IN THE SIEBKA FOOT-HILLS 331 



Our way from Murphy's to the cave lay across a 

 series of picturesque, moory ridges in the chaparral 

 region between the brown foot-hills and the forests, 

 a flowery stretch of rolling hill- waves breaking here 

 and there into a kind of rocky foam on the higher 

 summits, and sinking into delightful bosky hollows 

 embowered with vines. The day was a fine specimen 

 of California summer, pure sunshine, unshaded most 

 of the time by a single cloud. As the sun rose 

 higher, the heated air began to flow in tremulous 

 waves from every southern slope. The sea-breeze 

 that usually comes up the foot-hills at this season, 

 with cooling on its wings, was scarcely perceptible. 

 The birds were assembled beneath leafy shade, or 

 made short, languid flights in search of food, all 

 save the majestic buzzard; with broad wings out 

 spread he sailed the warm air un wearily from ridge 

 to ridge, seeming to enjoy the fervid sunshine like 

 a butterfly. Squirrels, too, whose spicy ardor no 

 heat or cold may abate, were nutting among the 

 pines, and the innumerable hosts of the insect king 

 dom were throbbing and wavering unwearied as 

 sunbeams. 



This brushy, berry-bearing region used to be a 

 deer and bear pasture, but since the disturbances 

 of the gold period these fine animals have almost 

 wholly disappeared. Here, also, once roamed the 

 mastodon and elephant, whose bones are found en 

 tombed in the river gravels and beneath thick folds 

 of lava. Toward noon, as we were riding slowly 

 over bank and brae, basking in the unfeverish 

 sun-heat, we witnessed the upheaval of a new moun 

 tain-range, a Sierra of clouds abounding in land- 



