GEOGEAPHIOAL EXPLORATIONS AND DISCOVERIES IN 1868. 



295 



fraught only with beneficent results ; but the 

 attempt to change the natural course of large 

 bodies of water is to be deprecated when, as 

 in some instances is the case, it will produce 

 far-reaching results not contemplated by the 

 projectors. The proposed great ship-canal 

 from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River 

 might very possibly restore the bottom lands 

 of Lower Illinois to their ancient condition as 

 one or more great lakes, produce great destruc- 

 tion in the region of the Lower Mississippi, 

 and so far drain the great lakes as to materially 

 diminish the volume of water which passes 

 through the Niagara River and the St. Law- 

 rence. 



Two discoveries in meteorology and ornithol- 

 ogy have yet perhaps a sufficient bearing on 

 physical geography to be worthy of a place in 

 our record. In August, 1868, an immense me- 

 teor or a'erolite exploded in the vicinity of Cheat- 

 ham's Cross Roads, Tennessee, and a fragment 

 of it, cone-shaped, and about seven feet in its 

 longest diameter, and ten &et in circumference 

 at its base, supposed to weigh at least five or 

 six tons, penetrated several strata of the soft 

 blue limestone of that region, and sunk to a 

 depth of twenty-five or thirty feet. When 

 discovered, five or six days after the explosion, 

 it was still very hot, though a stream of water 

 had passed over it for several days. So large a 

 meteorite has not fallen in this country since 

 the large mass which fell in the Red River 

 region, Arkansas, nearly fifty years ago, and it 

 is doubtful whether this is not larger than that. 

 Near Mound City, Illinois, a bird was shot in 

 the autumn of 1868, by James Harney, of a 

 genus and species entirely unknown. It weighed 

 104 pounds, was larger than an ostrich, had a 

 snow-white body, a scarlet head, a yellow bill, 

 twenty-four inches long, green sinewy legs four 

 feet long, and was on a high tree engaged in 

 devouring a sheep which it had captured. 

 Several of these points resemble more nearly 

 the fossil birds who were the contemporaries 

 of the mastodon, etc., than any known living 

 birds. 



The Western region of the United States 

 includes properly both slopes of the Rocky 

 Mountains, the Great Utah Basin, and the 

 northern valleys between the Rocky Moun- 

 tains and the Sierra Nevada, and also that 

 chain of mountains and the Coast Range, as 

 well as the valleys between and beyond the 

 latter. Across this wide extent of mountain, 

 valley, and plateau, the two Pacific Railroads, 

 one starting from Omaha in Nebraska, and the 

 other from Sacramento in California, have 

 been approaching with extraordinary rapidity 

 during the year 1868, and in May, 1869, formed 

 a junction. The enterprise is the most stupen- 

 dous of modern times, and on its completion 

 opens a continuous railway route of over 3,300 

 miles. It is estimated that the running time 

 between New York and San Francisco will be 

 reduced to seven days, and perhaps on the 

 fastest trams to six. The result of this greatly 



increased speed of transit must necessarily 

 change the conditions of political geography 

 materially, and must eventually make San 

 Francisco and New York the ports of entry 

 and departure for the entire commerce of the 

 Orient, and the latter the financial capital of 

 the world. The climate, soil, and productions 

 of California and the Pacific slope are such as 

 to invite an immense immigration, and to give 

 the promise of a vast and populous empire there ; 

 but the year 1868 developed a danger to its 

 population not hitherto taken into the account. 

 There had been occasional slight earthquake 

 shocks on the coast since the organization of 

 California as a State, and there were traditions 

 of others of somewhat greater severity, seventy 

 or a hundred years ago, but these had -never 

 excited the attention of the people until the 

 morning of October 21, 1868, when a series of 

 earthquakes occurred which produced tgreat 

 consternation, and destruction of property, and 

 the loss of six lives in San Francisco, and a 

 considerable number in other parts of the State. 

 The first shock was the most destructive, 

 though subsequent ones completed the ruin of 

 some buildings injured by the first. The most 

 serious results occurred on the made ground 

 (that which had been filled in, having originally 

 formed a part of the bay). There were oc- 

 casional shocks of considerable severity for two 

 or three months ; one on the 2d of December, 

 destroying the little town of Loretto in Califor- 

 nia. One or two of the volcanoes of the State, 

 hitherto quiet, have given indications of re- 

 newed activity by sending up columns of smoke, 

 though they have not as yet emitted water, 

 mud, sand, ashes, or lava. The volcanic char- 

 acter of large tracts of the soil indicates that 

 they were active centuries ago. 



'Lower California, the peninsula lying be- 

 tween the Gulf of California and the Pacific 

 Ocean, has been but little known to Europeans 

 or Americans. It has about 15,000 inhabit- 

 ants, mostly Indians, who have been gathered 

 into missions or villages by the Jesuit mission- 

 aries who have been stationed there for two 

 centuries or more, and have lived a life of great 

 seclusion, holding very little intercourse with 

 the rest of the world. In 1866 a company of 

 capitalists, organized as the Lower California 

 Land Company, explored the peninsula, both 

 along the coasts and through the interior, and 

 the next year purchased from the Mexican 

 Government all that part of it lying between 

 the parallels of 31 N. latitude and 24 20' N. 

 latitude, leaving a rocky and mountainous 

 tract about 100 by 35 miles in extent at the 

 southern extremity, and one almost as moun- 

 tainous at the north, about 175 by 85 miles. 

 The peninsula has been usually described as an 

 arid, rocky region, with a torrid climate and 

 sterile soil, and has been supposed to be almost 

 uninhabitable. The explorations of Messrs. 

 Ross Browne, W. M. Gabb, and Dr. Ferdinand 

 von Loehr, all men eminent for their scientific 

 attainments, show that it is, on the contrary, in 



