Chap. X. SCENERY OF THE COAST RANGE. 581 
to contain numerous small and irregular seams of ter- 
tiary coal, by which a company of citizens of San Fran- 
cisco had been induced to make investigations and 
trials as to the occurrence of this kind of fuel in a 
sufficient quantity, and under circumstances favourable 
enough to warrant the working of a coal-mine. The 
Company invited me to visit the locality ; and the little 
excursion, which was made about the middle of January, 
afforded an opportunity of seeing some very attractive 
spots on the eastern slope of the coast range. This ridge 
of mountains, with the strata of tertiary rocks inclined 
towards the interior of the country, is generally bare and 
rugged on its western, and wooded on its eastern side. Its 
little valleys, in that direction, are fresh and green, and of 
a wild and romantic character. While the more open por- 
tions of the country, towards the bay, are almost without 
trees, these secluded localities are overgrown with the most 
beautiful evergreens. Here the royal laurel, and the 
stately arbutus, reminding us of the classical countries 
round the Mediterranean, grow in company with the gigantic 
redwood pine, which made my thoughts recur to the dark 
valleys of the Black Forest, and the Thuringian moun- 
tains ; while the evergreen oak, forming little groves in the 
dale, or scattered over a grassy slope, carries the mind to 
the Sierra Madre of Sonora and Chihuahua. A little 
colony of Hungarian gentlemen have taken possession of 
some of the finest situations of that part of this region 
which I passed through on my way back to San Francisco. 
Commodious though small country-houses, surrounded by 
gardens and pleasure grounds, had sprung up in a wilder- 
ness still frequented by the lynx, the puma, and the grizzly 
bear. 
In the month of August, I made a trip to the little 
