TOPOGRAPHICAL NAMES, 425 
Indians to mine in what is now Amador county. Vallejo, Pa- 
checo, Martinez, and Alvarado, art the names of prominent 
men among the Spanish Californians. Some Spanish names 
have been changed into English, The American River was 
formerly called el Rio de los Americanos, because the Ameri- 
cans entering California usually came down the banks of that 
stream. The Feather River was called el Rio de las Plumas, 
the river of feathers. The “Plumas,” after having been aban- 
doned as a designation for the river, was given to the county 
in which the river takes its rise. The Yuba River was called 
by the Spaniards, el Rio de las Uvas (the river of the grapes). 
The ignorant Spaniards wrote the main word Ubas, the 6 and 
v being often confounded in the Castilian tongue. The Ameri- 
cans gave the English pronunciation to the initial «, then wrote 
it ‘‘ Yubas,” as they pronounced it, and finally changed it to 
the singular. Angel Island was formerly called la Isla de los 
Angeles, and Mare Island was called la Isla de las Yeguas. The 
town of Benicia was laid off in 1846, and was first called 
“ Francesca,” one of the Christian names of the wife of M. G. 
Vallejo, on whose land the town was to be built ; but in March, 
1847, the name of the town of Yerba Buena was changed to San 
Francisco, and the projector of Benicia, Mr. Charles D. Semple, 
thought it necessary, for the purpose of avoiding confusion, to 
change the name of his city on paper, so he adopted “ Benicia,” 
another name of Mrs. Vallejo. The town of Sonora was so 
named because the majority of the first miners there were from 
Sonora. The New Almaden quicksilver mine, for some months 
after the nature of the ore was discovered, was called la Mina 
de Santa Clara. Its present name was derived from the great 
quicksilver mine of Almaden, in old Spain. The Enriqueta 
quicksilver mine was named after Enriqueta (Henrietta) Lau- 
rencel, the daughter of the managing owner of the rancho at 
the time the mine was discovered. 
§ 302. Indian Names.—The Indian names in California are 
numerous. Among them are Siskiyou, Klamath, Shasta, Te- 
hama, Colusa, Yolo, Napa, Sonoma, Mokelumne, Tuolumne, 
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