to be treated as already described. Latterly a dredging machine has been employed, which not only expedites operations, but curtails

expenses.

This lake was discovered by Dr. John A. Veatch, in September, 1859. About two miles to the north of it, on the edge of Clear Lake, is a group of boiling springs, scattered over an area of about eight acres, the water of which is highly charged with boracic acid, soda and chlorine. From a gallon of this water Dr. Veatch obtained, by analysis, four hundred and forty-eight grains of solid matter, consisting of borax, carbonate of soda, chloride of sodium, and silicious matter. One of these springs discharges nearly one hundred gallons of water per minute, the quantity issuing from the entire number being about three hundred gallons per minute, but which is here suffered to run to waste, because of the abundance of more available material at hand. The water of these springs contain the following elements:

And traces of sulphate of lime, chloride of potassium, and bromide of magnesium.

These substances being calculated as anhydrous salts and borax, containing forty-seven per cent. of water when crystalized, causes 103.29 grains in the above analysis to be equal to 195.35 of commercial borax. There are probably no springs in the world which contain so large a per cent. of ammoniacal salts as these.

There is another borax-lake situated in a little valley a few miles northeast of Clear lake, surrounded with thick forests of oak and pine. The bottom of this lake, which covers an area of about twenty acres with a clay similar to that found in the larger lake; and, although its waters are more highly charged with boracic acid, the crystals of the borate of soda have not as yet been found in its bottom. Besides the springs already mentioned, there are several others of less magnitude in this county, impregnated with the salt of borax.

On the shore of Clear lake, near the hot borate springs before noticed, is an immense deposit of sulphur, from beneath which these springs appear to flow. This bank, which covers an area of about 40,000 square yards, is composed of sulphur that appears to have been

concreted into a solid mass-splintered and fissured in innumerable places, from the vapors constantly arising from these springs. Any object placed in the latter is speedily covered with crystals of this substance. Considerable quantities of sulphur from this place have been refined and used by chemical works, and in gunpowder, match and other factories.

In purifying this article, it was found to be impregnated with mercury to a degree that imparted to it quite a dark color; a defect, however, that was readily obviated. On being worked, it is found to yield seventy to eighty per cent. of pure brilliant sulphur. The company refine from six to ten tons of sulphur per day. The demand for this article, for home consumption, amounts to about twelve hundred tons annually in this State, of which five hundred tons are required by the chemical works, six hundred by the powder-mills, and one hundred for making matches, etc.; the most of that obtained in California being from deposits in Colusa county. Its market value is $50 per ton in San Francisco; but so abundant is this article in the mountains extending north from this bank in Lake county, to Tuscan springs in Tehama county, that the supply must always be out of all proportion to the demand, there being a sufficiency here to meet the requirements of the world for centuries to come. There are a number of small beds of salt in this county, but their contents, although quite pure, are only used to supply local wants. Gold and silver-bearing lodes have been found in Luckanome valley, and also near Red river in this county, from some of which very satisfactory assays have been discovered. Silver ore, assaying as high as $50 to the ton, has been discovered in Sigler valley, and also at a point near Lakeport, while copper and cinnabar occur at various localities, the most promising deposits of these metals having been found near Knoxville, at the head of Berreyesa valley.

Petroleum is collected, in small quantities, from the surface of many of the small lakes and pools among the mountains, though little or nothing has been done towards tracing this substance to its source.

Marble, pumice stone, and sulphate of lime, occur abundantly at many localities in the county.

MENDOCINO COUNTY.

This county derives its name from Cape Mendocino, the most western headland in the State, formerly included in this county, but now a portion of the adjoining county of Humboldt.

Mendocino is bounded on the north by Humboldt, on the east by

Colusa and Lake, on the south by Sonoma, and on the west by the Pacific ocean. Its length, extending north and south, is about eighty miles, its average width about forty miles. It covers an area of upwards of 2,000,000 acres, of which 900,000 are fit for cultivation, and 200,000 are good grazing lands, the balance being composed of rugged hills and lofty mountains. At the close of 1867, there were 100,000 acres enclosed, of which 60,000 were under cultivation.

The main topographical features of this county consist of two parallel ranges of the coast mountains, extending in a direction nearly north and south through its entire length. Between these ranges are a nearly continuous chain of valleys, through which flow the Eel and Russian rivers, the two largest streams in this section of the county, both having their sources in the Mayacamas mountains, in the vicinity of Potter's valley, on the eastern border, and nearly in the center of this county. Eel river, flowing northward through this and Humboldt county, empties into the Pacific ocean near Centerville, a short distance from Humboldt bay. In December, 1867, a bill was introduced in the State Legislature, requesting the Federal Government to direct the officers of the Coast survey to make a thorough examination of the mouth of this river, with a view to ascertaining what measures, if any, should be adopted to improve its navigation. A small schooner made several trips a short distance up this river in 1866, showing that it is navigable, to some extent at least. Russian river, flowing southward through this and Sonoma counties, empties into the Pacific ocean near Fort Ross. There are a great number of tributaries to both of these rivers, which, having their sources in the surrounding mountains, and flowing through the main and lateral valleys, cause Mendocino to be one of the best-watered counties in the State, and furnish it with almost unlimited power for the propulsion of machinery.

In the range bordering the coast, there are upwards of twenty streams, many of them of considerable volume, though but few miles in length, which flow westward into the Pacific ocean. Many of these are employed by lumbermen for running saw-mills, floating logs from the mountains, and for shipping the lumber and other produce from the adjoining valleys. The mouths of nearly all of these streams form estuaries, affording safe harbors for coasting vessels.

From Shelter Cove on the north to Havens' anchorage on the south, a distance of more than one hundred miles, the outer Coast Range is covered with an almost unbroken and nearly impenetrable forest of redwood and pine, extending inland from fifteen to thirty-five miles. In this region are located seven large saw mills, which cut and shipped

during the year 1867, forty-six million feet of lumber, and nine small mills, which turned out over two million feet, chiefly for local consumption. A large quantity of posts, rails, railroad ties, pickets, shingles and other split lumber, are also shipped from the different landings. The lumber trade of this region is the chief resource of the county, giving employment to nearly one half of its population and to about forty schooners of from one hundred to two hundred tons burden. The following particulars concerning the largest of these mills will convey an idea of the proportions and manner of conducting the lumber business in this county: The Albion mill, at the mouth of Albion river, the property of Messrs. McPherson and Wetherbee, is run by steam and cost $30,000. During 1867 its owners cut and shipped to San Francisco six million feet of sawed lumber. This firm also owns the Noyo steam mill, at the mouth of Noyo river, about twenty miles further north than the Albion, which cost $35,000, and from which they shipped in 1867 seven million feet. It was at this mill that the extraordinarily large redwood plank, now on exhibition at the Department of Agriculture, Washington, was cut-one of the largest planks ever cut by a mill in any part of the world, measuring seven feet five inches in width, by twelve feet in length, and four inches in thickness. These are good specimens of much of the lumber made in this district, being free from knots or blemishes of any kind, and cut as smooth and even as slabs of marble. There are thousands of redwood trees in the forests here measuring from fourteen to eighteen feet in diameter at six feet above ground, and without a knot or limb for one hundred feet from their roots up.

The Walhalla steam mill, on Walhalla river, owned by Messrs. Haywood & Harmon, costing $30,000, cut and sent to market 4,000,000 feet of lumber in 1867; Stickney & Coomb's steam mill, on Little river, costing $20,000, cut and shipped over 5,000,000 feet; Tichenor & Bixbey's steam mill, at the mouth of Novarro river, costing $30,000, cut and shipped 6,000,000 feet; and J. G. Jackson's steam mill, on Caspar creek, costing $30,000, cut and shipped 6,000,000 feet in 1867. The Mendocino Mill Company, at Mendocino City, has a steam mill which cost $60,000, and cut 12,000,000 feet of lumber in 1867. The other mills in this county are of small capacity, and mainly run by water power. Each of the principal mills is located near the mouth of a creek or river, near tide water, convenient for loading vessels-such creeks or estuaries occurring at irregular intervals of ten or fifteen miles along the whole coast of the county, and affording unusual facilities for conducting an extensive lumber trade.

It is an astonishing sight to those not acquainted with the business to see the immense saws pass through these mammoth logs. Many of the latter are from ten to fifteen feet in diameter, from twelve to sixteen feet in length, and are handled by the machinery used with great celerity and facility. In a few minutes they are ripped into hundreds of boards and scantling-ready for shipment. It requires the services of several men to remove the lumber as fast as a gang of two saws running on these enormous logs will cut it. The large mills here make about eleven working months in the year, one month in every twelve being required for repairing and keeping the mill in order. When driven with work they sometimes run night and day, but never on Sundays. The logs are cut in the summer, and after lying till they dry and become light and more easy to handle, are hauled to the banks of the streams-many of them at this season dwindled to rivulets-and rolled into their channels, where they remain until the streams become swollen by the winter rains, when they are floated down to the mills, a little above which booms are rigged for catching them.

This timber land is all a part of the public domain, and so extensive are these forests that the millmen rarely ever go to the trouble of reducing any portion of it to possession, each man cutting in the vicinity of his mill without molestation or question. So abundant is the supply that it is not likely to suffer serious diminution during the present generation. This lumber, delivered in San Francisco, sells at about twenty dollars per thousand feet for rough, and thirty dollars for dressed. At the lowest figure named, the value of the lumber made in Mendocino county, and shipped thence during the year 1867, amounted to the sum of $9,600,000.

Lying east of the timbered mountains is a tract of open country known as the Bald Hills, they being nearly destitute of trees, though covered with wild oats, clover and other grasses affording an abundant pasturage. In the main Coast Range of mountains, which traverses the entire western part of the county, there are a number of bold peaks, some of them nearly six thousand feet high, but few of them having as yet received a name. Near their summits these peaks are bare and rugged, or covered only with chaparral, though oaks and various other trees grow about their base. The country everywhere abounds with grizzly bears, deer, elk, and other game, very little of it yet being settled, or in fact fully explored. The entire region, reaching from the Hay Fork of Trinity river to the head of Russian river, a distance of nearly one hundred and thirty miles, remains an almost uninhabited wilderness, though its agricultural and grazing resources are known to