1 882.] From Napa County, California. 209 



Howell mountain as well as the country beyond, known as 

 Pope's valley, form a region full of attractions for the lover of 

 nature, whether a devotee of science or art. The mountain has 

 an elevation variously stated at from 1500 to 1800 feet above the 

 sea ; from favorable points a magnificent panorama is presented, 

 extending to Mt. Diablo in the south, and covering the whole 

 valley of Napa and the westerly mountain ranges which fence in 

 the pleasant valleys between their ridges. The atmosphere is full 

 of health, and the scenery full of inspiration. On every hand, at 

 every turn of the road, right or left, are pictures full of beauty, 

 refreshing to the soul and delightful to the eye. Towering pines, 

 often two hundred feet in height, the Douglass spruce, full of 

 grace and beauty when young, and standing grim, valiant and 

 erect with outstretched and sometimes naked arms when old— as 

 if prepared to wrestle with the storm ; sturdy madronas with 

 broadly buttressed bases holding firm to earth, with clean-barked 

 branches widespreading to the sky; noble oaks whose port and 

 bearing are full of stately grandeur. These form but a part of the 

 sylvan deities in whose majestic presence adoration mingles with 

 admiration ; these and humbler forms of vegetation, with rock 

 and earth and mountain, are the elements here combined in pic- 

 turesque harmony, a perpetual feast of beauty, changing only in 

 the morning and evening to put on new splendor in the changing 

 light, and revealing new graces and fresh charms of color and of 

 form. Amid such scenes the California red man, indigenous and 

 to the region born, lived, roamed, hunted and passed away, to be 

 followed by paler faces of exotic lineage, who travel over the long 

 unused and obscure trail, seeking among the chips and stones 

 abandoned by the way, the story of those who made them. 



Lack of time prevented investigations elsewhere than at 

 Howell mountain ; Angroin's farm is a good point for a base, as 

 well as for recreation, and here more might be done. Pope val- 

 ley, just over the ridge, should also be explored. It offers great 

 inducements to the ethnologist, the artist and all others who love 

 nature, or who seek for release or rest away from the tumult of 

 traffic and the town. 



