54 



Sierra Club Bulletin. 



that missionary ; and asking the Sierra Club to indorse their pro- 

 ceedings. 



I beg to report very briefly to the Club that the first mission- 

 aries who came to this coast were Fathers Juan Crespi and Fran- 

 cisco Gomez. These fathers came with Governor Portola's ex- 

 pedition of 1769, to the port of Monterey, and were with the 

 party when it discovered the Bay of San Francisco. 



In the Portola expedition of 1770 Father Juan Crespi came 

 with the party by land ; and the President Father Junipero Serra 

 by sea, on account of his physical infirmities. 

 . These fathers assisted Governor Portola in founding the Mis- 

 sion of San Carlos at Monterey, which was soon removed to the 

 northeast shore of Carmel Bay, for sufficient reasons. 



Father Crespi continued his labors in California. President 

 Father Serra spent his life in founding other missions on the 

 coast hence to Lower California. He was familiar with the 

 mountain ranges of Santa Lucia and Santa Ynes; and it is be- 

 lieved that he never saw the Sierra Nevada. 



It therefore seems to me that some one of the unnamed peaks 

 of the Sierra Santa Lucia stretching far southward from Carmel 

 Bay would more appropriately bear the name of Father Serra. 

 In that remarkable range, overhanging the Pacific for fifty miles, 

 there are several unnamed peaks of 3,700 to 4,000 feet elevation. 

 They are the landfalls of our navigators, and they were familiar 

 to the early fathers. 



The name of Junipero Serra in the Sierra Nevada will be sim- 

 ply a geographical record; his name upon one of these coast 

 peaks that barred the expeditions of 1769 and 1770 v/ill be a liv- 

 ing designation to some marked and well-known landfall ap- 

 pealed to every day by the mariner and traveler. 



Along the Sierra Santa Lucia, within a range of sixteen min- 

 utes of latitude, and less than three miles from the ocean, I note 

 the following peaks unnamed on the latest charts of the United 

 States Coast and Geodetic Survey: 



Latitude. Height. 



1 36° 11' 4,032 feet 



2 36° 09^' 3,900 feet 



3 36° 08' 4,019 feet 



4 35° 55' 4,014 feet 



This unique relation suggests that four names of the expedi- 

 tions of 1769 and 1770 might well be applied to recall the heroic 

 services to our State of Governor Caspar Portola, Don Miguel 

 Costanso the engineer, Father Juan Crespi, and the President 

 Father Junipero Serra. Very respectfully submitted, 



George Davidson. 



