72 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 
CHAPTER IV. 
SCENERY. 
§ 52. Introductory —California has much beautiful scenery. 
The atmosphere is remarkably clear, giving the eye a wide 
range. The mountainous character of the state not only pre- 
verits monotony and secures a rich variety of landscapes, but 
gives them extent and grandeur. The large rivers, the high 
snow-peaks and ridges, wide bays, forests of the largest and 
-most graceful evergreens, parks of majestic oaks, natural mead- 
ows covered in the spring with brilliant grasses and flowers, 
are all magnificent in their kind. The valleys are mostly bare 
of timber, with here and there a grove of oaks, and lines 
of trees and bushes along the water courses. The coast val- 
leys are very beautiful, and in the course of ten or fifteen 
years, when ornamented with thorough cultivation, will be as 
pretty as any places in the world. Sonoma, Napa, Amador, 
San Ramon, and Sufiol valleys may be made as beautiful as 
any part ofthe world. 
§ 53. Coast Valleys.——Napa valley, which is now the most 
beautiful of these valleys, because most thickly settled and 
most thoroughly cultivated, is thirty miles long, five miles wide 
at its mouth, gradually growing narrower toward the head. 
Napa River, a small stream, runs through the whole length 
of the valley, which is of level land, bounded on both sides by 
steep mountains, about two thousand feet high. These moun- 
tains, brown near the foreground and blue in the distance, oak 
groves, brilliant laurel and madrofia, fields of wheat and bar- 
ley, ploughed fields, good fences, elegant farm-houses, and nu- 
merous gardens and orchards, go to make up the landscape. 
