REVIEW.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXVI, Issue 4062, 29 August 1870, Page 2

REVIEW.

Scenes of Woxder and Cukiobity k California. Illustrated with over on hundred engravings. A Tourist's Guide t< the Yo-Semite Valley, &c By T. M Hatchings (of Yo-Semite). The above is the title of one of the book sent us by Messrs. Stevens and Co., of thii city. Its title indicates pretty plainly th< nature of the work itself. It is written in : clear racy style, showing considerable cles criptive powers, and combining in a greai measure many of the features of a guide book. Although the fact is nowhere stated, from a careful perusal of the work we suspeci i that the author is also the proprietor of the ' Yo-Semite Valley Hotel, of which valley we shall speak more anon. The author, in the very first page, at once rivets the attention ol the reader, who, ere he has gone far into the book, finds himself roaming amongst vege table wonders i;> Calaveras county. Accord- , ing to the author they were discovered in the spring of 1852 b/ Mr. E. T. Dowd, a hunter in the employ oi the Union Water i Company, although ori a fuller ex- ! animation of one of tht? trees named Hercules, 93 feet in circumference, it was found that "G. M. Woos^er, June, | 1850," had been cut upon it. However, to i Mr. Dodd belongs the honour of i>aving made known their existence to the wo^ld. The tallest tree then standing has now bet?n cut down, by five men, after 22 days' constant labour, in boring it off ijbs tiunk by pump boring rods. Of the 22 days, two-and-a-half were spent in capsizing it, after the root part and trunk had been severed. But the largest tree seems to have been one that had fallen ere the place was explored by white people, and it is calculated to have been not less than 435 feet in height when standing. It was broken 300 feet from the roots, and the diameter of the trunk, at that part, was IS feet ; when these trees weie first discovered, botanists thought they were a new species, and Professor Lindley named them " Wellin<*toma gigantea," but further investigation? have shown them to belong to the Taxodinm family, and they are now referred to the old genus Sequoia sempervirens, and are known amongst scientific men as the Sequoia gigantea. On the stump of the felled tree, 34 persons h^ve danced four sets of cotillons at one time.- A good description is given of the Artesian \cell at Stockton, which is the deepest in the State, being 1,002 feet in depth, and discharging 250,000 gallons of water per minute, eleven feet above the plain and nine feet above the city grade. The temperature of the water is 77", although the surrounding atmosphere only averages 60*. This well is stated to have cost 10,000 dollars. But it is not to natural scenery alone that our author confines himself, for he describes the series of fortifications guarding the harbour of San Francisco, and those in contemplation. Many a brush between the natives and the early settlers in that State is described with great vividness. The chief subject of description is the great Yo-Semite valley, the wonders of which were discovered in a war with the "natives." Here is a specimen of his style, when alluding to the great waterfall there — which is 2,634 feet in height, forming three cascades of 1,600 feet, 434 feet, and GOO feet respectively— " Who, in feeble language, can fully disclose to us the grandeur of the scenery that opens before us a short distance east of the Big Gap ? When the painter's art can build the rainbow upon canvas so as to deceive the sense of sight — when simple words can tell the depth and height, length and breadth of a single thought — or tho physician's skill delineate, beyond peradventure, the hidden mysteries of a living soul — t*ien, ah ! then, it may be possible." It certainly must be a sublime spectacle to look upon a' large body of water dashing over a series of falls with such an aggregate height. The fall has no parallel. The quicksilver mines of New Almaden reef next claim our attention. The attention of Castillero, an officer in the Mexican service, was first drawn to them through Indians in 1845, when a company was formed to work them; but not having sufficient capital, the property was leased to an English company, who commenced operations m 1847, and up to June, 1850, this company had expended 387,800 dollars over and above all their receipts. So much for a first outlay. A good drawing is given of the smelting furnace and condensing chambers employed by this company in extracting the quicksilver from the cinnabar, but a description would be unintelligible without a drawing. It would appear that the most primitive mode is used in getting tho ore out of the workings — being carried up and down the various winzes, &c, 5 on the backs of the "tenateros" or carriers, in leathern -bags, containing about 2001b. each. The fishing for salmon in the Sacramento river must be very productive. One instance is recorded where two men in a boat during one night caught no fewer than 300 fish. One boat on the Prazer river, during last season, is mentioned aa having caught 13,860 salmon in one month. From Rio Vista, on the Sacramento river, there ia usually about 2,2501b. of salmon sent to market at San Francisco each day, and during the five fishing months there ia usualU about 22,500 fish, or 337,5001b., sent to be consumed fresh in that city. Thus we get some idea of the wealth to be derived from the acclimatisation of the salmon in New Zealand waters. The. book is excellently got up, printed on tinted paper, and embellished with 104 excellent engravings. Our readers who may purchase a copy will 6ml a large amount of very entertaining and instructive reading.