REDWOOD LUMBERING, 



Twenty-five Or thirty years ago long before the era of 

 Continental Railways our Eastern and trans-Atlantic cous- 

 ins read in letters from our people of California, of its won- 

 derful scenery, climate and productions, with incredulity; 

 they believing, perhaps, that the then wanderers from the 

 old homes and hearthstones to the jumping off place on the 

 American continent had produced a sort of epidemic in the 

 way of boasting of the new Eldorado ; perhaps as much to 

 keep their courage up in their solitude, as to impress upon far- 

 away relatives that they were not unhappy and pining to re- 

 turn to the homes of their fathers. 



Trustworthy people, even, who wrote of the grandeur of 

 Yosemite ; of the immensity of the Big Trees in Calaveras, 

 Merced and Santa Cruz ; of Calistoga and the Geyser Hot 

 Springs ; of the wheat and vine yield ; of the fruits, flowers, 

 gold and silver veins, were marked as having become imbued 

 with the boasting that was believed to be especially a charac- 

 teristic of the Pacific slope. 



Not until the completion of the Central Pacific railway, 

 when the dangers and monotony of a sea trip were removed, 



