3G 
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE REGIONS EXAMINED. 
now divided into farms, the produce of which finds a ready market at Yreka and the mines. 
The greater elevation above the sea renders the climate much colder than that of the valleys 
further north. Frost has been known to occur here in every month of the year. 
Trinity river rises near Mount Shasta, and, after making a great bend to the south, discharges 
itself into the Klamath river, of which it is the largest tributary. My party, starting from its 
head waters, followed down the stream for about one quarter of its length. It flowed through 
a deep ravine, hounded by high and timbered ridges. The bottom was so narrow that there 
was very little arable land. A short distance below the point where we left the river, it enters 
an immense canon, which extends without much interruption to its mouth. 
SHASTA BUTTE AND THE MOUNTAIN CHAINS OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA. 
Shasta Butte, by far the most striking topographical feature of northern California, rises 
abruptly to a height generally estimated at 18,000 feet above the sea. The peak is double, and 
both summits are rounded, massive, and loaded with eternal snow. Its white cloud-like form is 
distinctly visible from points in the Sacramento valley, more than one hundred miles distant. 
This Butte is not only the largest and grandest peak of the long range which divides the 
sterile interior of the country from the fertile valleys of the Pacific Slope, hut it is also a great 
centre, from which diverge the numerous chains that render northern California one mass of 
mountains. In approaching it by the Oregon trail, both from the north and the south, there 
is, independent of the high ridges, a gradual increase in the elevation of the country, for about 
50 miles. The region near the base itself thus attains an altitude of about 4,000 feet above the 
sea; and it is an interesting fact, that most of the northern mines are found upon this vast 
pedestal of the giant Butte. 
Great confusion exists in the nomenclature of the mountain ranges in the vicinity. The name, 
Cascade mountains, ceases at Klamath river, but the range in reality divides. One branch, 
called the Siskiyou mountains, bends westward nearly to the coast; the other, under the name 
of the Western Chain of the Sierra Nevada, winds to the southeast, and unites with the main 
Sierra Nevada. From the Butte, three steep and thickly wooded ridges called Little Scott’s 
mountains, Scott’s mountains, and Trinity mountains, extend to the westward. The two latter 
are branches of the Coast Range of California. Shasta Butte, although generally considered a 
peak of the Western Chain of the Sierra Nevada, is, in truth, the great centre from which 
radiate, besides several smaller ridges, the Cascade Range, the Coast Range, and the Western 
Chain of the Sierra Nevada. 
