Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-01-30
OUR MOUNTAIN FORESTS.
King Sierra and His Royal Robe-Cali-
fornia's Wealth Her Mountains

NC oue COtileS 10 OdllIOrQla Dut aQmlI6S
our mountains. One of the Forestry Com
mission in speaking of this says: The
Sierra Nevada is a rich, lordly, bejeweled
prince among mountain ranges
Other chains of mountains ribbing the
earth are usually high-raised elevations,
composed principally of rounded mount
aims, swelling their bosoms to the sky and
trailing their tattered garments far out
over extensive foothills to the hanking
plains
The long Rocky Mountain range-the
backbone Of North Americas of this
class rising so gently from the elevated
plains on each side, that the traveller by the
transcontinental railroads can scarcely
discover that ne is ascending an immense
upheaval of the earth's crust, or detect the
exact point where he crosses the broad
saddle of the obscure passes.
But our King Sierra is not SO. He is
distinguished alike by the traveller or the
geographer for the abruptness of his ma
jestic uprise from the plain, the splintered
and rough-hewn forms of his thousand
peaks, the high elevation of their pinnacles,
ever bearing their crowns of snow; but
most of all he is pre-eminent for his boun-
teous and beauteous enrolling forest, his
royal, parti- colored garment.
Like an Oriental monarch, he reclines in
state upon the bosom of the great, trackless
plain of Western America, enwrapped from
head to foot 600 miles, and from side to
side, 140 miles, with dense forest of ever
greens, interspersed with many-hued.
trees, like insertions of
brilliant figures in royal emerald robe.
This enrolling forest, the ncblest in North
America, is perforated along its raised CEN
ter line, or axis of the Sierra, by thousand
peaks rising through the mantle into the
region of perpetual winter, while both
slopes, east and west, are rent by a million
valleys depressed through the robe into the
middle region of changing seasons, and the
fringe of the garment trails out over the
domain of almost perpetual summer.
The snow-crowned peaks are the spark
ling diamonds of this wealthy prince; the
valleys, often still filed with water in their
glacier beds. are his Respondent pearls
The former flash upon the voyager floating
on the far western Pacific or the toiler
over the wide eastern desert, like beacons
of light; but the royal robe, with its decora-
tons of valley and glen, its gems of tree
and shrub, flower and fern. reveals itself
only to the miner in the Cal yon, the herds
man with his focks, the hunter pursuing
his game, the curious traveller, or the studi-
GUS explorer.
But most of all these peculiarities are
observed by the lover of nature, he who
explores the Sierra with heart attuned and
perceptions opened by interior apprecia-
tons, for it is an old saying. "'Tis the
world within creates the world without"
Such visitors first emotions are often a
mingling of disappointment and delight
If he has explored tropical countries he
will be disappointed by the fewness of
species here, but surprised by the great
number of individual trees, their great size
and height. If he is familiar with Arctic
regions, he will miss the dwarfed trees and
Inonotony so foreign to the Sierra.
Two other comparisons are pertinent.
In tropical countries life presses in and
strives to hold the ground against fierce,
opposing contestants This is especially
observable in the vegetable world. A
small spring issuing from mountain side
in Arizona or Mexico is attacked at its very
source, and its waters absorbed by the eager
rootlets of hundred species of plants-a
broad-headed blackberry or tail cotton
wood crowning the mass of foliage and
striking its roots deepest under the rock
floor of the spring. Streams large enough
TO feed all the gourmands by the way.
and yet reach the plain, are marked
throughout their course by narrowing
border of vegetation.
Shade and northern inclination favor the
retention of moisture and foster vegetation.
hence the northern slopes of Arizona
are often thinly forested, while
the southern slopes may be bare to the
pinnacles.
In Arctic chimes the cold. long winters
forbid all bat a few specially hardy plants
from maintaining existence The entire
surface of the country being kept moist
the plants are not alone found along stream
beds, but equally dispersed. varying only
by varying conditions of elevation and in
clination; hence, the low plains OF Arctic
America and the tundras of Siberia afford
often vast meadows composed, however.
of but one or two species of sedge.
So, also, extensive forests will be found
containing but one or two species of trees,
these small, dwarfed aud snow-bent, at
length reduced to bushes, creeping in the
mud on the shores of the Arctic Sea.
The Sierra of California occupies a mid
die position between torrid and frigid COP
6itions, 8 position most favorable to the
production OF large forests, containing
many species Of noble trees and rich val
leys OF diversified flowers.
The Sierra forest is composed mainly of
eve-greens, not one species of which is
identical with the trees of the East-with
the exception of dwarfed variety OF an
Eastern juniper-hut 1t shares several
species with the Rocky Mountains on the
east and the coast mountains on the west
OF its position.