I am not going to describe the route down this river, as it is the old
emigrant trail, repeatedly written about already. I only wish to record
my opinion, that the Humboldt, all things considered, is the meanest
river of its length on earth. Rising in the Humboldt Mountains, hardly
one hundred and fifty miles west of Salt Lake, it is at first a pure
stream—or rather streams, for there are two main branches—but is soon
corrupted by its alkaline surroundings, and its water, for at least the
lower half of its course, is about the most detestable I ever tasted. I
mainly chose to suffer thirst rather than drink it. Though three hundred
and fifty miles in length, it is never more than a decent mill-stream; I
presume it is the only river of equal length that never had even a canoe
launched upon its bosom. Its narrow bottom, or intervale, produces
grass; but so coarse in structure, and so alkaline by impregnation, that
no sensible man would let his stock eat it, if there were any
alternative. Here, however, there is none. Cattle must eat this, or
die—many of them eat it, and die. One of the most intelligent emigrants
I conversed with on its banks informed me that he had all the grass for
his stock mowed, as he had found by experience that his cattle, if
grazed upon it, pulled up much of their grass by the roots, and these
roots were far more alkaline than the stalks. I believe no tree of any
size grows on this forlorn river from its forks to its mouth—I am sure I
saw none while traversing the lower half of its course. Half a dozen
specimens of a large, worthless shrub, known as buffalo-bush or
bull-berry, with a prevalent fringe of willows about the proper size for
a school-ma’am’s use, comprise the entire timber of this delectable
stream, whose gad-flies, musketoes, gnats, etc., are so countless and so
blood-thirsty as to allow cattle so unhappy as to be stationed on, or
driven along this river, no chance to eat or sleep. Many have died this
season of the bad water, that would have survived the water, but for
these execrable insects, by which the atmosphere, at times, is darkened.
It certainly is not a pleasure to ride, night and day, along such a
stream, with the heat intense, the dust a constant cloud, and the roads
all gullied, and ground into chuck-holes; but then, who would stay in
such a region one moment longer than he must?
I thought I had seen barrenness before—on the upper course of the
Republican—on the North Platte, Green River, etc.—but I was green, if
the regions washed by those streams were not. Here, on the Humboldt,
famine sits enthroned, and waves his scepter over a dominion expressly
made for him. On the above-named rivers, I regarded cotton-wood with
contempt; here, a belt, even the narrowest fringe, of cotton-wood would
make a comparative Eden. The sage-bush and grease-wood, which cover the
high, parched plain on either side of the river’s bottom, seems thinly
set, with broad spaces of naked, shining, glaring, blinding clay between
them; the hills beyond, which bound the prospect, seem even more naked.
Not a tree, and hardly a shrub, anywhere relieves their sterility; not a
brook, save one small one, runs down between them to swell the scanty
waters of the river. As the only considerable stream in the Great Basin
that pursues a general east and west direction, the Humboldt may
continue for years to be traveled; but I am sure no one ever left it
without a sense of relief and thankfulness. There can never be any
considerable settlement here.
After a course, at first west by south, then north by west, afterward
south-west, and for the last fifty miles due south, the river falls into
Lake Humboldt, a fine sheet of clear water, perhaps fifteen miles in
length and forty in circumference. I tried to obtain an approximation to
its depth, but could not; those who have staid beside it longest
assuring me that no boat had ever floated upon its waters—a statement
which the destitution of wood in all this region renders credible. I am
satisfied, however, that this lake is being slowly filled up from the
gradual washing down, and washing in, of the hills which approach it on
the east and south, and that time will make great changes in its
configuration and the volume of its waters.
A stream, not so copious as the river, runs from the lake on the south,
and flows with a gentle, sluggish current into a large _tulé_ or
reed-marsh, which has no outlet, and is said to be but moderately salt.
The lake water is accounted sweeter than that of the river. Here the
Humboldt is said to _sink_, like the Carson, Truckee and Walker, which
issue from the Sierra Nevada, and run eastwardly into the adjacent
desert; but I suspect they are all drank up by evaporation and by the
thirsty sands which surround them. The Mississippi, if it ran across the
Great Basin and kept clear of mountains, would be threatened by a
similar fate.
We reached the Sink at 6½ P. M. on Thursday, the 29th—scarcely two days
from Gravelly Ford, where we struck the river, having in those two days
traversed some two hundred and twenty miles of very bad and intensely
hot, dusty road. At eight, we were ready to pass “the Desert”—that is,
the desolate plain which separates the Sink of the Humboldt from that of
the Carson. But one of our fresh mules was sick and could not be
replaced, which made our first drive a tedious one, and we contrived, by
dexterous mismanagement, to get stuck in a bayou or back-set of the
Humboldt Sink, where we for a while seemed likely to spend the night.
Our lead-mules, having been mired and thrown down, would not pull; the
sick wheeler could not. At length, by putting one of the leaders in his
place, we made a start, and come through, finding the bottom firm and
the water not deep, a yard either way from the place of our
misadventure. By a little past midnight, we were at the half-way
station, where a well of decent brackish water has been dug, and which a
drove of four or five hundred mules reached about the time we did. They
stopped here to rest, however, while we pushed on with a fresh team—for
ten miles of the way, over as heavy a drag of sand as I ever endured,
whereas most of this desert is a hard, alkaline clay. By five A. M.,
after riding four days and the intervening nights without rest, we drew
up at the station near the sink of the Carson.
XXVI.
CARSON VALLEY—THE SIERRA NEVADA.
PLACERVILLE, Cal., _Aug. 1, 1859_.
Though the Carson sinks in or is absorbed by the same desert with the
Humboldt, a glance at its worst estate suffices to convince the
traveler, that the former waters by far the more hopeful region. Large
cotton-woods dot its banks very near its sink; and its valley, wherever
moist, is easily rendered productive. You feel that you are once more in
a land where the arm of industry need not be paralyzed by sterility,
obstruction, and despair.
Still, the prevalence of drouth is here a fearful fact. No rain in
summer—that is, none that can be calculated on, none that amounts to
anything—might well appall the cultivator accustomed to warm, refreshing
showers throughout the growing season. We crossed, on our rapid ride up
the Carson, a single high plain twenty-six miles long and from six to
twelve wide, which drouth alone dooms to sage-bush, sterility, and
worthlessness. Two or three other plains or high intervales further up
are nearly as scorched and barren. All these may be rendered most
productive by irrigation, and here is the water at hand. If the new gold
mines in this valley shall ultimately justify their present promise, a
very large demand for vegetable food will speedily spring up here, which
can only be satisfied by domestic production. The vast deserts eastward
cannot meet it; the arable region about Salt Lake is at once too
restricted and too distant; inland California is a dear country, and the
transportation of bulky staples over the Sierra a costly operation. The
time will ultimately come—it may or may not be in our day—when two or
three great dams over the Carson will render the irrigation of these
broad, arid plains on its banks perfectly feasible; and then this will
be one of the most productive regions on earth. The vegetable food of
one million people can easily be grown here, while their cattle may be
reared and fed in the mountain vales north and south of this valley. And
when the best works shall have been constructed, and all the lights of
science and experience brought to bear on the subject, it will be found
that nearly everything that contributes to human or brute sustenance can
be grown actually cheaper by the aid of irrigation than without it. As
yet, we know little or nothing of the application of water to land and
crops, and our ignorance causes deplorable waste and blundering. Every
year henceforth will make us wiser on this head.
Twenty miles or so below Genoa, we passed “Johntown” a Chinese
settlement, whose people find employment in the recently discovered gold
mines. These mines are some eight miles northward of “Gold Cañon,” and
are reported immensely rich. Silver and copper are blended with gold in
the same vein-stone. A few are making money very fast here; but these
few control all the available water, and it seems impossible to
introduce more. If a supply can be obtained at all, it must be at
enormous cost. I have vaguely heard of a patented process or processes
for separating gold from other minerals or earths without the use of
water; if there be any such process which is not a humbug, I urge the
owner of the patent to haste to Carson Valley and there make his
fortune. I assure him of an enthusiastic welcome.
“Carson City,” just above Johntown, though it has few houses as yet,
aspires to be the emporium of the new gold region, and perhaps of the
embryo State of Nevada; but Genoa, ten or fifteen miles further up, is
the present emporium, though a village of but forty or fifty houses.
Here a convention had been in session for a fortnight, and had completed
a constitution for the aforesaid embryo state of Nevada only the night
before our arrival. We met some of the delegates bound homeward. Said
state is to comprise the western half (very nearly) of Utah, with (I
believe) a small strip of eastern California. California may object to
this; but I trust Congress will organize at least the Territory of
Nevada at an early day. It is an established fact that a division of
power between Mormons and Gentiles seldom works harmoniously; but in
Utah there is no division—the Mormons have all. The people of Carson
Valley, and of western Utah generally, are not Mormons; the legislation
of Utah is unsuited and unacceptable to them; they desire to be set off,
and I trust they soon may be. Though few in numbers as yet, they are
rapidly increasing, and will soon possess all the elements of a state.
I had previously seen some beautiful valleys, but I place none of these
ahead of Carson. I judge that portion of it already in good part under
cultivation, about thirty miles long by ten to fifteen wide—an area
destined to be largely increased, as I have already indicated. This
valley, originally a grand meadow, the home of the deer and the
antelope, is nearly inclosed by high mountains, down which, especially
from the north and west, come innumerable rivulets, leaping and dancing
on their way to form or join the Carson. Easily arrested and controlled,
because of the extreme shallowness of their beds, these streams have
been made to irrigate a large portion of the upper valley, producing an
abundance of the sweetest grass, and insuring bounteous harvests also of
vegetables, barley, oats, etc. Wheat seems to do fairly here; corn not
so well; in fact, the nights are too cold for it, if the water were not.
For this spring-water, leaping suddenly down from its mountain-sources,
is too cold, too pure, to be well adapted to irrigation; could it be
held back even a week, and exposed in shallow ponds or basins to the hot
sunshine, it would be vastly more useful. When the whole river shall
have been made available, twenty to forty miles below, it will prove far
more nutritious and fertilizing.
Genoa stands on the narrow bench or slope of hard granitic gravel, which
intervenes betwixt the mountains and the valley, with half a dozen
rivulets running through it, to fructify the fields and gardens below.
Just behind it is the steep ascent of the mountain, its very soil formed
of white, pulverized granite, gloriously covered with fragrant and
graceful pines. As these steep acclivities are absolutely worthless for
any other end than tree-growing, I entreat the people of Genoa to take
care of these woods, and not let their place be shorn of half its
beauty, merely to save a mile or so in the hauling of fuel. I may never
see this lovely valley again—it is hardly probable that I ever shall—but
its beauty, its seclusion, its quiet, the brightness of its abundant
rivulets, the grandeur of its inclosing mountains, the grace and emerald
verdure of their vesture of pines, have graven themselves on my memory
with a vividness and force which only he who has passed weary weeks on
some great, shadeless, verdureless desert can fully realize.
We stopped but to dine in Genoa, then economized the residue of the
daylight by pressing on fifteen miles to the point at which the
California road enters the mountains by the side of the largest of the
brooks which unite to form the Carson. Here we halted at a fair
two-story house, the first one I had entered with the hope of resting in
it since I left Salt Lake City. We had beds here—actual beds, and good
ones—our first since Camp Floyd. Though our night was not a long one,
for we were to start again by 4, A. M., I reckon good use was made of it
by the four through passengers who had not lain down before since they
left Shell Creek, five days ago, and nearly five hundred miles away. My
own slumber was partial and broken, as it generally is; but the bath
which preceded and prepared for it was a genuine refreshment, and the
sleep seemed quite sufficient. In fact, I felt that I could have gone
without for another week, and experienced less discomfort than I did the
first night that we rode, and the day after.
We were in motion again at the earliest dawn, for we had still about
seventy-five miles of rugged mountain road to traverse before reaching
this place. The Carson side of the road is not yet half made, while the
half next to this place is in the main good. But in fact, the expense of
a good highway up the eastern slope of the Sierra must be a heavy one.
For that slope is here composed of granite—simple, naked rock—with
scarcely a fraction of its surface thinly covered by soil. Of course, no
trees but evergreens can live—a very few small quaking-asps in the
bottoms of the ravines scarcely form an exception—while almost every
rood is covered by giant, glorious pines. I saw sugar and yellow-pines
at least eight feet in diameter and tall in proportion; I am assured
that one was recently cut near this road which measured eight feet
across at a height of eighty feet from the ground, and from which two
hundred and forty thousand shingles were made. Beside these universal
pines, there are giant cedars, balsam-firs, and some red-wood; after we
cross the summit, we found also oaks, which gradually increased in size
and number as we descended. I think I saw oaks (the prevalent California
species is much like our white-oak) at least four feet through—in short,
I never saw anything like so much nor so good timber in the course of
any seventy-five miles’ travel as I saw in crossing the Sierra Nevada.
How greatly blest California is in this abundance, I need not say.
The road over this pass—here claimed to be the lowest and most
practicable of any over the Sierra Nevada—rises steadily for twelve or
thirteen miles from our morning’s starting-point, then descends for two
or three miles as abruptly to the valley of a brook which runs north
into lake Bigler, which in turn finds an outlet into Truckee River,
whereby its waters are borne eastward into the desert and there
dissipated. There is fine grass on Lake Bigler, and several hundred cows
are kept there in summer, making butter for the California market. When
snow falls, these cattle are driven down to the valley of the
Sacramento, where the rains are now commencing, and they here live
without hay till June, when they are taken back to the mountains again,
where only is butter made from them. The business is very lucrative, the
land costing nothing and being unfenced. Taking into account gold,
timber, and grass, the Sierra Nevada is probably the richest and most
productive mountain-chain on earth.
From the valley aforesaid, we rose again for two miles, along a narrow
road cut into the side of a mountain, with a precipitous declivity on
the right. Then we began to descend once more, beside a rivulet which
leaped and laughed on its way to the Pacific. The ascent from the Carson
side is far shorter than the descent this way, Carson Valley being much
higher than that of the Sacramento. But the road, even on this side, is,
for most of the way, eaten into the side of a steep mountain, with a
precipice of from five to fifteen hundred feet on one side and as steep
an eminence on the other. Yet along this mere shelf, with hardly a place
to each mile where two meeting wagons can pass, the mail-stage was
driven at the rate of ten miles an hour (in one instance eleven), or
just as fast as four wild California horses, whom two men could scarcely
harness, could draw it. Our driver was of course skillful; but had he
met a wagon suddenly on rounding one of the sharp points or projections
we were constantly passing, a fearful crash was unavoidable. Had his
horses seen fit to run away (as they _did_ run once, on the unhooking of
a trace, but at a place where he had room to rein them out of the road
on the upper side, and thus stop them) I know that he could not have
held them, and we might have been pitched headlong down a precipice of a
thousand feet, where all of the concern that could have been picked up
afterward would not have been worth two bits per bushel. Yet at this
break-neck rate we were driven for not less than four hours or forty
miles, changing horses every ten or fifteen, and raising a cloud of dust
through which it was difficult at times to see anything. We crossed the
south fork of the American River, eighteen miles above this point,
rising two or three miles immediately after to the summit of the ridge
south, and thenceforward the road, nearly to this city, descends
steadily a beautifully inclined ridge, and, but for the dust, would be
one of the finest drives on earth. And right glad was I to find myself
once more among friends, surrounded by the comforts of civilization, and
with a prospect of occasional rest. I cannot conscientiously recommend
the route I have traveled to summer tourists in quest of pleasure, but
it is a balm for many bruises to know that I am at last in CALIFORNIA.
XXVII.
CALIFORNIA MINES AND MINING.
SACRAMENTO, _Aug. 7, 1859_.
I have spent the last week mainly among the mines and miners of El
Dorado, Placer, and Nevada counties, in the heart of the gold-producing
region. There may be richer “diggings” north or south; but I believe no
other three counties lying together have yielded in the aggregate, or
are now producing, so much gold as those I have named. Of course, I have
not been within sight of more than a fraction of the mines or _placers_
of these counties, while I have not carefully studied even one of them;
and yet the little information I have been able to glean, in the
intervals of traveling, friendly greeting, and occasional speech-making,
may have some value for those whose ignorance on the subject is yet more
dense than mine.
The three counties I have named lie near the center of the state, at the
base of the Sierra Nevada, between those mountains on the east and the
valley of the Sacramento on the west. They are rugged in formation,
being composed of innumerable hills (mainly spurs of the great chain),
separated by narrow valleys, usually descending to the west, and
gradually opening out into the broad, rich valley of the Sacramento. The
three branches or “forks” of the American and those of the Yuba River
come brawling down from the Sierra Nevada through very deep, narrow
valleys or cañons, and unite respectively to run a very short course
less rapidly ere they are lost in the Sacramento—the Yuba having
previously formed a junction with the Feather. “Bear River,” “Wolf
Creek,” “Deer Creek,” etc., are the names of still smaller streams,
taking their rise among the foot-hills, and running a short course into
some fork of the American or Yuba, their scanty waters, with a good
portion of those of the rivers aforesaid, being mainly drawn off into
canals or “ditches,” as they are inaccurately termed, by which the
needful fluid is supplied to the miners.