Letters to a Friend 



and abundantly supplied than in California. 

 I have often wished the Doctor near me in my 

 rambles among the rocks. Pure science is a most 

 unmarketable commodity in California. Con 

 spicuous, energetic, unmixed materialism rules 

 supreme in all classes. Prof. Whitney, as you 

 are aware, was accused of heresy while conduct 

 ing the State survey, because in his reports he 

 devoted some space to fossils and other equally 

 dead and un-Californian objects instead of col 

 umns of discovered and measured mines. 



I am engaged at present in the very impor 

 tant and patriarchal business of sheep. I am 

 a gentle shepherd. The gray box in which I 

 reside is distant about seven miles northwest 

 from Hopeton, two miles north of Snellings. 

 The Merced pours past me on the south from 

 the Yosemite ; smooth, domey hills and the tree 

 fringe of the Tuolumne bound me on the north ; 

 the lordly Sierras join sky and plain on the east ; 

 and the far coast mountains on the west. My 

 mutton family of eighteen hundred range over 

 about ten square miles, and I have abundant 

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