404 Adventures in Scenery 



Canyons of Sacramento; Important 

 Mines 



Proceeding north from Redding the Sacramento River has 

 cut a canyon 200 feet deep in hard ancient lava rock. A little 

 above Redding the valley opens out into the wider valley that 

 forms the north end of what is known as Sacramento Valley. 



Middle Creek, which enters the Sacramento three miles 

 north of Redding, was at one time rich in placer gold, which 

 was recovered from river gravels brought down from the 

 mountains on the west. 



Northwest of Keswick five miles is the Iron Mountain mine, 

 which has produced many millions in value in copper. The ore 

 is conveyed from the mine by a crooked narrow-gauge railroad, 

 and is smelted near Martinez, on San Francisco Bay. Gold- 

 bearing quartz veins are worked east of the river at Central 

 Mine, and the ore is brought to the railroad by a bucket tram- 

 way. From Keswick north for 10 miles the region is one of 

 desolation. Fumes from the copper smelters at Keswick, 

 Coram, and Kennett have killed all the vegetation and left bare 

 slopes which resemble the colorful sunbaked hills of the desert. 

 Copper occurs principally in the hills to the west. On the east 

 are ancient lavas in which are gold-quartz veins. 



About three miles northwest of Kennett is the Mammoth 

 copper mine. The ore occurs in large bodies of irregular shape, 

 in quartz-porphyry (a granitic rock composed chiefly of quartz 

 crystals with feldspar) . This is an igneous rock which was 

 injected into andesite lava, a lava which was poured out in early 

 Palaeozoic time. The intrusion of the quartz -porphyry into 

 the lava occurred in Jurassic time. Almost the only rocks vis- 

 ible from Redding north to Kennett are quartz-porphyry and 

 andesite lava. 



Pit River Joins the Sacramento 



Pit River enters the Sacramento a few miles north of Ken- 

 nett. Pit River comes from Goose Lake, in the northeastern 



