IN THE SIERRA FOOT-HILLS
Murphy’s camp is a curious old mining-town in Calaveras County, at an
elevation of 2400 feet above the sea, situated like a nest in the
center of a rough, gravelly region, rich in gold. Granites, slates,
lavas, limestone, iron ores, quartz veins, auriferous gravels, remnants
of dead fire-rivers and dead water-rivers are developed here side by
side within a radius of a few miles, and placed invitingly open before
the student like a book, while the people and the region beyond the
camp furnish mines of study of never-failing interest and variety.
When I discovered this curious place, I was tracing the channels of the
ancient pre-glacial rivers, instructive sections of which have been
laid bare here and in the adjacent regions by the miners. Rivers,
according to the poets, “go on forever”; but those of the Sierra are
young as yet and have scarcely learned the way down to the sea; while
at least one generation of them have died and vanished together with
most of the basins they drained. All that remains of them to tell their
history is a series of interrupted fragments of channels, mostly choked
with gravel, and buried beneath broad, thick sheets of lava. These are
known as the “Dead Rivers of California,” and the gravel deposited in
them is comprehensively called the “Blue Lead.” In some places the
channels of the present rivers trend in the same direction, or nearly
so, as those of the ancient rivers; but, in general, there is little
correspondence between them, the entire drainage having been changed,
or, rather, made new. Many of the hills of the ancient landscapes have
become hollows, and the old hollows have become hills. Therefore the
fragmentary channels, with their loads of auriferous gravel, occur in
all kinds of unthought-of places, trending obliquely, or even at right
angles to the present drainage, across the tops of lofty ridges or far
beneath them, presenting impressive illustrations of the magnitude of
the changes accomplished since those ancient streams were annihilated.
The last volcanic period preceding the regeneration of the Sierra
landscapes seems to have come on over all the range almost
simultaneously, like the glacial period, notwithstanding lavas of
different age occur together in many places, indicating numerous
periods of activity in the Sierra fire-fountains. The most important of
the ancient river-channels in this region is a section that extends
from the south side of the town beneath Coyote Creek and the ridge
beyond it to the Cañon of the Stanislaus; but on account of its depth
below the general surface of the present valleys the rich gold gravels
it is known to contain cannot be easily worked on a large scale. Their
extraordinary richness may be inferred from the fact that many claims
were profitably worked in them by sinking shafts to a depth of 200 feet
or more, and hoisting the dirt by a windlass. Should the dip of this
ancient channel be such as to make the Stanislaus Cañon available as a
dump, then the grand deposit might be worked by the hydraulic method,
and although a long, expensive tunnel would be required, the scheme
might still prove profitable, for there is “millions in it.”
The importance of these ancient gravels as gold fountains is well known
to miners. Even the superficial placers of the present streams have
derived much of their gold from them. According to all accounts, the
Murphy placers have been very rich—“terrific rich,” as they say here.
The hills have been cut and scalped, and every gorge and gulch and
valley torn to pieces and disemboweled, expressing a fierce and
desperate energy hard to understand. Still, any kind of effort-making
is better than inaction, and there is something sublime in seeing men
working in dead earnest at anything, pursuing an object with
glacier-like energy and persistence. Many a brave fellow has recorded a
most eventful chapter of life on these Calaveras rocks. But most of the
pioneer miners are sleeping now, their wild day done, while the few
survivors linger languidly in the washed-out gulches or sleepy village
like harried bees around the ruins of their hive. “We have no industry
left _now_,” they told me, “and no men; everybody and everything
hereabouts has gone to decay. We are only bummers—out of the game, a
thin scatterin’ of poor, dilapidated cusses, compared with what we used
to be in the grand old gold-days. We were giants then, and you can look
around here and see our tracks.” But although these lingering pioneers
are perhaps more exhausted than the mines, and about as dead as the
dead rivers, they are yet a rare and interesting set of men, with much
gold mixed with the rough, rocky gravel of their characters; and they
manifest a breeding and intelligence little looked for in such
surroundings as theirs. As the heavy, long-continued grinding of the
glaciers brought out the features of the Sierra, so the intense
experiences of the gold period have brought out the features of these
old miners, forming a richness and variety of character little known as
yet. The sketches of Bret Harte, Hayes, and Miller have not exhausted
this field by any means. It is interesting to note the extremes
possible in one and the same character: harshness and gentleness,
manliness and childishness, apathy and fierce endeavor. Men who, twenty
years ago, would not cease their shoveling to save their lives, now
play in the streets with children. Their long, Micawber-like waiting
after the exhaustion of the placers has brought on an exaggerated form
of dotage. I heard a group of brawny pioneers in the street eagerly
discussing the quantity of tail required for a boy’s kite; and one
graybeard undertook the sport of flying it, volunteering the
information that he was a boy, “always was a boy, and d—n a man who was
not a boy inside, however ancient outside!” Mines, morals, politics,
the immortality of the soul, etc., were discussed beneath shade-trees
and in saloons, the time for each being governed apparently by the
temperature. Contact with Nature, and the habits of observation
acquired in gold-seeking, had made them all, to some extent,
collectors, and, like wood-rats, they had gathered all kinds of odd
specimens into their cabins, and now required me to examine them. They
were themselves the oddest and most interesting specimens. One of them
offered to show me around the old diggings, giving me fair warning
before setting out that I might not like him, “because,” said he,
“people say I’m eccentric. I notice everything, and gather beetles and
snakes and anything that’s queer; and so some don’t like me, and call
me eccentric. I’m always trying to find out things. Now, there’s a
weed; the Indians eat it for greens. What do you call those long-bodied
flies with big heads?” “Dragon-flies,” I suggested. “Well, their jaws
work sidewise, instead of up and down, and grasshoppers’ jaws work the
same way, and therefore I think they are the same species. I always
notice everything like that, and just because I do, they say I’m
eccentric,” etc.
Anxious that I should miss none of the wonders of their old gold-field,
the good people had much to say about the marvelous beauty of Cave City
Cave, and advised me to explore it. This I was very glad to do, and
finding a guide who knew the way to the mouth of it, I set out from
Murphy the next morning.
The most beautiful and extensive of the mountain caves of California
occur in a belt of metamorphic limestone that is pretty generally
developed along the western flank of the Sierra from the McCloud River
on the north to the Kaweah on the south, a distance of over 400 miles,
at an elevation of from 2000 to 7000 feet above the sea. Besides this
regular belt of caves, the California landscapes are diversified by
long imposing ranks of sea-caves, rugged and variable in architecture,
carved in the coast headlands and precipices by centuries of
wave-dashing; and innumerable lava-caves, great and small, originating
in the unequal flowing and hardening of the lava sheets in which they
occur, fine illustrations of which are presented in the famous Modoc
Lava Beds, and around the base of icy Shasta. In this comprehensive
glance we may also notice the shallow wind-worn caves in stratified
sandstones along the margins of the plains; and the cave-like recesses
in the Sierra slates and granites, where bears and other mountaineers
find shelter during the fall of sudden storms. In general, however, the
grand massive uplift of the Sierra, as far as it has been laid-bare to
observation, is about as solid and caveless as a boulder.
Fresh beauty opens one’s eyes wherever it is really seen, but the very
abundance and completeness of the common beauty that besets our steps
prevents its being absorbed and appreciated. It is a good thing,
therefore, to make short excursions now and then to the bottom of the
sea among dulse and coral, or up among the clouds on mountain-tops, or
in balloons, or even to creep like worms into dark holes and caverns
underground, not only to learn something of what is going on in those
out-of-the-way places, but to see better what the sun sees on our
return to common every-day beauty.
Our way from Murphy’s to the cave lay across a series of picturesque,
moory ridges in the chaparral region between the brown foot-hills and
the forests, a flowery stretch of rolling hill-waves breaking here and
there into a kind of rocky foam on the higher summits, and sinking into
delightful bosky hollows embowered with vines. The day was a fine
specimen of California summer, pure sunshine, unshaded most of the time
by a single cloud. As the sun rose higher, the heated air began to flow
in tremulous waves from every southern slope. The sea-breeze that
usually comes up the foot-hills at this season, with cooling on its
wings, was scarcely perceptible. The birds were assembled beneath leafy
shade, or made short, languid flights in search of food, all save the
majestic buzzard; with broad wings outspread he sailed the warm air
unwearily from ridge to ridge, seeming to enjoy the fervid sunshine
like a butterfly. Squirrels, too, whose spicy ardor no heat or cold may
abate, were nutting among the pines, and the innumerable hosts of the
insect kingdom were throbbing and wavering unwearied as sunbeams.
This brushy, berry-bearing region used to be a deer and bear pasture,
but since the disturbances of the gold period these fine animals have
almost wholly disappeared. Here, also, once roamed the mastodon and
elephant, whose bones are found entombed in the river gravels and
beneath thick folds of lava. Toward noon, as we were riding slowly over
bank and brae, basking in the unfeverish sun-heat, we witnessed the
upheaval of a new mountain-range, a Sierra of clouds abounding in
landscapes as truly sublime and beautiful—if only we have a mind to
think so and eyes to see—as the more ancient rocky Sierra beneath it,
with its forests and waterfalls; reminding us that, as there is a lower
world of caves, so, also, there is an upper world of clouds. Huge,
bossy cumuli developed with astonishing rapidity from mere buds,
swelling with visible motion into colossal mountains, and piling
higher, higher, in long massive ranges, peak beyond peak, dome over
dome, with many a picturesque valley and shadowy cave between; while
the dark firs and pines of the upper benches of the Sierra were
projected against their pearl bosses with exquisite clearness of
outline. These cloud mountains vanished in the azure as quickly as they
were developed, leaving no detritus; but they were not a whit less real
or interesting on this account. The more enduring hills over which we
rode were vanishing as surely as they, only not so fast, a difference
which is great or small according to the standpoint from which it is
contemplated.
At the bottom of every dell we found little homesteads embosomed in
wild brush and vines wherever the recession of the hills left patches
of arable ground. These secluded flats are settled mostly by Italians
and Germans, who plant a few vegetables and grape-vines at odd times,
while their main business is mining and prospecting. In spite of all
the natural beauty of these dell cabins, they can hardly be called
homes. They are only a better kind of camp, gladly abandoned whenever
the hoped-for gold harvest has been gathered. There is an air of
profound unrest and melancholy about the best of them. Their beauty is
thrust upon them by exuberant Nature, apart from which they are only a
few logs and boards rudely jointed and without either ceiling or floor,
a rough fireplace with corresponding cooking utensils, a shelf-bed, and
stool. The ground about them is strewn with battered prospecting-pans,
picks, sluice-boxes, and quartz specimens from many a ledge, indicating
the trend of their owners’ hard lives.
The ride from Murphy’s to the cave is scarcely two hours long, but we
lingered among quartz-ledges and banks of dead river gravel until long
after noon. At length emerging from a narrow-throated gorge, a small
house came in sight set in a thicket of fig-trees at the base of a
limestone hill. “That,” said my guide, pointing to the house, “is Cave
City, and the cave is in that gray hill.” Arriving at the one house of
this one-house city, we were boisterously welcomed by three drunken men
who had come to town to hold a spree. The mistress of the house tried
to keep order, and in reply to our inquiries told us that the cave
guide was then in the cave with a party of ladies. “And must we wait
until he returns?” we asked. No, that was unnecessary; we might take
candles and go into the cave alone, provided we shouted from time to
time so as to be found by the guide, and were careful not to fall over
the rocks or into the dark pools. Accordingly taking a trail from the
house, we were led around the base of the hill to the mouth of the
cave, a small inconspicuous archway, mossy around the edges and shaped
like the door of a water-ouzel’s nest, with no appreciable hint or
advertisement of the grandeur of the many crystal chambers within.
Lighting our candles, which seemed to have no illuminating power in the
thick darkness, we groped our way onward as best we could along narrow
lanes and alleys, from chamber to chamber, around rustic columns and
heaps of fallen rocks, stopping to rest now and then in particularly
beautiful places—fairy alcoves furnished with admirable variety of
shelves and tables, and round bossy stools covered with sparkling
crystals. Some of the corridors were muddy, and in plodding along these
we seemed to be in the streets of some prairie village in spring-time.
Then we would come to handsome marble stairways conducting right and
left into upper chambers ranged above one another three or four stories
high, floors, ceilings, and walls lavishly decorated with innumerable
crystalline forms. After thus wandering exploringly, and alone for a
mile or so, fairly enchanted, a murmur of voices and a gleam of light
betrayed the approach of the guide and his party, from whom, when they
came up, we received a most hearty and natural stare, as we stood half
concealed in a side recess among stalagmites. I ventured to ask the
dripping, crouching company how they had enjoyed their saunter, anxious
to learn how the strange sunless scenery of the underworld had
impressed them. “Ah, it’s nice! It’s splendid!” they all replied and
echoed. “The Bridal Chamber back here is just glorious! This morning we
came down from the Calaveras Big Tree Grove, and the trees are nothing
to it.” After making this curious comparison they hastened sunward, the
guide promising to join us shortly on the bank of a deep pool, where we
were to wait for him. This is a charming little lakelet of unknown
depth, never yet stirred by a breeze, and its eternal calm excites the
imagination even more profoundly than the silvery lakes of the glaciers
rimmed with meadows and snow and reflecting sublime mountains.
Our guide, a jolly, rollicking Italian, led us into the heart of the
hill, up and down, right and left, from chamber to chamber more and
more magnificent, all a-glitter like a glacier cave with icicle-like
stalactites and stalagmites combined in forms of indescribable beauty.
We were shown one large room that was occasionally used as a
dancing-hall; another that was used as a chapel, with natural pulpit
and crosses and pews, sermons in every stone, where a priest had said
mass. Mass-saying is not so generally developed in connection with
natural wonders as dancing. One of the first conceits excited by the
giant Sequoias was to cut one of them down and dance on its stump. We
have also seen dancing in the spray of Niagara; dancing in the famous
Bower Cave above Coulterville; and nowhere have I seen so much dancing
as in Yosemite. A dance on the inaccessible South Dome would likely
follow the making of an easy way to the top of it.
It was delightful to witness here the infinite deliberation of Nature,
and the simplicity of her methods in the production of such mighty
results, such perfect repose combined with restless enthusiastic
energy. Though cold and bloodless as a landscape of polar ice, building
was going on in the dark with incessant activity. The archways and
ceilings were everywhere hung with down-growing crystals, like inverted
groves of leafless saplings, some of them large, others delicately
attenuated, each tipped with a single drop of water, like the terminal
bud of a pine-tree. The only appreciable sounds were the dripping and
tinkling of water failing into pools or faintly plashing on the crystal
floors.
In some places the crystal decorations are arranged in graceful flowing
folds deeply plicated like stiff silken drapery. In others straight
lines of the ordinary stalactite forms are combined with reference to
size and tone in a regularly graduated system like the strings of a
harp with musical tones corresponding thereto; and on these stone harps
we played by striking the crystal strings with a stick. The delicious
liquid tones they gave forth seemed perfectly divine as they sweetly
whispered and wavered through the majestic halls and died away in
faintest cadence,—the music of fairy-land. Here we lingered and
reveled, rejoicing to find so much music in stony silence, so much
splendor in darkness, so many mansions in the depths of the mountains,
buildings ever in process of construction, yet ever finished,
developing from perfection to perfection, profusion without
overabundance; every particle visible or invisible in glorious motion,
marching to the music of the spheres in a region regarded as the abode
of eternal stillness and death.
The outer chambers of mountain caves are frequently selected as homes
by wild beasts. In the Sierra, however, they seem to prefer homes and
hiding-places in chaparral and beneath shelving precipices, as I have
never seen their tracks in any of the caves. This is the more
remarkable because notwithstanding the darkness and oozing water there
is nothing uncomfortably cellar-like or sepulchral about them.
When we emerged into the bright landscapes of the sun everything looked
brighter, and we felt our faith in Nature’s beauty strengthened, and
saw more clearly that beauty is universal and immortal, above, beneath,
on land and sea, mountain and plain, in heat and cold, light and
darkness.