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Adventures in Scenery 



are prevented from flowing north to join the great San Joaquin 

 River, which carries the waters of the rivers from the Sierra 

 Range farther north northward to finally reach San Francisco 

 Bay and the Golden Gate. 



Kings River rises in the high Sierra near Split Mountain, 

 and has carved a tremendous canyon in its descent to the plain 

 of the Great Valley bottom. In times of exceptional floods, 

 when levees break, its waters may reach the San Joaquin. 

 Normally its waters, which do not disappear in the porous 



Courtesy Kern County Chamber of Commerce 

 FIG. 40. Olive orchard near Bakersfield in Great Central Valley. 



sands, enter Tulare Lake. Tulare Lake is connected by a 

 slough with Buena Vista and Kern lakes to the south. The 

 waters of Kern River that survive the porous sands enter the 

 basin in which Buena Vista and Kern lakes spread out. Tulare, 

 Buena Vista and Kern lakes thus lie in a closed basin within the 



