146 HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA. 



Joaquin lias evidently been, at some remote period, 

 the bed of a lake ; and those rivers, which drain it, 

 present the appearance of having cut their channels 

 through the alluvial deposit after it had been formed. 

 In fact, it is not possible that they could have been 

 instrumental in forming the plain through which they 

 pass. Their head-waters come from the extreme ends 

 of the valley, north and south ; and, were it not for 

 the supply of water received from the streams which 

 flow into them from the Sierra Nevada, their beds 

 would be almost, if not quite, dry in the summer 

 months. The soil is very rich, and, with a proper 

 system of drainage and embankment, would, undoubt- 

 edly, be capable of producing any crop, except sugar- 

 cane, now cultivated in the Atlantic States of the 

 Union. 



^' There are many beautiful valleys and rich hill- 

 sides among the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada, which, 

 when the profits of labor in mining shall be reduced 

 so as to cause its application to agriculture, will pro- 

 bably support a large population. There is said to 

 be a rich belt of well-timbered and watered country 

 extending the whole length of the gold region between 

 it and the Sierra Nevada, some twenty miles in width. 

 There is no information sufficiently accurate respect- 

 ing the eastern slope of the great snowy range to 

 enable us to form any opinion of its general character 

 or soil. Some of its valleys have been visited by 

 miners, who represe^it them as equal to any portion 

 of the country to the westward of it. 



''The great valley of the Colorado, situated between 

 the Sierra Madre and the Sierra Nevada, is but little 

 IvTiown. It is inhabited by numerous tribes of savages, 

 who manifest the most decided hostility towards the 



