8 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



Tuolumne, Merced, San Joaquin, King's, White, and Kern 

 Rivers all of them considerable streams, though others in 

 the southern part of the basin are swallowed up in the sands 

 in the dry seasons, before reaching their mouths. The San 

 Joaquin River does not rise at the extreme southern end of 

 the basin, but one hundred miles northward from it, in the 

 Sierra Nevada. After running westward to the middle of the 

 valley, it turns northward. From its bend southward, the 

 valley discharges no water to the ocean during the summer ; 

 but in wet winters there are continuous sloughs, or pieces of 

 marsh-like ground, from the Tejon to the San Joaquin. In 

 the dry season, no channel is visible for the escape of the 

 waters of Tulare and Kern Lakes. 



The rivers flowing down from the Sierra Nevada are about 

 one hundred and twenty miles long on an average, following 

 their courses. The upper half of their length is in the moun- 

 tains, where they are torrents, falling five thousand feet in 

 fifty miles. Their beds are in deep canons ; after reaching the 

 plain their currents are gentle, and they meander between low 

 banks, fringed with oaks, sycamores, cottonwood, and willows. 

 In the southern part of the San Joaquin basin there are several 

 large streams, which, soon after issuing from the mountains, 

 divide into a number of channels, as do some large rivers 

 which have deltas near their entrance to the sea. King's 

 River, which is about eighty yards wide where it leaves the 

 mountains, divides into seven or eight channels, which all 

 unite again. The Cahuilla (Kaweah, or Pipiyuma) River, also 

 a large stream, divides into a number of channels, which irri- 

 gate " the Four-Creek country," and render it one of the most 

 fertile parts of the State. 



12. Lakes of the Sierra. The Sierra Nevada has few 

 lakes. The most notable one is Lake Tahoe or Bigler, about 

 twenty miles long and ten wide, and six thousand feet above 

 the level of the sea, in latitude 39, and on the eastern border 

 of the State. Part of the lake is in Nevada, and its waters 



