332 
SCENES IN THE PACIFIC. 
begins to rise rapidly; the open vales creep up into the 
heights among brooks and forests, till lost in the wilderness 
of white, red, and yellow pine, and live and white oak, whose 
gigantic trunks stud the mountains to the regions of perpetual 
frost. 
These branches of the Sacramento are strong dashing 
mountain streams. The eastern one rises among the Sierras 
Nevadas, or snowy mountain range, about three hundred miles 
east of Cape Mendocino: and has a southwesterly toituous 
course of nearly seven hundred miles to the forks. This is 
the largest branch of the Sacramento. It is navigable for 
small craft, as before observed, several hundred miles during the 
wet season, and will be very useful in floating down the val¬ 
uable timber of its vales, and of the mountain sides, to less 
woody regions around the bay. A beautiful chain of open 
plains, with a rich soil, watered by numerous streams and 
rivulets, and skirted by the finest forests, extends the distance 
of seventy or eighty miles up this branch. At this point, in 
Latitude 39° 35' N., are the first rapids. Here the traveller 
to and from Oregon, fords the river in the dry season. The 
stream is here about one hundred and twenty yards wide, with 
four feet of water in the channel, and a swift current. In the 
winter and spring the depth of water at this ford is ten or fif¬ 
teen feet. 
At this place commences the southerly slope of the Snowy 
Mountains ; and the whole aspect and character of the country 
becomes still more beautiful and valuable. The soil on the 
hills is admirably adapted to the growth of forest trees; and 
the prairies wind among the wooded elevations and along the 
banks of delightful streams, clothed with the richest and most 
varied abundance of vegetable productions, crowned wdth 
countless blossoms, and sending out on the air the most grate¬ 
ful perfumes. And these plains and wooded hills reach to the 
Snowy Mountains, where in Latitude 40 3 there is an easy 
passage to the valley of Smith River. This portion of these 
