GENERAL SUMMARY. 433 
versal use. Large rivers are turned out of their beds; moun- 
tains are pierced by tunnels; hills are washed away; and the 
rivers roll thick with mud to the sea through summer and 
winter. 
The silver-minés of the state were discovered only a short 
time ago, and their value is not yet fully known; but that 
some of the ore is wonderfully rich, is established beyond a 
doubt. The silver districts are in the basin of Utah, at an 
elevation of five thousand feet or more above the level of the 
sea, in the midst of a desert country. 
In quicksilver, California is the richest country in the world. 
There are extensive beds of sulphur, asphaltum, and plumbago, 
and large lakes and springs impregnated with borax. 
The natural scenery of California is varied and grand. The 
Yosemite valley is a chasm ten miles long, two miles wide, and 
three thousand feet deep, in the heart of the Sierra Nevada, 
without its equal in the world for sublime and picturesque 
scenery. It has a dozen great cascades, the highest of which 
has a fall of thirteen hundred feet. The Mammoth Trees are 
the largest known growths of the vegetable kingdom. There 
are likewise in the state mud-volcanoes, natural bridges, many 
caves, and numerous hot and mineral springs, some of which 
throw out great columns of steam. 
The animals and plants of California are peculiar to this 
coast. The finest group of coniferous trees in the world is 
that of this state. The mammoth tree, the redwood, the 
sugar-pine, the red fir, the yellow fir, and the Zhuja gigantea, 
all reach the wonderful height of three hundred feet; the 
mammoth tree grows to be thirty feet in diameter, the red- 
wood twenty, and the others from eight to twelve. 
The grizzly bear is the largest and strongest indigenous 
animal of the continent; and the Californian vulture is, next 
to the condor, the largest bird that flies. The sea near our 
coast teems with halibut, turbot, mackerel, herring, sardines, 
anchovies, and smelts; while sturgeon and salmon are abun- 
dant in our rivers. 
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