Miscellaneous Facts. 15 
The North Western Coast. 
On the 18th of Oct., 1833, we sailed from the Columbia river, for 
California. ‘The coast is bold and the country immediately back con- 
sists principally of broken mountains, clothed with trees at some dis- 
tance down the coast, but before you reach the Bay of St. Francisco, 
the country becomes prairie. So the continent below the latitude of 
40° appears to be entirely prairie from the Pacific to Missouri, Ar- 
kansaw and Texas; with the usual exception of timber growing, oc- 
casionally, on the rivers and mountains. Mules have been bought 
in Upper California and brought to the American market. 
The country about the Bay of St. Francisco, is beautifully diver- 
sified with hills, mountains and plains, with occasionally a clump of 
trees; on the plains, graze immense herds of horses and cattle both 
wild and tame. The rock, as far as observed, was supposed to be 
Serpentine. The climate was delightful, for the range of the ther- 
mometer, during most of the month of Nov. was from 52° to 58°, and 
the sky serene—and it is said they never have frost, although in the 
Jatitude of St. Louis, Cincinnati and Washington. ‘The tempera- 
ture at sea till we reached the trade winds, was from 50° to 60° ; 
then it gradually rose till, at the Sandwich Islands on the first of Jan- 
uary 1834, its range was from 70° to 77°; I was informed that it 
sometimes rises as. high as 85°. ‘The greatest range is proba- 
bly about 15°, the air being always tempered by the breezes from 
the sea, producing a delightful climate. 
Features of Oahu. 
As you approach the Island of Oahu, you behold high and pre- 
cipitous mountains of curved, spiral and fantastic forms, rising to 
the height of from three to four thousand feet, and as you ap- 
proach nearer, you will see rising from the plains along the coast, to 
the height of a few hundred feet, crater-formed hills, which although 
now clothed with grass, are of as perfect symmetry as they were when 
emitting lames. About one mile back of Honolulu, the principal 
town of these Islands, rises one of these craters, called the Punch 
Bowl ; you at first ascend over a gradual slope where you see coral 
rocks partially burned, elevated some two or three hundred feet above 
their original place at the level of the ocean. Then the ascent is 
more abrupt, winding by a zigzag path, till one stands ona rim of 
rock, and before him sees a beautiful grass-clad basin, of about half 
a mile in circuit, surrounded by a similar rim, except at one place, 
where it is broken away to the depth of the basin. 
