Notes on Upper California. 253 



Spring, in the vicinity of Destruction river, the affluent of the 

 Sacramento which the party thence followed on their way south. 



Descending a few yards to a small plain on the border of the 



observed 



The water 



was oozing from among the rocks into a basin scarcely holding 

 a gallon, and flowed down over a small marshy spot thickly cov- 

 ered with iron-rust. It was brisk and pungent with carbonic 

 acid, and was called by the trappers soda-water. The taste was 

 agreeably acidulous and chalybeate, without any thing saline or 

 alkaline. Fifty yards beyond the spring, there was a shallow 

 ditch a hundred yards long, containing about half a foot of wa- 

 ter similarly chalybeate, but less brisk with carbonic acid. Our 

 horses drank freely of it, and with good relish. The temperature 

 of the spring was as cool as that of the mountain torrent near by. 

 The passage through the mountains occupied us from the 4th 

 of October till the 10th. Destruction river was at first but a mere 

 rivulet ; it increased rapidly to a brawling torrent, and then to a 

 large stream several feet in depth. It is a succession of cata- 

 racts through a great part of its course, affording scenery of the 

 wildest character, as it dashes impetuously through its narrow 

 defiles, over the rugged rocks. We seldom could travel even 

 for a short distance upon its banks. Through our whole course, 

 till we emerged upon the plains of the Sacramento, we were as- 

 cending and descending, — now up a rocky steep several hundred 

 or perhaps a thousand feet high, and then to the bottom of the 

 cra ggy valley. The view ahead varied but little : ridge beyond 

 ridge appeared to interlock below along the river. 



Soon after leaving the Chalybeate Spring, we were again on 

 talcose rocks and syenite, and beyond soon passed to granite. 

 From our encampment on the night of the 4th, a valley on the 

 west opened to us a magnificent spectacle of needle peaks and 

 lofty pinnacles of granite. This bold crested ridge was about three 

 thousand feet high above the plain at its foot, and one massy 

 peak overhung the valley. A few evergreen spires stood in the 

 clefts of the ridge ; otherwise it presented a bare surface of gray- 

 ish-white rock. A whitish debris covered the slope at its base, and 

 the valley was strewed with boulders of granite. 



The granite of the region has a very light color and looked 

 in the distance much like cliffs of chalk. It was generally albitic, 

 containing white albite, either in place of feldspar, or associated 

 with it. In some places the feldspar crystals disseminated through 

 the albitic rock measured one and a half by two inches in their 

 dimensions. The mica was usually in MBf 

 sometimes silvery: it w r as not abundant. 



black 



compound of albite and 

 quartz. The granite passes gradually into syenite, first a few 

 crystals of hornblende appearing in the rock, and then beyond, 

 this mineral becoming a characteristic ingredient. 



