BORAX  LAKE  AND  SULPHUR  BANKS  IN  CALIFORNIA.  155 
THE  BORAX   LAKE   AND   SULPHUR   BANKS   IN  NAPA 
VALLEY,  CALIFORNIA. 
Calistoga  Springs,  Napa  Valley,  Cal.,  Oct  ,  1866. 
The  Napa  Valley,  in  California,  is  about  forty  miles  long  from 
north  to  south,  and  averages  nearly  two  miles  in  breadth.  For 
the  most  part,  the  valley  is  as  umbrageous  now  as  before  its 
cultivation  ;  the  beautiful  oaks  with  which  it  was  studded  still 
remaining.  The  first  settlers  of  California  had  not  before  them 
dense  forests  nor  treeless  plains ;  but  -a  country  which,  when 
viewed  from  the  mountains,  presents  the  appearance  of  an 
English  park. 
At  the  entrance  to  the  valley  is  a  soda  spring,  the  waters  of 
which  are  bottled  and  used  throughout  the  country.  In  the 
middle,  among  sequestred  and  woody  hills,  there  are  the  White 
Sulphur  Springs,  with  a  hotel  and  cottages,  to  which  many  in- 
valids resort  with  advantage  ;  and  here,  in  the  upper  part  of  the 
valley,  are  hot  and  sulphur  springs.  This  is  Calistoga — a  fancy 
name  for  a  place  which  will  become  magnificent.  Mr.  Brannan, 
its  public  spirited  proprietor,  a  pioneer  among  the  pioneers  of 
the  State,  has  expended  a  fabulous  sum  in  planting  trees  over 
the  shallow,  heated  soil,  beneath  which  boiling  water  flows  in 
every  direction,  some  of  its  streams  being  highly  charged  with 
sulphur.  Success  is  rewarding  his  efforts,  and  all  that  is  needed 
to  make  Calistoga  a  Saratoga — shady  walks — is  being  accom- 
plished. Stages  leave  Calistoga  daily  for  the  geysers,  which  T 
have  just  visited. 
MOUNT  ST.  HELENA. 
Before  beginning  the  ascent  of  Mount  St.  Helena,  which 
bounds  this  valley  on  the  east,  you  pass  a  depot  of  borax  and 
sulphur,  where  those  commodities,  after  being  transported  across 
the  mountains  in  teams  of  six  mules,  carrying  six  tons,  are  trans- 
ferred into  teams  carrying  ten  tons,  drawn  by  eight  mules,  to 
the  railway  for  shipment  in  steamers  to  San  Francisco.  The 
excellent  road,  just  completed,  which  is  carried  on  the  steep  ac- 
clivities of  the  mountains,  by  the  side  of  precipices  a  thousand 
feet  deep  in  some  places,  has  been  constructed  purposely  for  the 
conveyance  of  those  valuable  minerals.    Mount  St.  Helena, 
