RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA.

CHAPTER I.

CHOROGRAPHY.

§ 1. General Remarks.-CALIFORNIA has a peculiar chorography. No other country comprises within so small a space, such various, so many, and such strongly-marked chorographical divisions. Mountains the most steep, barren, and rugged; valleys the most fertile and beautiful; deserts the most sterile; spacious bays, magnificent rivers, unparalleled waterfalls, picturesque lakes, extensive marshes, broad prairies, and dense forests-all these are hers.

In general shape, California is a long parallelogram, extending from latitude 32° 45′ to 42° north, seven hundred miles in length by one hundred and eighty in breadth, the course of the longitudinal axis being north-northwest by south-southeast. The first topographical division of the state may be into the Coast and Interior districts, separated from each other by the main ridge of the Coast Mountains, which runs the whole length of the state, nearly parallel with the ocean, and about fifty miles from it. The Coast district may be subdivided into the Coast Mountains and the Coast Valleys. The Interior district may be subdivided into the Sierra Nevada, the Sac

ramento Basin, the Plateau of the Sierra Nevada, the Klamath Basin, the Great Basin of Utah, and the Colorado Desert.

§ 2. Coast Mountains.-The Coast range, though not so high or so wide as the Sierra Nevada, may be considered the main orographical feature of California, because it alone extends through the whole length of the state. The height: of the range is from two thousand to six thousand feet; its width from twenty to forty miles. South of 34° 20′ the spurs are short and run at right angles to the course of the main divide, which is the easternmost ridge of the chain; nearly all the spurs, valleys, and streams, run to the westward. South of 34° 20′ a plain from twenty-five to forty miles wide lies between the mountains and the sea; north of that the spurs make up the greater part of the Coast line, and, where they enter the ocean, form the headlands and capes. The Santa Susanna spur starts from the main ridge in 34° 20′ and runs west by south, and is separated by the valley of the Santa Clara River from the Santa Inez ridge, which starts in 34° 30′ and runs west; then continuing our course northward, across the Santa Inez valley, we come to the Santa Barbara ridge, which starts from the main ridge in 34° 40′ and runs west-northwest. The Cuyama valley separates the Santa Barbara from the Santa Lucia ridge, which branches off at 35° in a northwestern direction, and forms the southern boundary of the Salinas valley, whose northern boundary is the Gabilan ridge, starting in 36° 10′ and running north-northwest; which is separated from the Contra Costa ridge, rising in 37° 10' by the Santa Clara valley, and the Contra Costa ridge is separated from the main divide by the Amador and San Ramon valleys. The Gabilan ridge forms the back-bone of Santa Cruz, San Mateo, and San Francisco counties, each of which gives its name to that portion within its borders. The ridge is cut in two on the southern border of Santa Cruz county by the Pajaro River, and the Alameda Creek breaks through the Contra Costa ridge. North of the Golden Gate,