TOPOGRAPHY OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 35 



and more durable metamorphic rocks of the Klamath Mountains. 

 Excellent views of this plain may be obtained from the Red 

 Bluff and Hayfork stage road, five miles northwest of Hunter's 

 postoffice, and from the mountain roads and trails leading west- 

 ward from Stephenson's, Miller's, Lowrey's, and Paskenta, in 

 Tehama county. 



In the Klamath Mountains. — The plain already noted lies at 

 the southeastern base of the Klamath Mountains, and passes by 

 gradual and rapid transition into the steeper slopes of the moun- 

 tains in such a way as to indicate that the plain may have once ex- 

 tended across the region now occupied by the Klamath Mountains. 

 Within that group the plain has been recognized thirty miles 

 southeast of Humboldt bay, about Shower's pass, at an altitude 

 of nearly 4,000 feet, and a little farther east, in the even crest of 

 South Fork Mountain, at an altitude of 6,000 feet. Major J. W. 

 Powell informs me that he has observed a deformed baselevel in 

 the Coast Range north of San Francisco. It will doubtless yet 

 be found at many points, but on account of the great deforma- 

 tion which has taken place in the Klamath Mountains and Coast 

 Range since the baselevel was formed, it is difficult to trace. 



On the western slope of the Sierra Nevada. — The baselevel we 

 have followed from Elder creek to Pit river was evidently deter- 

 mined by a body of water occupying the Sacramento valley, and 

 traces of a corresponding level might be expected along the 

 opposite shore about the Sierra Nevada. 



The western slope of that range may be briefly described as 

 an inclined plane, interrupted only by the narrow canons of the 

 present streams. Professor J. D. Whitney graphically portrayed 

 the region as follows : "To one standing on some point, not too 

 elevated, but from which a good view of the surface of the coun- 

 try along the flanks of the Sierra may be had, its slope will 

 appear to be quite uniform and unbroken to one looking along a 

 line parallel with the general trend of the range. It will seem, 

 provided the point of view be favorably selected, as if the whole 

 region was a gently descending plain, sloping down to the Great 

 valley at an angle of not more than two or three degrees. And 



