CALIFORNIA

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CALIFORNIA

tries as well. Santa Barbara, San Buenaventura, Venice, Newport, Long Beach, Naples, Ocean Park, Huntington Beach, San Diego, Oceanside, Coronado and Santa Monica are some of the best known towns.

The interior of California on the north con- ' sists of the Sacramento Valley, an empire of agricultural land. It is abundantly watered by the streams flowing down from the neighboring mountains into the Sacramento River. The soil is deep and rich and is adapted to all the agricultural and horticultural products of the temperate zone. Sacramento ships each year 6,000 carloads of fruit to the eastern states, principally peaches, strawberries, pears and grapes. Wheat, barley, potatoes and asparagus are produced in great quantities for the world's markets.

The central interior consists of the San Joaquin Valley, which is cut off from the southern part of the state by the Tepachepi Mountains, a transverse range connecting the Sierras and Coast Range. This valley rivals the Sacramento in its great extent and its fertility, but, lying further south, it is not so abundantly watered. Wheat and raisins are its staple crops. Fresno ships 5,000 carloads of raisins per year. The oil fields of Kern County are assuming great importance. There is a Standard-Oil pipe-line leading two hundred miles northerly to San Francisco.

The southern interior is largely devoted to growing citrus fruits, Riverside, Red-lands, Ontario, Pomona, Azusa and Highlands are some of the centers for the orange and lemon groves. Riverside alone ships 6,000 carloads of oranges per year. This region depends upon irrigation for its prosperity. It virtually is a reclaimed desert. All the fruits and flowers of the temperate and semitropic regions thrive. In one orchard may be grown oranges, lemons, citrons, pomelos, apples, peaches, pears, apricots, nectarines, plums, prunes, pomegranates, guavas, quinces, figs, olives, grapes of more than a hundred kinds, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, loganberries, walnuts, chestnuts and almonds. The wealth of ornamental trees and flowering plants is too great to catalogue. The scenic beauty of the homes, avenues and parks of southern California is famous all over the world. A number of ostrich farms raise plumes for the market. Hundreds of apiaries produce honey in hundreds of tons.

The chief products, with the approximate annual output, are as follows: fruit products, 90 thousand carloads; lumber, 600 million feet; wool, 25 million pounds ; wheat, 17 million bushels; petroleum, 33 million barrels.

The Sierran region yields the gold that makes California the golden state. It includes great lumbering interests in pine, cedar and giant-redwood forests. It affords pasturage for innumerable flocks and herds. Its streams and waterfalls are the source of

power sufficient to gridiron the entire state with electric railways and to turn the wheels and light the lamps of a thousand industries. The central part of this great mountain mass is known as the High Sierras, and affords the playground for the continent. Nineteen peaks are above 10,000 feet in height. There are many hundreds of lovely lakes, of which Tahoe is the largest. There are scores of magnificent waterfalls, such as those of the Yosemite Valley. There are stupendous chasms bordered by minarets and towers, as King's River, Hetch-Hetchy and Kern River Canyons.

There are rich mountain meadows and clear, cold trout-streams and snow-covered mountain tops above the timber line. The botanist, the fisherman, the hunter, the lover of out door nature may wander for months in this wide wonderland among the clouds, traveling all the time and never seeing the same thing twice. The exquisite golden trout of Volcano Creek is here. The big-tree groves of Sequoia Gigantea are here, with single trees 325 feet high, 120 feet in circumference. There are canyons with perpendicular walls'4,000 feet deep.

The whole region should be set apart as the great pleasure-ground of America, to be held and cared for by the nation through all generations.

Minerals. There is a very wide range in mineral products. Gold has already been spoken of. Silver and lead are produced in the south. Shasta County has. great copper smelters. Mercury is produced by Santa Clara and Lake Counties. The gem-mines of San Diego County are becoming famous for their tourmalines, beryls, kunzites and garnets. Opals, jade, turquoise, diamonds and Chrysoprase are found in merchantable quantities within the state. There are great slate-quarries and asbestos mines in El Dorado County. Iron is being smelted in an electric furnace in Shasta County. Lithia rock is mined in San Diego County, and lignite coal in Contra Costa County. The borax, soda and salt deposits of the southern deserts are important- exports. Manganese, molybdenum, onyx, gypsum, serpentine, talc, graphite, marble, magnesite, fluor spar, heavy spar, lime, cement, potters' clay, glass sand, infusorial earth, mica, asphaltum, tin and antimony also are found in different parts of the state. The total value of the mineral product is about 35 million dollars per year. Nearly half of this is gold. Copper stands next in importance, petroleum third and borax fourth.

Transportation. In commerce, California is the gate to the Orient. The spacious and noble harbor of San Francisco floats the ships of the world. Second in excellence is the harbor of San Diego in the south. Hum-' boldt Bay, San Pedro Bay and Tomales Bay afford good harbors. The Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers are navigable into the