SOME PHYSICAL FEATURES.

23

with alkali, and in the south by a rugged lake basin. Yet even here the evil is superficial, for nature has left compensation in many valuable minerals; and art promises to continue her task of reclamation by means of palm-lined canals, health-bringing eucalyptus groves, and rain-inviting forests.

It is a terrane younger than the eastern seaboard, wrought not by the same slow and prosy process of ordinary strata formation, but in many a fit of passion, with upheavals and burstings asunder, with surging floods and scorching blasts. The soil yet quivers and is quick with electric force, and climatic moods are fitful as ever; here a gentle summer's holiday, there a winter of magnificent disorder; between, exhilarating spring, with buds and freshness, and beyond, a torrid fringe, parched and enervating. Side by side in close proximity are decided differences, with a partial subordination of latitude and season to local causes. Thus, on the peninsula of San Francisco winter appears in vernal warmth and vigor, and summer as damp and chilly autumn, while under the shelter of some ridge, or farther from the ocean, summer is hot and arid, and winter cold and frosty.

While configuration permits surprises, it also tempers them, and as a rule the variations are not sudden. The sea breezes are fairly constant whenever their refreshing presence is most needed, leaving rarely a night uncooled; and the seasons are marked enough within their mild extremes. At San Francisco a snow-fall is almost unknown, and a thunderstorm or a hot night extremely rare. Indeed, the sweltering days number scarcely half a dozen during the year. The average temperature is about 56 degrees Fahrenheit, which is the mean for spring. In summer and autumn this rises to 60 and 59, respectively, falling in winter to 51, while at Sacramento the average is 58 degrees, with 56°, 69°, 61°, and 45° for the four seasons respectively. At Humboldt Bay, in the north, the temperature varies from 43 degrees in

64

the winter to 57° in the summer, averaging 51°; and at San Diego, in the south, it ranges as the extremes from 52 to 71 degrees, while the average of summer and winter and night and day does not vary over ten degrees.

In summer an equilibrium is approached; in winter the tiresome reserve is broken. By early autumn a wide-spread deadness obtains; the hills wear a bleached appearance, the smaller streams are empty, the plain is parched and dusty, the soil cracked in fissures from excessive dryness; green fields have turned sere and yellow, and the weeds snap like glass when trodden on. It is the period of nature's repose. The grass is not dead, but sleepeth. When the winter rains begin, in November, after a respite of six months, vegetal life revives; the softened soil puts on fresh garments; the arid waste blossoms into a garden. The cooler air of winter condenses the vapor-laden winds of ocean, which, during the preceding months, are sapped of their moisture by the hot and thirsty air. And all this is effected with only half the amount of rain falling in the Atlantic states, the average at San Francisco being little over twenty inches annually, at Sacramento one tenth less, and at San Diego one half; while in the farther north the fall is heavier and more evenly distributed.

In this dry, exhilarating atmosphere the effect of the sun is not so depressing as in moister regions, and with cool, refreshing nights, the hottest days are bearable. It is one of the most vitalizing of climates for mind and body, ever stimulating to activity and enjoyment. Land and sea vie with each other in lifegiving supremacy, while man steps in to enjoy the benefits. When the one rises in undue warmth, the other frowns it down; when one grows cold and sullen, the other beams in happy sunshine. Winds and

64 Severe extremes are confined to a few torrid spots like Fort Yuma, and to the summits of the eastern ranges. Comprehensive data on climate in Hittell's Comm. and Indust., 62-81.

THE AWAKENING AT HAND.

25

currents, sun and configuration, the warm stream from ancient Cathay, and the dominating mountains, all aid in the equalization of differences.

Thus lay the valley of California a-dreaming, with visions of empire far down the vistas of time, when behold, the great awakening is already at hand! Even now noiseless bells are ringing the ingathering of the nations; for here is presently to be found that cold, impassive element which civilization accepts as its symbol of the Most Desirable, and for which accordingly all men perform pilgrimage and crusade, to toil and fight and die.

CHAPTER II.

THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD.

JANUARY, 1848.

SITUATION OF SUTTER-HIS NEED OF LUMBER-SEARCH FOR A MILL SITE IN THE MOUNTAINS-CULUMA-JAMES W. MARSHALL-THE BUILDING OF A SAW-MILL DETERMINED UPON-A PARTY SETS FORTH-ITS PERSONNELCHARACTER OF MARSHALL THE FINDING OF GOLD-WHAT MARSHALL

AND HIS MEN THOUGHT OF IT-MARSHALL RIDES TO NEW HELVETIA AND INFORMS SUTTER-THE INTERVIEW-SUTTER VISITS THE MILL-ATTEMPT TO SECURE THE INDIAN TITLE TO THE LAND.

JOHN A. SUTTER was the potentate of the Sacramento, as we have seen. He had houses and lands, flocks and herds, mills and machinery; he counted his skilled artisans by the score, and his savage retainers by the hundred. He was, moreover, a man of progress. Although he had come from cultured Europe, and had established himself in an American wilderness, he had no thought of drifting into savagism.

Among his more pressing wants at this moment was a saw-mill. A larger supply of lumber was needed for a multitude of purposes. Fencing was wanted. The flour-mills, then in course of construction at Brighton, would take a large quantity; the neighbors would buy some, and boards might profitably be sent to San Francisco, instead of bringing them from that direction. There were no good forest trees, with

1 Since 1845 Sutter had obtained lumber from the mountains, got out by whip-saws. Bidwell's Cal. 1841-8, MS., 226. The author of this most valuable manuscript informs me further that Sutter had for years contemplated building a saw-mill in order to avoid the labor and cost of sawing lumber by hand in the redwoods on the coast, and bringing it round by the bay in his vessel. With this object he at various times sent exploring parties into the

CULUMA, BEAUTIFUL VALE.

27

the requisite water-power, nearer than the foothills of the mountains to the east. Just what point along this base line would prove most suitable, search would determine; and for some time past this search had been going on, until it was interrupted by the war of conquest. The war being over, explorations were renewed.

Twoscore miles above Sutter's Fort, a short distance up the south branch of American River, the rocky gateway opens, and the mountains recede to the south, leaving in their wake softly rounded hills covered with pine, balsam, and oak, while on the north are somewhat abrupt and rocky slopes, patched with grease-wood and chemisal, and streaked with the deepening shades of narrow gulches. Between these bounds is a valley four miles in circumference, with red soil now covered by a thin verdure, shaded here and there by low bushes and stately groves. Culuma, 'beautiful vale," the place was called. At times sunk in isolation, at times it was stirred by the presence of a tribe of savages bearing its name, whose several generations here cradled, after weary roaming, sought repose upon the banks of a useful, happy, and sometimes frolicsome stream. Within the half-year civilization had penetrated these precincts, to break the periodic solitude with the sound of axe and rifle; for here the saw-mill men had come, marking their course by a tree-blazed route, presently to show the way to the place where was now to be played the first scene of a drama which had for its audience the world.

Among the retainers of the Swiss hacendado at this time was a native of New Jersey, James Wilson Marshall, a man of thirty-three years, who after drifting in the western states as carpenter and farmer,3

mountains. Bidwell himself, in company with Semple, was on one of these unsuccessful expeditions in 1846. Mrs Wimmer states that in June 1847 she made ready her household effects to go to Battle Creek, where a saw-mill was to be erected, but the men changed their plans and went to Coloma.

We of to-day write Coloma, and apply the name to the town risen there. 3 Born in 1812 in Hope township, Hunterdon county, New Jersey, where