SAN GABRIEL—ALLUVIAL LAND—IGNEOUS ROCK. 
79 
Valley of San Gabriel river.- — Monte .—After crossing this stream, we passed over a broad plain 
which was covered with vegetation, and appeared to possess a fertile soil and to he well suited 
to agriculture. It was already covered by preemption claims, and the settlers were busily 
engaged in erecting small adobe houses, the clay for the adobes being obtained on the spot by 
digging down a few feet. Many American families were already established there, and we 
passed several fields of corn and vegetables. The ground is low and moist, and the soil clayey. 
It is an alluvial deposit. 
At the Puenta rancho we tasted some good red wine, like port, manufactured from grapes 
raised on the place, and beautiful bunches of red and white grapes were obtained at an adjoining 
house. Large flocks of sheep were feeding upon the burr of the California clover, and * the 
surface in some places was covered with a dense thicket of the dead stalks of the wild mustard, 
which grows there to a great height. Low foot-hills rose to the northward of this place, hut 
the rocks were not seen. A large portion of the country passed over had an alluvial aspect. 
On the 3d of November we stopped at a rancho of a native Californian to purchase barley. I 
there observed fig and peach trees growing luxuriantly near the house. The rafters of the 
store-house, from which the barley was taken, were hung with clusters of grapes, which were 
much dried, like raisins. The land here is well watered, and has a deep clay soil; an exposure 
along a brook showed an alluvial deposit fifteen feet in thickness. Our movements were much 
embarrassed this morning by a dense fog, which hung over the landscape until nine o’clock, 
and prevented us from seeing anything at a distance of over twenty yards. We passed to-day 
an outcrop of intrusive rock, forming a low ridge on our right, trending approximately east and 
west. Its position is indicated on the general map as nearly as possible. I also observed low 
hills of white and yellowish shale, in straight thin layers, not far from the erupted rock. 
[On the recent maps of this region from the United States Land Office, a range of hills is laid 
down, extending nearly northwest and southeast, or from about the point at which the intru¬ 
sive rock was observed towards the mountains of the Peninsula. This range of hills is prob¬ 
ably formed of igneous rocks, dykes of trap, greenstone or porphyry, and uplifted tertiary 
strata. Geologically, it is probably the equivalent of the San Fernando hills, and those between 
San Fernando and Los Angeles, and may he regarded as holding a relation to the Bernardino 
Sierra similar to that of the Coast Mountains to the Sierra Nevada. In the absence of any 
definite knowledge of this range at the time of writing this Itinerary, the whole slope to the 
Pacific from the valley of San Bernardino was regarded as nearly unbroken.—1857.] 
It possessed one hundred and five thousand cattle, twenty thousand horses, and more than forty thousand sheep. They 
harvested twenty thousand fanegas of grain, and made five hundred barrels of wine, and as much brandy. At this time 
(1844) there are not more than five hundred Indians, seven hundred beef cattle, five hundred horses, and three thousand 
five hundred sheep. 
San Gabriel is indebted for the introduction of the culture of the vine to Padre Zalvidea. He made the first attempt 
upon a vineyard of seventy thousand stocks, and this obtained for him, in that region, the surname of “ Father of seventy 
thousand vines .”—(Elpadre de las setenta mil cepas.) 
There are fine clumps of palm trees near the Mission, and three grand vineyards, containing nearly two hundred thousand 
stocks. There are also four superb orchards and kitchen gardens, and an immense garden of olives, and another containing 
four hundred orange trees. The vineyards, gardens and orchards were surrounded by an impenetrable hedge of prickly- 
pear, (figui6rs de Barbarie.) Padre Zalvidea had negotiated with an American house for the iron necessary to form a fence 
around the vineyard, and was on the point of having all the materials ready when the secularization took place. This 
monk distinguished himself by his enterprising spirit. He sent a ship to San Bias every year loaded with oil, hemp and 
flax. He often sent another to Lima with a cargo of soap and tallow. The number of hides furnished by the Mission was 
rom twenty to twenty-five thousand a yeafi. 
