260 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA 



from evaporation their flow is nearly as full in the 

 autumn as in the time of general spring floods. 

 While those of the high Sierra diminish to less 

 than the hundredth part of their springtime prime, 

 shallowing in autumn to a series of silent pools 

 among the rocks and hollows of their channels, 

 connected by feeble, creeping threads of water, 

 like the sluggish sentences of a tired writer, con 

 nected by a drizzle of " ands " and " buts." Strange 

 to say, the greatest floods occur in winter, when 

 one would suppose all the wild waters would be 

 muffled and chained in frost and snow. The same 

 long, all-day storms of the so-called Eainy Season 

 in California, that give rain to the lowlands, give 

 dry frosty snow to the mountains. But at rare 

 intervals warm rains and warm winds invade the 

 mountains and push back the snow line from 2000 

 feet to 8000, or even higher, and then come the 

 big floods. 



I was usually driven down out of the High Si 

 erra about the end of November, but the winter of 

 1874 and 1875 was so warm and calm that I was 

 tempted to seek general views of the geology and 

 topography of the basin of Feather River in Janu 

 ary. And I had just completed a hasty survey of 

 the region, and made my way down to winter 

 quarters, when one of the grandest flood-storms 

 that I ever saw broke on the mountains. I was 

 then in the edge of the main forest belt at a small 

 foot-hill town called Knoxville, on the divide be 

 tween the waters of the Feather and Yuba rivers. 

 The cause of this notable flood was simply a sud 

 den and copious fall of warm wind and rain on the 



