Riverside and Finis. 305 



common feature. Once more I emphasize the fact of the clear revelation of 

 all the forms of nature in the California landscape. You see everything 

 as through your Duchesse opera-glass. It is from twenty to forty miles to 

 the foot of those mountains yonder on the eastern side of the valley. These 

 are not the mountains which the children, and adult people too, find and 

 study in their geographies. The latter run up in inaccessible peaks, and 

 have nothing at all of the vast wall-like appearance of the actual range. 



The true mountains rise from the valleys in three successive banks. The 

 first of these in California, and, I believe, everywhere, are known as the foot- 

 hills. They are plainly discernible at a distance of five or ten miles, and if 

 you use your glass you can see cattle and sheep here and there upon the 

 sloping pastures. Above and beyond the foot-hills the second bench of 

 mountains appear. These rise about two-thirds of the way to the crest line 

 of the chain. We may call them the middle range. Beyond these rise the 

 true Sierras, looking like the cumuli of a June sky in the Middle States, for 

 their summits are covered with snow and shine with wh teness. The mid- 

 dle range has no snow, but generally bears a forest of spruce, fir and pine. 

 The trees along the line of this range may be generally seen with the naked 

 eye, giving a slightly jagged appearance to the line which defines them from 

 the snow-capped mountains beyond them. Now, all three of these ranges, 

 so far as the eye is concerned, constitute a single wall or battlement in the 

 horizon, dark colored at the base and gradually growing lighter with the 

 ascent to the glittering crest line of snow. If you look carefully you will be 

 able to note the two lines along the mountain-side which define respectively 

 the limit of the foot-hills and the division between the middle range and the 

 true Sierras. 



Distance throws all three of these banks together, and makes them, 

 to the casual glance, a single bulwark in the horizon. It rises, as a gen- 

 eral thing, to a height of about thirty degrees, where the crest is defined 

 in a long, wavy line of light against th« sky. If, however, you journey 

 thither and climb to the crest of the foot-hills, or first bench, you will find 

 before you a descent into another valley, btretching laterally before you, 

 and beyond that valley a wall which consists of the middle range above de- 

 scribed ; and if you go further and traverse the valley between the foot-hills 

 and the middle range, and ascend to' the summit of the latter, you will see be- 

 fore you the still greater descent between those summits and the still more 

 aspiring heights of the snow mountains beyond. Go back again to your 

 train in the middle of the valley, and all three ranges melt again into one, 

 and stand there as a single great wall, rising up in the horizon and dividing 

 earth from heaven. 



A word as to individual mountains seen in California. Two of the very 

 best are the great heights of San Bernardino and San Jacinto, standing to 

 the right and left as you enter San Gabriel valley from the south. San Ber- 

 nardino is rather the finer of the two. He is really a sublime monarch, look- 

 ing down on the lowland.*, and high enough, I believe, to see over his rival 



