overflow and averaging 5000 feet above the sea, stretches to the Shasta and Siskiyou mountains and northward into the Klamath region of Oregon.

Between these two mountain systems, the Coast ranges and the Sierra Nevada, lies the great valley of California, broadly open for some 400 miles from where the Kern River Mountains connect the Sierra Nevada with the Coast Range at Tehachapi, to where Shasta closes it in the far north. This valley is divisible into three parts. The first is the basin of the Sacramento River, north of San Francisco Bay, into which the river empties. This stream begins as the Pitt River, which flows out of Goose Lake, in the northern part of the State, forces its way through the gorges that separate the Sierra Nevada from the Shasta Range, and after receiving the McCloud from Mount Shasta, turns southward as the Sacramento River. It is fed by many streams