158 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



115. Natural Bridges. California has five natural 

 bridges. The largest of these is bn a small creek emptying 

 into the Hay Fork of the Trinity River, where a ledge of rock 

 three hundred feet wide crosses the valley. Under this rock 

 runs the creek, through an arch twenty feet high by eighty feet 

 across. The rock above the arch is one hundred and fifty feet 

 deep. On Lost River, in Siskiyou County, there are two nat- 

 ural bridges, about thirty feet apart. The rock is a conglom- 

 erate sandstone, and each is from ten to fifteen feet wide, and 

 the distance across the stream is about eighty feet. One of 

 these bridges is used regularly by travelers. On Coyote Creek, 

 in Tuolumne County, ten miles northward from Sonora, are 

 two natural bridges, half a mile apart. The upper bridge is 

 two hundred and eighty-five feet long with the course of the 

 water, and thirty- six feet high, with the rock thirty feet deep 

 over the water. The lower bridge is similar in size and height 

 to the other. 



116. Caves. There are a number of caves in California. 

 Of these, the most noted are the Alabaster Cave, seven miles 

 from Auburn, in Placer County ; the Bower Cave, twelve miles 

 from Coulterville, in Mariposa County ; the Cave of Skulls, in 

 Calaveras County ; and the Santa Cruz Cave, two miles from 

 the town of Santa Cruz. The Alabaster Cave has two cham- 

 bers : one about one hundred feet long by twenty -five wide ; 

 the other two hundred feet long by one hundred wide. It 

 contains a large number of brilliant stalactites and stalagmites. 

 The Bower Cave has a chamber one hundred feet long by 

 ninety wide ; it is reached by an entrance seventy feet long, 

 and in one place only four feet wide. The Santa Cruz Cave 

 has no beauty to render it attractive. The Cave of Skulls is 

 remarkable for having contained, when first discovered, a num- 

 ber of human skulls and bones, all covered with layers of 

 carbonate or sulphate of lime, from the thickness of a leaf to an 

 inch. These bones are now in the cabinet of the Smithsonian 

 Institute. At Cave City, and seven miles from Murphy's, in 



