140 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



CHAPTEK V. 



SCENERY. 



101. Introductory. California has much beautiful scenery. 

 The atmosphere is remarkably clear, giving the eye a wide 

 range. The mountainous character of the State not only pre- 

 vents monotony and secures a rich variety of landscapes, but 

 gives them extent and grandeur. The large rivers, the high 

 snow-peaks and ridges, wide bays, forests of the largest and 

 most graceful evergreens, parks of majestic oaks, natural 

 meadows, covered in the spring with brilliant grasses and flow- 

 ers, are all magnificent in their kind. The low lands are 

 mostly bare of timber, with here and there a grove of oaks, 

 and lines of trees and bushes along the water-courses. The 

 coast valleys are very beautiful ; and, in the course of ten or 

 fifteen years, when ornamented with thorough cultivation, will 

 be as pretty as any places in the world. The most remarkable 

 features of our scenery are : Yosemite, the Big Tree Groves, 

 the Geysers, the Petrified Forest, Mt. Diablo, Mt. St. Helena, 

 Mt. Tamalpais, Mt. Shasta, the Calif brntan Alps, Clear Lake, 

 and Lake Tahoe. 



102. Yosemite. Yosemite Valley, one of the greatest nat- 

 ural wonders of the world, is a chasm eight miles long and a 

 mile wide, in the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, thirty 

 miles west of the summit, and one hundred and forty miles 

 east of San Francisco, in a direct line. The bottom of the 

 valley is 4,060 feet above the level of the sea, and its general 

 course is east and west. The sides are granite walls, rising 



