TRAVELS IN THE CALIFORNIA S. 
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volcanic remains. From this point eastward, it is a broken 
irregular chain of peaks and rifted collateral ranges, and 
spurs running off northwardly and southwardly, some of 
which are primitive and others volcanic. 
Another range of mountains which deserves notice in this 
place, is that which bounds the valley of the San Joaquim on 
the east. This is a wide and towering range. It is in fact a 
continuation of the President’s range, and partakes very 
strongly of its volcanic character. That part of it which lies 
eastwardly from the Bay of San Francisco, is very broad and 
lofty. One of its peaks, Mount Jackson, as it is called, is the 
* highest in all the President’s range. A mighty shaft of rocks 
is. that! Mountains of great size are piled around it, but 
they appear like molehills beside that veteran mount. Some 
of these lesser ones are so high as to be covered with snow r 
most of the year. But this vast peak towers over them all 
several thousand feet, a glittering cone of ice. These moun¬ 
tains decrease in height as they advance towards the mouth 
of the Colorado, where they terminate in low crags and sandy 
hills. 
All over the Californias, the traveller finds evidences of 
volcanic action. Far in the interior, among the deserts; in 
the streams; in the heights; in the plains; everywhere are 
manifestations of the fact, that the current of subterranean 
fire which crossed the Pacific, throwing up that line of isl¬ 
ands lying on the south of the sea of Kamschatka, and passed 
down the continent upheaving the Oregon Territory, did also 
bring up from the bed of the ocean the Californias ; and 
among geological periods, I venture the opinion that this 
great event occurred at quite a recent date. 
Geography. —The Californias are bounded on the North by 
the 42d parallel of Latitude ; on the East, by a line running 
due north from the head waters of the Arkansas river, and by 
the Anahuac and Taos mountains ; on the South, by the river 
Jila and the Gulf of California; and on the West, by the 
Pacific Ocean 
