NAPA VALLEY. 21 
a hill or an undulation. A luxuriant growth of 
grass, studded with brilliant wild flowers, lined our 
path. As we continued north, the adjacent hills 
became more thickly wooded, particularly with pines 
and firs; the red-wood, a species of cypress, still more 
conspicuous, raising its tall stem far above the others.* 
attacks of the rival rancherias, but attacking in turn, exterminated the 
unruly, sustained the wavering, and, single-handed, bullied the whole 
valley into submission. Many a weary, and anxious, and watchful night 
did he spend ere this result was achieved; but once accomplished, his 
soverelonty remained undisputed; the conquered became his servants; 
and the allies of Caymus remain to this day his laborers and his farm 
hands.” —Tour in, California, p. 95. 
* This tree is remarkable for the great height which it attains. Ihave 
been told by credible persons that specimens are now growing which are 
three hundred feet in height; and I have seen persons who have mea- 
sured fallen trunks two hundred and sixty-six feet in length. It is one of 
the most important vegetable productions of California; and besides the 
various uses to which it is applied when sawed into boards, it is exten- 
sively employed for fencing purposes, the grain being so straight that it 
splits with the greatest ease; indeed, before the introduction of saw- 
mills, it was usual to split logs of the red wood into planks. 
It is also said to be very durable. Colonel Fremont saw posts which 
had been in the ground three fourths of a century, without traces of 
decay. ‘The houses built by the Russians at Bodega many years since, 
are of this timber, with posts sunk in the ground, into which the 
horizontal pieces are mortised. The planks upon the sides are about 
three inches thick, and had been but little smoothed off after being split. 
No signs of decay could be detected even in the posts. At this place, 
Captain Smith erected a steam, grist, and saw-mill, in 1845, being the 
first structure of the kind in the country. He states that they could not 
saw logs much over four feet in diameter, and never cut any less than 
eighteen inches; and yet the average number of cuts or logs, each of 
sixteen feet in length from a single tree, was between eight and ten.* 
* Report of P. T. Tyson to the Secretary of War, on the Geology and Topography of Califor- 
nia, 
