In the course of a week’s travel through a portion of the mining
district, I did not see a single miner engaged with pick and pan in
prospecting. Higher up in the mountains, or further to the north, I
might have found such. Nor do I remember having seen white men, save,
perhaps, in a single instance, engaged in digging and washing the gravel
or earth in the bed of any water-course, whether river, creek, or dry
gulch. But Chinese bands, of six to twelve, were often hard at work in
these water-courses—Bear River, the south fork of the Yuba,
etc.—digging, and washing with rocker, sluice, and a sort of
wheel-and-flume arrangement, which I did not get the hang of.
The Chinese are hardly used here. In the first place, they are taxed
four dollars each per month for the naked privilege of mining at all.
Next, they are not allowed to mine anywhere but in diggings which white
men have worked out and abandoned, or which no white man considers worth
working. Thirdly, if these rejected diggings, happen, in Chinese hands,
to prove better than their reputation, and to begin yielding liberally,
a mob of white sovereigns soon drive the Chinese out of them, neck and
heels. “John” does not seem to be a very bad fellow, but he is treated
worse than though he were. He is not malignant nor sanguinary, and
seldom harms any but his own tribe. But he is thoroughly sensual, and
intent on the fullest gratification of his carnal appetites, and on
nothing else. He eats and drinks the best he can get, and as much as he
can hold; but he is never so devoid of self-respect as to be seen drunk
in a public place; even for an opium debauch, he secludes himself where
none but a friendly eye can reach him. His “particular wanity” in the
eating line is rice, whereof he will have the best only, if the best is
to be had; he likes a fat chicken also, and will pay his last dollar for
one, rather than go without. Lacking the dollar, it is charged that he
will rob hen-roosts; at all events, hen-roosts are sometimes robbed, and
“John” has to bear the blame. He is popularly held to spend nothing, but
carry all his gains out of the country and home to his native land—a
charge disproved by the fact that he is an inveterate gambler, an
opium-smoker, a habitual rum-drinker, and a devotee of every sensual
vice. But he is weak in body, and not allowed to vote, so it is safe to
trample on him; he does not write English, and so cannot tell the story
of his wrongs; he has no family here (the few Chinese women brought to
this country being utterly shameless and abandoned), so that he forms no
domestic ties, and enjoys no social standing. Even the wretched Indians
of California repel with scorn the suggestion that there is any kinship
between their race and the Chinese. “John” has traits which I can
neither praise nor justify; yet I suspect that, if other men’s faults
were punished as severely as his, a good many Californians would be less
comfortable than they are.
As to quartz-mining—or the reduction to powder of the vein-stone wherein
gold is contained, and the extraction of the gold from the powder, by
means of water, quick-silver, etc.—I judge that the time has not even
yet arrived for its profitable prosecution. There are conspicuous
instances of its success, that of the concern known as “Allison’s
Ranche,” in Grass Valley, for example—but I am confident that fully
three out of every four quartz-mining enterprises have proved failures,
or have at best achieved no positive success. The current estimates of
the yield of gold by quartz rock, are grossly exaggerated. I judge that
the average yield of gold by quartz vein-stone is less than twenty
dollars per ton—barely one cent per pound—and that this yield will not
pay the average cost of sinking shafts, running drifts or adits, pumping
out water, raising ore (and an immense aggregate of dead rock with it),
crushing it, and extracting the gold, in a country where common labor
costs two and a half to three dollars per day. At forty dollars per ton
of vein-stone, quartz-mining might pay; but where one vein yields forty
dollars per ton, there are many which yield less than twenty dollars.
There are some instances of profitable quartz-mining by men on the spot
who thoroughly understand the business; but I have not heard of an
instance in which money has been invested in quartz-mining, by persons
out of California, who have not lost every farthing of it.
I think the most popular form of mining at present is that of sinking or
drifting into hills which have a stratum of gravel at or near their
base, directly overlying the bed-rock. Many of these hills would seem to
have been piled, in some far-off, antediluvian period, upon a bed or
basin of solid granite, which often hollows or dips toward its center
like a saucer. If, then, a tunnel can be run in through the “rim rock”
or side of this saucer so happily as to strike the level of the bottom,
thereby draining off the water, and affording the utmost facility for
extracting the gold-bearing gravel, the fortune of the operator may be
made by one lucky, or better than lucky, operation. In a few instances,
these subterranean gravel-basins would seem to have formed parts of the
beds of ancient rivers, and so to be extraordinarily rich in the
precious dust. In some cases, the “pay dirt” is hauled by steam up an
inclined plane, or even raised perpendicularly by windlass; but it is
easier to extract it by a horizontal drift or tunnel, wherever possible.
Many mines of this order are worked night and day on the “three-shift”
plan, and are paying very handsomely.
But the newest, most efficient, most uniformly profitable mode of
operation is that termed _hydraulic mining_—that is, the washing down
and washing away of large deposits of auriferous earth by means of a
current of water so directed as to fall on the right spot, or (better
still) projected through a hose and pipe with the force generated by a
heavy fall. The former of these methods is exhibited in perfection at
Nevada, the latter at North San Juan, as, doubtless, at many other
places. At North San Juan, near the middle fork of the Yuba, streams at
least three inches in diameter, and probably containing twenty measured
inches of water, are directed against the remaining half of a high hill,
which they strike with such force that bowlders of the size of
cannonballs are started from their beds and hurled five to ten feet into
the air. By this process, one man will wash away a bank of earth sooner
than a hundred men could do it by old-fashioned sluicing. I believe
earth yielding a bare cent’s worth of gold to the pan may be profitably
washed by this process, paying a reasonable price for the water. As much
as one hundred dollars per day is profitably paid for the water thrown
through one pipe. The stream thus thrown will knock a man as lifeless as
though it were a grape-shot. As the bank, over a hundred feet high, is
undermined by this battery, it frequently caves from the top downward,
reaching and burying the careless operator. Three men have been thus
killed at San Juan within the last month, until at length greater
caution is exercised, and the operator stands twice as far away as he
formerly did. Very long sluices—as long as may be—conduct the discharged
water away; and I am told that it is no matter how thick with earth the
water may run, provided the sluice be long enough. It is of course so
arranged as to present riffles, crevices, etc., to arrest the gold at
first borne along by the turbid flood. I believe there are companies
operating by this method whose gross receipts from a single sluice have
reached a thousand dollars per day.
One of the novelties (to me) of this region is the presence of soft
granite—putty-granite, if I may coin a name for it. Unlike most soft
rocks, this seems not to harden by exposure to the atmosphere. It is
found at various depths, and I know no way of accounting for it. It
seems to me that one-fourth of the granite I saw at the base of recent
excavations appeared soft as cheese. Is not this peculiar to California?
Mining is a necessary art, but it does not tend to beautify the face of
nature. On the contrary, earth distorted into all manner of ungainly
heaps and ridges, hills half torn or washed away, and the residue left
in as repulsive shape as can well be conceived, roads intersected and
often turned to mire by ditches, water-courses torn up and gouged out,
and rivers, once pure as crystal, now dense and opaque with pulverized
rock—such is the spectacle presented throughout the mining region. Not a
stream of any size is allowed to escape the pollution—even the bountiful
and naturally pure Sacramento is yellow with it, and flows turbid and
uninviting to the Pacific. (The people of this city have to drink it,
nevertheless.) Despite the intense heat and drouth always prevalent at
this season, the country is full of springs, which are bright and clear
as need be; but wherever three or four of these have joined to form a
little rill, some gold-seeker is sharp on their track, converting them
into liquid mud. California, in giving up her hoarded wealth, surrenders
much of her beauty also.
Worse, still, is the general devastation of timber. The whole mining
region appears to have been excellently timbered—so much of it as I have
traversed was eminently so. Yellow, pitch, and sugar (white) pine (and
what is here called pitch-pine is a large, tall, and graceful tree),
white, black, and live-oak, with stately cedars, once overspread the
whole country; not densely, as in eastern forests, but with reasonable
spaces between the noble trunks—the oaks often presenting the general
appearance of a thrifty apple-orchard, undergrown with grass and bushes.
But timber is wanted for flumes, for sluices, for drifts or tunnels, for
dwellings, for running steam-engines, etc., and, as most of the land has
no owner, everybody cuts and slashes as if he cared for nobody but
himself, and no time but to-day. Patriarchal oaks are cut down merely to
convert their limbs into fuel, leaving the trunks to rot; noble pines
are pitched this way and that, merely to take a log or two from the butt
for sawing or splitting, leaving the residue a cumberer of the ground;
trees fit for the noblest uses are made to subserve the paltriest,
merely because they are handy, and it is nobody’s business to preserve
them. There was timber enough here ten years ago to satisfy every
legitimate need for a century; yet ten years more will not elapse before
the miners will be sending far up into the mountains at a heavy cost for
logs that might still have been abundant at their doors, had the timber
of this region been husbanded as it ought. Remonstrance were idle, but I
must be permitted to deplore.
XXVIII.
CALIFORNIA—THE YOSEMITE.
BEAR VALLEY, Cal., _Aug. 14, 1859_.
I left Sacramento on Monday morning last, traveling by stage to
Stockton, forty-eight miles nearly due south, crossing the Mokelumne,
and keeping first the Sacramento and then the San Joaquin a few miles on
our right, and Mount Diablo conspicuous still further west. We traversed
a level, fertile plain, sparsely wooded near the rivers—a plain which
should be, but is not yet, densely peopled, and very productive. There
are some fine orchard gardens near the cities, and might well be many;
but a good part of the intermediate country is uninclosed, and the
residue mainly devoted to large _ranches_ (or loose and slovenly cattle
husbandry), and in less degree to the growing of small grain—wheat and
barley. The stubble indicates good crops, but there is not a sufficient
area devoted to them. Uncertainty of land-titles—that paramount curse of
California—is assigned as the cause of this inadequacy of cultivation,
which I trust is not to continue.
Stockton is situated on a bayou of the San Joaquin, at the head of
regular steamboat navigation on that river, which makes it the third or
fourth city of California, with fifteen thousand inhabitants, and an
extensive carrying trade. The better dwellings are in good part
surrounded by fine gardens, well filled with delicious fruit. In some of
them, the primitive, wide-spreading oaks have been preserved, giving
them an aspect of beauty and coolness most grateful to the traveler
recently arrived from the plains. Stockton has the State Insane Asylum,
and a very interesting commencement of a cabinet of natural history;
better still, she has an Artesian well one thousand feet deep, bored at
a cost of ten thousand dollars, and pouring forth a copious and
unfailing stream, some feet above the surface of the earth. Deep as it
is, it penetrates only successive strata of what appears to be alluvial
deposit, never touching bed-rock. Artesian wells are becoming common in
California, and I trust are yet to play an important part in the
development and extension not only of her agricultural but also of her
mining industry, now crippled (especially in the south) by the general
dearth of water. I have a suspicion that all the water hitherto obtained
by canals or ditches, so expensively constructed, could have been
procured far cheaper by digging Artesian wells, which, however
multiplied, could hardly fail, at the foot of the Sierra Nevada, to
strike copious fountains at no unreasonable depth.
I left Stockton next morning in a carriage with a friend who proposed to
go through to Bear Valley (seventy-five miles) before sleeping—a feat
which I doubted the ability of any span of livery horses to accomplish.
My doubt was misplaced. Good horses, an early start, careful,
considerate driving, frequent watering, and the dry, bracing air of
California, carried us through by a little after ten P. M., and our team
would readily have gone ten miles further had we required it. I judge
that sixty miles of just such roads would have been as hard a drive in
any state east of the Rocky Mountains.
Our general course this day was east by south, passing mainly over
moderately undulating prairie of very unequal but generally indifferent
fertility, and crossing successively, at intervals of about twenty
miles, the small rivers Stanislaus, Tuolumne, and Merced, all flowing
from the mountains westward into the San Joaquin, and all rendered
turbid, by the mining operations in progress on their banks or in their
beds. The Stanislaus runs through a belt of rather light and thin oak,
some two or three miles wide; the others have a few scattering oaks and
that is all. There is considerable husbandry—mainly of the ranching
order, near Stockton and along the rivers aforesaid, but very little
industry of any kind on the naked prairies between them, and not a drop
of running water, except, perhaps, a spring or two under some of the low
hills which have a tolerably steep side respectively. There are a very
few deep holes in some of the winter water-courses at which cattle still
find drink, though of a bad quality. One settler from Massachusetts, who
lives mainly by cattle-growing, informed us that he came around Cape
Horn eight or ten years since, has now about ninety head of cattle,
which are fast increasing, and intends to erect a wind-mill this winter,
by whose aid he will be able to have a good garden at once, and a fine
fruit-orchard within a few years. (Wind-mills located over wells or
other reservoirs of water, which they raise for use in irrigation, are
very common in Stockton, and are rapidly going up throughout middle
California). He has to go seven miles for his fuel, fencing-stuff, etc.,
on the Stanislaus. His nearest neighbors, on the road we traveled, are
some five to ten miles distant, but I believe he has nearer. He is
doubtless richer here than in Massachusetts, but I cannot realize that
his family are happier or more favorably situated for mental and moral
improvement, there being no school within reach, and the children
depending for instruction on their New England mother alone. But _their_
children will not have New England mothers—and what then? I fear this
cattle ranching, with long intervals between the ranches, is destined to
half barbarize many thousands of the next generation, whom schools can
scarcely reach, and to whom “the sound of the church-going bell” will be
a stranger. Most of the agriculturists of this region, however, came
here from Missouri, Arkansas, or Texas—many of them from Missouri or
Arkansas by way of Texas—and do not seem to regard common schools as
essential to civilized life.
We crossed the Merced sixty miles from Stockton (all these rivers are
crossed by toll-bridges, or ferries—charges, one dollar each per wagon)
just before sunset; and now our road became rugged and bad, as we rose
the first of the foot-hills of the Sierra. Thus far we had seen few
traces of mining, save the muddy-colored waters of the rivers; but seven
miles further brought us to Quartzburg, in the center of a nearly
washed-out valley of gold-bearing gravel; and thence our way led seven
miles further, over a far higher foot-hill, into Bear Valley, where we
found friends and grateful rest. The next day I devoted to an
examination of Colonel Fremont’s mines and works, of which I may speak
hereafter, but must now hurry on to the Yosemite.
I left Bear Valley, two hours later than was fit, at 6, A. M., on
Thursday, resolved to push through to my immediate destination that
night. My friend had preceded me betimes to Mariposas, twelve miles on
our way, to complete preparations for the trip; but we were unluckily
delayed here again by misapprehensions and the preëngagement of animals
for attendance on a camp-meeting, so that it was high noon when we
reached the end of the wagon-road, twelve miles below Mariposa, where
the saddle is the only resource, while it is still nearly forty miles
(many of them steep ones) to the Yosemite fall. Every one assured us
that to get through that day was impossible; yet I had no more time to
give to the journey, and must try. My friend is a good rider, while I
can barely ride at all, not having spent five hours on horseback, save
in my visit to the Kansas gold mines, within the last thirty years. But
the two gentlemen from Mariposas who accompanied and guided us, knew all
about the journey that we didn’t—which is saying a great deal—so we
pressed buoyantly, confidently on.
Hussey’s steam saw-mill, where we mounted (or rather I did, for the rest
had done so before), marks pretty fairly the division between the oaks
of the lower, and the firs of the higher elevations, though the two of
course melt into each other. As we rose gradually but steadily, the
white soon faded out, then the black, and last the live-oak, though the
genuineness of this last is disputed, while the yellow, pitch, and
sugar-pines, cedars, and balsam-firs became more numerous and stately,
till they at length had the ground almost wholly to themselves, save
that the manzanito and other shrubs (mostly evergreens also) clustered
on nearly every opening among the trees. There is little or no precipice
or bare rock for miles, and we rose along the southern face of the ridge
overlooking the Cholchilla Valley, until we seemed to have half
California spread out before us like a map. Our range of vision extended
south to the _tulé_ lake, or immense morass, in which the San Joaquin
has its source, and west to the Coast Range, which alone barred the
Pacific Ocean from our view. Still rising, we wound gradually around the
peak of our first mountain through a slight depression or pass, and soon
looked off upon the valley of the South Fork of the Merced, which opened
for miles north and east of us. On this side, the descent is far
steeper, and we traversed for miles a mere trace along the side of the
mountain, where a misstep must have landed us at least a thousand feet
below. In time, this too was left behind, and we descended fitfully and
tortuously the east end of the mountain to the South Fork, whereon,
sixteen miles from Hussey’s and but five from the Big Trees of
Mariposas, we halted for rest and food. Before six, we were again in the
saddle, crossing the fork and winding up over another mountain
northward, with a precipitous descent of at least two thousand feet
beside us for a mile or so. A steep ascent of half a mile carried us
over the divide, whence we descended very rapidly to Alder Creek, at the
northern base. Following up this creek over a succession of steep
pitches, interleaved with more level patches, we bade adieu to daylight
at “Grizzly Flat,” a spot noted for encounters with the monarch of our
American forests, and thence crossed a ridge to “Summit Meadows,” a
succession of mainly narrow grassy levels, which wind in and out among
the promontories of more or less shattered granite which make down from
the mountain peaks on either side, but pursue a generally eastward
direction to pour their tiny tribute into the Great Chasm. Our route led
us six or eight times across these meadows—which were often so boggy as
to require a very nice choice of footing—and, intermediately, across the
generally wooded promontories which deflected the probably continuous
meadow into what seemed to us many, until we stood at length, about ten
_P. M._, on the brink of the awful abyss, and halted a moment to tighten
girths and take breath for the descent.
And here let me renew my tribute to the marvelous bounty and beauty of
the forests of this whole mountain region. The Sierra Nevadas lack the
glorious glaciers, the frequent rains, the rich verdure, the abundant
cataracts of the Alps; but they far surpass them—they surpass any other
mountains I ever saw—in the wealth and grace of their trees. Look down
from almost any of their peaks, and your range of vision is filled,
bounded, satisfied, by what might be termed a tempest-tossed sea of
evergreens, filling every upland valley, covering every hill-side,
crowning every peak but the highest, with their unfading luxuriance.
That I saw during this day’s travel many hundreds of pines eight feet in
diameter, with cedars at least six feet, I am confident; and there were
miles after miles of such and smaller trees of like genus standing as
thick as they could grow. Steep mountain-sides, allowing them to grow,
rank above rank, without obstructing each other’s sunshine, seem
peculiarly favorable to the production of these serviceable giants. But
the Summit Meadows are peculiar in their heavy fringe of balsam-fir of
all sizes, from those barely one foot high to those hardly less than two
hundred, their branches surrounding them in collars, their extremities
gracefully bent down by the weight of winter snows, making them here, I
am confident, the most beautiful trees on earth. The dry promontories
which separate these meadows are also covered with a species of spruce,
which is only less graceful than the fir aforesaid. I never before
enjoyed such a tree-feast as on this wearing, difficult ride.
Descent into the Yosemite is only practicable at three points—one near
the head of the valley, where a small stream makes in from the direction
of the main ridge of the Sierra, down which there is a trail from the
vicinity of Water River, Utah—a trail practicable, I believe, for men on
foot only. The other two lead in near the outlet, from Mariposas and
Coulterville respectively, on opposite banks of the Merced, and are
practicable for sure-footed mules or horses. We, of course, made our
descent by the Mariposas trail, on the south side of the little river
which here escapes from the famous valley by a cañon which water alone
can safely, if at all, traverse, being shut in by lofty precipices, and
broken by successive falls.
My friends insisted that I should look over the brink into the profound
abyss before clambering down its side; but I, apprehending giddiness,
and feeling the need of steady nerves, firmly declined. So we formed
line again, and moved on.
The night was clear and bright, as all summer nights in this region are;
the atmosphere cool, but not really cold; the moon had risen before 7
o’clock, and was shedding so much light as to bother us in our
forest-path, where the shadow of a standing pine looked exceedingly like
the substance of a fallen one, and many semblances were unreal and
misleading. It was often hard to realize that the dark, narrow
current-like passage to the left was our trail, and not the winding,
broader, moonlighted-opening on the right. The safest course was to give
your horse a free rein, and trust to his sagacity, or self-love for
keeping the trail. As we descended by zigzags the north face of the all
but perpendicular mountain our moonlight soon left us, or was present
only by reflection from the opposite cliff. Soon, the trail became at
once so steep, so rough, and so tortuous, that we all dismounted; but my
attempt at walking proved a miserable failure. I had been riding with a
bad Mexican stirrup, which barely admitted the toes of my left foot; and
continual pressure on these had sprained and swelled them, so that
walking was positive torture. I persevered in the attempt, till my
companions insisted on my remounting, and thus floundering slowly to the
bottom. By steady effort, we descended the three miles (four thousand
feet perpendicular) in two hours, and stood at night by the rushing,
roaring waters of the Merced.
That first full, deliberate gaze up the opposite height! can I ever
forget it? The valley is here scarcely half a mile wide, while its
northern wall of mainly naked, perpendicular granite is at least four
thousand feet high—probably more. But the modicum of moonlight that fell
into this awful gorge gave to that precipice a vagueness of outline, an
indefinite vastness, a ghostly and weird spirituality. Had the mountain
spoken to me in audible voice, or began to lean over with the purpose of
burying me beneath its crushing mass, I should hardly have been
surprised. Its whiteness, thrown into bold relief by the patches of
trees or shrubs which fringed or flecked it wherever a few handfuls of
its moss, slowly decomposed to earth, could contrive to hold on,
continually suggested the presence of snow, which suggestion, with
difficulty refuted, was at once renewed. And, looking up the valley, we
saw just such mountain precipices, barely separated by intervening
water-courses (mainly dry at this season) of inconsiderable depth, and
only receding sufficiently to make room for a very narrow meadow
inclosing the river, to the furthest limit of vision.
We discussed the propriety of camping directly at the foot of the pass,
but decided against it, because of the inadequacy of the grass at this
point for our tired, hungry beasts, and resolved to push on to the
nearest of the two houses in the valley, which was said to be four miles
distant. To my dying day, I shall remember that weary, interminable ride
up the valley. We had been on foot since daylight; it was now past
midnight; all were nearly used up, and I in torture from over twelve
hours’ steady riding on the hardest trotting horse in America. Yet we
pressed on, and on, through clumps of trees, and bits of forest, and
patches of meadow, and over hillocks of mountain _debris_, mainly
granite bowlders of every size, often nearly as round as cannon balls,
forming all but perpendicular banks to the capricious torrent that
brought them hither—those stupendous precipices on either side glaring
down upon us all the while. How many times our heavy eyes—I mean those
of my San Francisco friend and my own—were lighted up by visions of that
intensely desired cabin—visions which seemed distinct and unmistakable,
but, which, alas! a nearer view proved to be made up of moonlight and
shadow, rock and trees, into which they faded one after another. It
seemed at length that we should never reach the cabin; and my wavering
mind recalled elfish German stories of the Wild Huntsman, and of men
who, having accepted invitations to a midnight chase, found on their
return that said chase had been prolonged till all their relatives and
friends were dead, and no one could be induced to recognize or recollect
them. Gladly could I have thrown myself recklessly from the saddle, and
lain where I fell till morning, but this would never answer, and we kept
steadily on.
“Time and the hour wear out the longest day.”
At length the _real_ cabin—one made of posts and beams and whip-sawed
boards, instead of rock, and shadow, and moonshine—was reached, and we
all eagerly dismounted, turning out our weary steeds into abundant
grass, and stirring up the astonished landlord, who had never before
received guests at that unseemingly hour. (It was after one A. M.) He
made us welcome, however, to his best accommodations, which would have
found us lenient critics even had they been worse; and I crept into my
rude but clean bed so soon as possible, while the rest awaited the
preparation of some refreshment for the inner man. There was never a
dainty that could have tempted me to eat at that hour. I am told that
none ever before traveled from Bear Valley to the Yosemite in one day—I
am confident no greenhorns ever did. The distance can hardly exceed
thirty miles by an air line; but only a bird could traverse that line,
while, by way of Mariposas and the South Fork, it must be fully sixty
miles, with a rise and fall of not less than twenty thousand feet.
The _fall_ of the Yosemite, so called, is a humbug. It is not the Merced
River that makes this fall, but a mere tributary trout-brook, which
pitches in from the north by a barely once-broken descent of two
thousand six hundred feet, while the Merced enters the valley at its
eastern extremity, over falls of six hundred and two hundred and fifty
feet. But a river thrice as large as the Merced, at this season, would
be utterly dwarfed by all the other accessories of this prodigious
chasm. Only a Mississippi or a Niagara could be adequate to their
exactions. I readily concede that a hundred times the present amount of
water may roll down the Yosemite fall in the months of May and June,
when the snows are melting from the central ranges of the Sierra Nevada,
which bound this abyss on the east; but this would not add a fraction to
the wonder of this vivid exemplication of the divine power and majesty.
At present, the little stream that leaps down the Yosemite, and is all
but shattered to mist by the amazing descent, looks like a tape-line let
down from the cloud-capped height to measure the depth of the abyss. The
Yosemite Valley (or Gorge) is the most unique and majestic of nature’s
marvels, but the Yosemite Fall is of little account. Were it absent, the
valley would not be perceptibly less worthy of a fatiguing visit.
We traversed the valley from end to end next day, but an accumulation of
details on such a subject only serve to confuse and blunt the observer’s
powers of perception and appreciation. Perhaps the visitor who should be
content with a long look into the abyss from the most convenient height,
without braving the toil of a descent would be wiser than all of us; and
yet that first glance upward from the foot will long haunt me as more
impressive than any look downward from the summit could be.
I shall not multiply details, nor waste paper in noting all the foolish
names which foolish people have given to different peaks or turrets.
Just think of two giant stone-towers, or pillars, which rise a thousand
feet above the towering cliff which form their base, being styled “The
Two Sisters!” Could anything be more maladroit and lackadaisical? “The
Dome” is a high, round, naked peak, which rises between the Merced and
its little tributary from the inmost recesses of the Sierra Nevada
already instanced, and which towers to an altitude of over five thousand
feet above the waters at its base. Picture to yourself a perpendicular
wall of bare granite nearly or quite one mile high! Yet there are some
dozen or score of peaks in all, ranging from three thousand to five
thousand feet above the valley; and a biscuit tossed from any of them
would strike very near its base, and its fragments go bounding and
falling still further. I certainly miss here the glaciers of Chamonix;
but I know no single wonder of nature on earth which can claim a
superiority over the Yosemite. Just dream yourself for one hour in a
chasm nearly ten miles long, with egress save for birds and water, but
at three points, up the face of precipices from three thousand to four
thousand feet high, the chasm scarcely more than a mile wide at any
point, and tapering to a mere gorge, or cañon, at either end, with walls
of mainly naked and perpendicular white granite, from three thousand to
five thousand feet high, so that looking up to the sky from it, is like
looking out of an unfathomable profound—and you will have some
conception of the Yosemite.
We dined at two o’clock, and then rode leisurely down the valley, gazing
by daylight at the wonders we had previously passed in the night. The
spectacle was immense; but I still think the moonlight view the more
impressive.
Our faithful beasts climbed the steep acclivity at a little more than
the rate of a mile per hour, so that we had still an hour or two of
sunshine before us as we stood at last on the summit. I took a last long
look into and up the valley, with the sun still lighting up the greater
portion of the opposite cliffs, and then turned my horse’s head
westward. We reached, at 10½ P. M., the ranche on the South Fork, kept
by a solitary man, who has no neighbor nearer than sixteen miles, and
there halted for the night.
XXIX.
CALIFORNIA—THE BIG TREES.
STEAMBOAT CORNELIA, ON THE }
SAN JOAQUIN, _Aug. 15, ’59_. }
On reaching Clark’s ranche, we were so happy as to meet the Reverend O.
C. Wheeler, secretary of the state agricultural society, and his
associates on the visiting committee of that society, now on a tour of
official observation through various districts of the state. We had
agreed at Sacramento to make the trip to the Yosemite together; but some
mishap had detained them fourteen miles back of Bear Valley during the
night of Wednesday last; and when at length they reached Mariposas, my
party had been some hours on our way, while not a horse nor mule could
be hired that day, to replace their jaded nags, whose immediate
proceeding on so rough a trip was out of the question. So they halted,
perforce, till next morning, and were only going up to the Yosemite when
we were coming down, as aforesaid.
But they had just returned to Clark’s from the Big Trees of Mariposas,
having visited those of Calaveras two or three days before. The general
impression seems to be that the Calaveras trees are the larger and
finer; but Mr. Wheeler, having just visited each, was very decided in
his preference for those of Mariposas, and I understood all his
associates to concur in that verdict. They found the Calaveras trees in
far better condition, in the charge of a keeper, and approached by a
road over which a light carriage may readily be driven up to the very
trees themselves. These are no light advantages; but they assured us
that, on the other hand, the Mariposas trees are considerably more
numerous (some six hundred against two hundred and fifty), and are
really larger and finer specimens of their kind. Mr. Wheeler found by
careful measurement of the diameter of one of these trees one hundred
feet above the ground to be twenty feet, while its first limb, which put
off at that height, had a diameter of six feet. Just think of a twig six
feet through at that elevation! He obtained these results by measuring
the tree’s shadow, which I need hardly remark was probably narrower than
the tree itself. He had several tape-line measurements of Mariposas
trees over one hundred feet in circumference; but one of the Calaveras
trees is claimed to be, I think, nearly one-fourth larger than this. No
matter—those of either county are big enough.
We went up to the Mariposas trees early next morning. The trail crosses
a meadow of most luxuriant wild grass, then strikes eastward up the
hills, and rises almost steadily, but in the main not steeply, for five
miles, when it enters and ends in a slight depression or valley, nearly
on the top of this particular mountain, where the Big Trees have been
quietly nestled for I dare not say how many thousand years. That they
were of very substantial size when David danced before the ark, when
Solomon laid the foundations of the Temple, when Theseus ruled in
Athens, when Æneas fled from the burning wreck of vanquished Troy, when
Sesostris led his victorious Egyptians into the heart of Asia, I have no
manner of doubt.
The Big Trees, of course, do not stand alone. I apprehend that they
could not stand at present, in view of the very moderate depth at which
they are anchored to the earth. Had they stood on an unsheltered
mountain-top, or even an exposed hill-side, they would doubtless have
been prostrated, as I presume thousands like them were prostrated, by
the hurricanes of centuries before Christ’s advent. But the locality of
these, though probably two thousand five hundred feet above the South
Merced, and some four thousand five hundred above the sea, is sheltered
and tranquil, though several of these trees have manifestly fallen
within the present century. Unquestionably, they are past their prime,
though to none more than to them is applicable the complimentary
characterization of “a green old age.”
Let me try to give as clear an idea of these forest mastodons as I can,
though I know that will be but a poor one.
In measuring trees, it is so easy to exaggerate by running your line
around the roots rather than the real body, that I place little
dependence on the reported and recorded measurements of parties under no
obligations to preserve a judicial impartiality. But I believe a fair
measurement of the largest trees standing in this grove would make them
not less than ninety feet in circumference, and over thirty in diameter,
at a height of six feet from their respective bases, and that several of
them have an altitude of more than three hundred feet. I believe the one
that was last uprooted measures a little over three hundred.
But these relics of a more bounteous and magnificent world seem destined
to speedy extinction. I deem them generally enfeebled by age and the
racking and wrenching of their roots by the blasts that sweep through
their tops. These malign influences they might withstand for ages,
however, were it not for the damage they have already sustained, and are
in danger of hereafter sustaining, through the devastating agency of
fire. For these glorious evergreen forests, though the ground beneath
them is but thinly covered with inflammable matter, are yet subject to
be overrun every second or third year by forest conflagrations. For the
earth, to a depth of several feet, even, is dry as an ash-heap, from
July to October, and the hills are so steep that fire ascends them with
wonderful facility. And thus the big trees are scarred, and gouged, and
hollowed out at the root and upward, as the effects of successive fires,
one of which, originating far southward, ran through this locality so
late as last autumn, burning one of the forest kings so that it has
since fallen, half destroying another already prostrate, through the
hollow of which two horsemen (not G. P. R. James’s, I trust,) were
accustomed to ride abreast for a distance of fully one hundred feet, and
doing serious damage to very many others. If the village of Mariposas,
the county, or the state of California, does not immediately provide for
the safety of these trees, I shall deeply deplore the infatuation, and
believe that these giants might have been more happily located.
The big trees are usually accounted red-wood, but bear a strong
resemblance to the cedar family, so that my intelligent guide plausibly
insisted that they are identical in species with their probable
cotemporaries, the famous cedars of Lebanon. The larger cedars in their
vicinity bear a decided resemblance to the smallest of them; and yet
there are quite obvious differences between them. The cedar’s limbs are
by far the more numerous, and come far down the trunk; they are also
relatively smaller. The cedar’s bark is the more deeply creased up and
down the trunk, while the foliage of the big trees is nearer allied to
that of certain pines than to the cedar’s. The bark of the big trees is
very thick—in some instances, over two feet—and is of a dry, light
quality, resembling cork: hence the fatal facility of damage by running
fires. The wood of the big trees is of a light red color, seeming devoid
alike of sap and resin, and to burn about as freely while the tree lives
as a year or more after its death. Unless in the cedars of Lebanon, I
suspect these mammoths of the vegetable world have no counterparts out
of California.
They are of course not all of extraordinary size, yet I cannot remember
one that would girth so little as twenty feet at a height of two yards
from the earth’s surface, which is the proper point for horizontal
measurement. Hardly one is entirely free from the marks of fire at its
root, while several have been burned at least half through, and are so
hollowed by fire that a tree eight feet in diameter would probably find
ample room in the cavity. And, while many are still hale and thrifty, I
did not perceive a single young one coming forward to take the place of
the decaying patriarchs. I believe these trees now bear[11] no seed-cone
or nut, whatever they may have done in Scipio’s or in Alexander’s time,
and there is no known means of propagating their kind; and I deeply
regret that there is not, though starting a tree that would come to its
maturity in not less than four thousand years would seem rather slow
business to the fast age in which it is our fortune to live. Possibly,
the big trees are a relic of some bygone world—some past geologic
period—cotemporaries of the gigantic, luxuriant ferns whereof our
mineral coal is the residuum. I am sure they will be more prized and
treasured a thousand years hence than now, should they, by extreme care
and caution, be preserved so long, and that thousands will then visit
them, over smooth and spacious roads, for every one who now toils over
the rugged bridle-path by which I reached them. Meantime, it is a
comfort to know that the Vandals who bored down with pump-augers, the
largest of the Calaveras trees, in order to make their fortunes by
exhibiting a section of its bark at the east, have been heavy losers by
their villainous speculation.
Footnote 11:
I am assured that this was a mistake, and that young trees of this
species, propagated from seed-cones, are now growing in several
nurseries. I am sure I saw no cones on any of the giants, though they
were in season; and I still suspect that the seeds from which young
trees have been started, grew on the younger and smaller trees of the
species, not on the mammoths.
* * * * *
We left the big trees a little after ten A. M., returned to Clark’s and
fed, and then struck for Mariposas, where we arrived a little before six
P. M.—I alone so covered with boils, caused immediately by horseback
exercise, as to make riding in any way a torture. My friend who had
taken me up to Hussey’s in his carriage was promptly on hand on my
return, though he had been a hundred times assured that I could not
possibly be back at the time appointed. We had a gathering and a talk at
Mariposas in the evening, and I then rode over to Bear Valley, which we
reached a little before midnight. Next evening, we ran down so far as
the Tuolumne on our return, and to-day came on to Stockton, where we
took the steamboat for San Francisco, which we hope to reach a little
after midnight.