LIBRARY 
 
 OF THK 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
VERNAL' FALLS, YOSKMITE VALLEY. 
 
WESTERN SERIES OF READERS VOL. VI 
 
 toritz of d^ur Jftotfter Cartl) 
 
 BY 
 
 HAROLD W. FAIRBANKS, PH. D. 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO 
 THE WHITAKER & RAY COMPANY 
 
 (INCORPORATED) 
 
 1899 
 
 THE 
 
4 
 
 ' I COPYRIGHTED, 1899, 
 
 BY 
 
 HAROLD W. FAIRBANKS, PH. D. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 NATURE study is deservedly attracting more and more atten- 
 tion in the schools, but the most of the aids for teachers and 
 pupils have been limited to a presentation of organic nature, 
 while the wide and fully as important field of inorganic nature 
 has been very much neglected. With the hope of supplying, 
 to some extent, the existing lack, this little book is presented 
 for the use of grammar-grade pupils. 
 
 It has been the opinion of some educators that children are 
 not as quickly or as easily interested in rocks, minerals, and 
 the processes which are changing the surface of the' earth, 
 as in plants and animals. I believe, however, that where the 
 experiment has been well tried, all phases of nature with which 
 the child comes in contact, have been found to be equally 
 interesting and instructive. 
 
 It is undoubtedly true that the study of specimens by them- 
 selves is largely devoid of interest. Children want to know 
 the relation existing between things in the world about them. 
 I am thoroughly convinced also that they are capable of under- 
 standing many of the processes involved in the shaping of the 
 earth, but because of the idea that the subject is too difficult, 
 or from lack of proper familiarity with nature on the part of 
 the teacher, these inorganic nature studies are more often 
 neglected. 
 
 The majority of children leave school at, or before, the com- 
 pletion of the grammar grades, and for these the great realm 
 of inorganic nature has too often no meaning. We must reach 
 these and give them at least some correct ideas of the origin 
 and meaning of the common things about them. 
 
 In mountainous regions especially, where mining is often 
 such an important industry, and physical nature seems to work 
 
 117539 
 
6 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 more energetically, it is particularly desirable that the children 
 should go out from school with some living knowledge of their 
 surroundings. They should know something of those aspects 
 of nature with which they have to deal their whole lives. 
 
 1 do not wish to unduly emphasize the economic aspect of 
 education at the expense of the so-called cultural, but I do 
 maintain that the education of the child should bear some 
 relation to his life's surroundings, and if, as is the case with 
 nature studies, this education is cultural as well as economic, 
 then so much the better. Those who pass their lives in the 
 mountains with the rocks and minerals all about them, and 
 the processes of disintegration, erosion, etc., actively at work, 
 should be able, on leaving school, to interpret the more simple 
 of these phenomena in a rational manner. 
 
 Nature study from books cannot be a success. Books should 
 only direct to nature herself. Neither should nature study be 
 an addition to already crowded courses but should supplant, 
 especially in geography, much which is still too often taught 
 irrationally and mechanically. 
 
 It has been my purpose in the preparation of the following 
 chapters to present in a simple manner, some elementary con- 
 ceptions in geology, mineralogy, and physical geography. 
 While the different topics are illustrated by examples from the 
 Pacific Coast, yet the most of them are of such a nature as to 
 be applicable to any section of the country. 
 
 The Pacific Coast is particularly rich in illustrative material 
 for the study of inorganic nature, but up to the present time 
 little of this material has been put in such shape as to be avail- 
 able for the use of schools. 
 
 If the subjects presented here should prove helpful, even in 
 a small degree, to teachers and pupils, and arouse in them a 
 desire to know more of the processes of nature going on all 
 about, the purpose of the book will have been accomplished. 
 
 HAROLD W. FAIRBANKS, 
 
 May 15, 1899. Berkeley, California. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THIS HOME OF OURS 11 
 
 THE BOOK FLOOR 17 
 
 How THE SOIL Is FORMED 23 
 
 A HANDFUL OF SAND 31 
 
 THE WORK OF THE WIND 37 
 
 A CURIOUS CALIFORNIA RIVER 43 
 
 THE STORY OF SAN FRANCISCO BAY 49 
 
 AN ANCIENT OYSTER BED 56 
 
 A RAINSTORM IN THE DESERT 62 
 
 THE STORY OF PETROLEUM 69 
 
 THE HISTORY OF A PACKAGE OF BORAX 77 
 
 WHERE OUR SALT COMES FROM 83 
 
 MONO LAKE 89 
 
 THE STORY OF THE COLORADO RIVER 96 
 
 WHAT WE SAW IN AN OCEAN CLIFF 103 
 
 How ISLANDS ARE FORMED 110 
 
 THE STORY OF THE YOSEMITE VALLEY 116 
 
 WHEN THE MASTODON LIVED 123 
 
 THE MAKING OF MOUNTAINS 133 
 
 AN EXTINCT VOLCANO 137 
 
 CAVES 143 
 
 CRATER LAKE 149 
 
 THE LAVA PLATEAU OF THE NORTHWEST 156 
 
 DOWN IN A GOLD MINE 161 
 
 WHERE THE QUICKSILVER Is MADE 169 
 
 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A NUGGET 177 
 
 COAL, GRAPHITE, DIAMOND 185 
 
 SOME ANIMALS OF LONG AGO 192 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 FRONTISPIECE Vernal Falls, Yosemite. 
 
 Surface of a Recent Lava Flow Mono County, California . PAGE 16 
 
 The Soil Covering the Rocks , 24 
 
 What I- Left of a Mountain 30 
 
 Sand Dunes Salinas Valley, California 38 
 
 Dry Bed of the Salinas River Summer-time 44 
 
 San Francisco Bay 50 
 
 An Ancient Oyster Bed Southern California 58 
 
 Cactus Garden Colorado Desert 64 
 
 Tar Spring in the Coast Range 68 
 
 Hauling Borax in the Desert 80 
 
 Salt Plow at Work at Salton Sea 87 
 
 Mono Lake 91 
 
 Grand Canon of the Colorado River 97 
 
 An Ocean Cave Pt. Loma, California .104 
 
 Rocky Islands near Pt. Buchon, California Ill 
 
 "The Mastodon" 124 
 
 Folded Rocks Coast of California 132 
 
 Mt. Shasta 136 
 
 Moss Brae Falls . . 144 
 
 Crater Lake Southern Oregon 153 
 
 "May Lundy" Gold Mine 162 
 
 New Idria Quicksilver Mine 170 
 
 North Bloomfield Hydraulic Mine 178 
 
 Leaping Dinosaur 195 
 
 Early Ancestor of Modern Horse 197 
 
 Skeleton of Early Ancestor of Horse 198 
 
THIS HOME OF OURS. 
 
 HE earth is our home. Ever since 
 we can remember we have been 
 living upon it, and moving about 
 here and there. We have slowly 
 become acquainted with some of 
 its nooks and corners, but our 
 
 rambles still bring us to many things which we 
 
 do not understand. 
 
 As we climb the hills, or follow the rippling 
 
 streams, or wander along the beach, we feel that 
 
 this is a very pleasant place in which to live. For 
 
 some of us the growing plants and flowers are the 
 
 most attractive. Some like 
 
 best to watch the strange 
 
 behavior of the little ani- 
 
 mals and insects, while 
 
 others think the smooth 
 
 and brightly colored peb- 
 
 bles are of the greatest 
 
 interest. 
 
 As we grow older, the 
 
 world seems to widen out 
 
 u 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Interesting things right 
 
 about us. 
 
 The changing earth. 
 We cannot combat 
 
 Nature, we must take 
 
 advantage of her 
 
 ways. 
 Value of knowing how 
 
 Nature works. 
 
12 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 faster than we can explore it. We travel farther, 
 and catch glimpses of a great range of snowy moun- 
 tains, at the foot of which are broad fertile valleys, 
 and beyond them the shining Pacific Ocean. 
 
 As we have a chance to examine this country 
 closer, we find new things. The streams from the 
 mountains are led out over the valleys, and keep 
 them moist through the long summers, so that 
 almost everything people need grows here. 
 
 In the mountains there are deep canons through 
 which, in the late spring, flow dashing streams of 
 muddy water. In the fall they are quiet and clear, 
 and we can count the pebbles over which they 
 ripple. In some places they plunge over great 
 walls of rock, and in others they run quietly under 
 drooping willows. 
 
 High on the mountains there are no trees; only 
 bare rocks and snow-banks. From a tall peak, we 
 can see over the range to a very different region 
 beyond. In that direction there are no green fields, 
 no houses, nothing but a stretch of parched ground, 
 for on that side of the mountains it seldom rains, 
 and there are few running streams. 
 
 If we turn our footsteps to the ocean, we see in 
 some places long ridges running out into the water. 
 Where the waves have washed off the soil from 
 these ridges there are jagged rocks, perilous places 
 for the ships. 
 
THIS HOME OF OURS. 13 
 
 Behind the cliffs we see the bays, where the broad 
 valleys come down to the ocean. The rivers wind 
 sluggishly through these valleys, as though they did 
 not know which way to go. 
 
 We enjoy seeing all these things, and by and by 
 we begin to wonder about them, and to ask ques- 
 tions. The world becomes to us something more 
 than a mere playground made for our especial 
 benefit. 
 
 We begin to realize how large the world is, and 
 how many things it contains which we shall have 
 to study to understand. We see that life itself de- 
 pends upon these things. If it were not for the great 
 oceans from which the breezes carry moisture to 
 the mountain tops, there to be condensed into rain, 
 and water the thirsty land, no plants or animals 
 could live, and our homes would become a parched 
 desert. 
 
 We see that in choosing our homes we cannot go 
 where we please, for we cannot grow our food in 
 the desert, or upon the rugged mountains. We 
 must choose the fertile valleys, if we would be 
 farmers. We must leave the valleys and seek the 
 mountains, if we would be miners. 
 
 Great cities do not grow up at any point. They 
 are located in the protected harbor, behind the 
 rocky headland, where the river and the valley 
 meet the ocean, where the ships can come and take 
 
14 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 the produce. Manufactories must be built where 
 dashing streams roaring among the bowlders, or 
 pouring in cascades over the rocky cliffs, furnish 
 the necessary power for running machinery. 
 
 It is clear then, that our lives, as well as the 
 lives of the animals and plants, depend upon the 
 oceans, the position of the mountain ranges, and 
 the direction of the winds. 
 
 We question the mountains, and the rivers, and 
 the ocean. We wonder if they have always been 
 where they are now. The mountains look so firm 
 and solid it seems as if they must always have 
 stood where they do now. But some day we find 
 shells upon a high ridge far from the ocean. This 
 puzzles us, for these shells must have lived in the 
 ocean once. 
 
 We finally come to the conclusion that betore we 
 can know all about the plants; why one kind grows 
 on the hillside, another by the brook; why the 
 animals are distributed as we find them; why 
 cities grow up as they do ; and why in one part of 
 the country people till the ground, and in another 
 part dig deep for the minerals, we must know a 
 little more about the foundations of our home. 
 
 We must know how the rocks and the soil were 
 made, how the mountains grew, and why the rivers 
 run as they do. We must understand how Nature 
 is shaping the earth about us. 
 
THIS HOME OF OURS. 15 
 
 In order to do this, we shall study what the rain 
 and the frost are doing upon the mountain tops. 
 We shall trace the river's course, and find where 
 the mud which it carries to the ocean comes from. 
 We shall try to understand how this mud is spread 
 over the floor of the ocean, and what the waves are 
 doing as they continually beat against the land. 
 
 We shall go beneath the rich soil upon which 
 our grain grows, and find out what is going on 
 within the earth. We shall want to know about 
 many things which are dug from the earth, how 
 the coal was formed, and where the petroleum 
 comes from. The gold, quicksilver, borax, and salt, 
 will also interest us. 
 
 Nature has many forces at work, some great and 
 some small. They have worked a long time getting 
 this home of ours ready for us. If we can under- 
 stand how Nature works, our home will be more 
 dear to us, and we shall be happier. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 Sluggishly (slfig'glsh-ly) realize (re'al-iz), manufac- 
 tories (man'u-fak'to-riz). 
 
 Parched = very dry. 
 
 Jagged = having rough sharp points. 
 
 Cascade = a small waterfall. 
 
 Found ation = that on which anything stands. 
 
 Perilous = full of danger. 
 
 Till = to cultivate. 
 
THE ROCK FLOOR. 
 
 BLOW the loose earth upon which 
 we walk there is a rock floor. This 
 floor forms the crust of the globe, 
 and stretches all around it. It is 
 what makes the globe solid and 
 firm. 
 When the rock floor was formed, a long time ago, 
 
 it was very rough and uneven. Nature covered a 
 
 part of it with the great oceans. Over another part 
 
 she spread a dark carpet of soil; but she has not yet 
 
 succeeded in covering the tops of the mountains. 
 Along the ocean cliffs the waves have washed 
 
 away the carpet of soil, 
 
 and we can see how rough 
 
 and hard the floor is. We 
 
 can also see the rock in 
 
 the bottoms of all the little 
 
 gulches in the hills; but 
 
 in the valleys the floor is 
 
 hidden very deeply. 
 
 How would the world 
 
 look if there were no soil, 
 
 17 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 The formation of the 
 
 rock floor. 
 Lava. 
 
 The need of soil. 
 Different kinds of rock. 
 Where are minerals 
 
 found ? 
 
 The cooling glohe. 
 Locate Mono Lake. 
 
18 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 and everywhere we went we had to scramble over 
 the rough rocks? It may be that we can learn 
 something by a visit to a lava field where Nature 
 has not yet stretched her carpet of soil. Lava is a 
 part of the stone floor which was so hot at one 
 time that it melted and flowed up through cracks 
 in the crust of the earth. 
 
 Hundreds of years ago, near Mono Lake, in 
 Eastern California, some of this red-hot lava ran 
 out and spread over the surface, killing and bury- 
 ing all the plants, and the animals that could not 
 run fast enough to escape it. 
 
 It looks as if some giant had poured out there 
 a large kettle of thick pudding; but instead of 
 being good to eat, it was made of melted rock, 
 which, as it cooled, became so hard that a hammer 
 was needed to break it. 
 
 It is a long trip across the mountains to the lava- 
 field, but at last we come in sight of it, an im- 
 mense stretch of bare rock with green forests all 
 around. 
 
 We climb up the precipitous side of the lava, 
 and find, on reaching the top, an immense rough 
 plain of jagged rocks extending away in front as far 
 as we can see. There is not a tree nor bush to break 
 the desert-like character of the surface. As we climb 
 over the rough, sharp-edged rocks we can hardly 
 avoid tearing our clothes and cutting our hands. 
 
THE ROCK FLOOR. 19 
 
 It is the most lonesome place imaginable. There 
 are not even any little blades of grass growing out 
 of the cracks. All that we see are some patches of 
 gray moss, clinging here and there. Even the 
 birds and ground squirrels are absent, for there is 
 nothing here out of which they could build their 
 nests. Everything looks fresh and clean, as if it 
 had just come out of the shop. 
 
 In spite of care, we do sometimes slip and cut 
 our hands; and at last, tired of prying around, we 
 sit down on the edge of the lava and look at the 
 large pines growing in the soil of the valley 
 below. 
 
 We begin to wonder at the meaning of what we 
 have seen. It seems that the earth must be hot 
 inside, where this lava came from. If this is so, 
 then our whole world was hot once, even the out- 
 side, where the grasses and trees are growing. It 
 must have crusted over at last, just as our breakfast 
 mush cools on the outside first, or as the skim of 
 ice forms upon the pond during a cold night. 
 
 The rock upon which we sit certainly must have 
 been in the fire, for it looks just like the slag which 
 we have picked up about the furnaces where iron is 
 being melted. We try to imagine how the whole 
 country would look if it were covered with such 
 lava. We would find only hard rough rocks wher- 
 ever we went. There would be precipices, deep 
 
20 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 holes, caverns, and cracks, into which we would be 
 in continual danger of falling. 
 
 It would rain as it does now, and the streams 
 tumble over the rocks, as they hastened to the sea. 
 The mountains would be white with snow in the 
 winter time, but we would miss the spring, the 
 green spring with its flowers, and the fall with its 
 brightly tinted leaves. It would make no difference 
 how much it rained; nothing could grow without 
 soil. 
 
 The picture is such a dreary one that we stop 
 thinking about it, for we could not live in a world 
 of bare rocks and stones. Without the soil there 
 could be no pretty little meadows, and without the 
 plants which grow upon the meadows, no animals 
 could live. It would be a dead world. 
 
 The whole world once looked just like our lava 
 field, but that was so long ago that a great many 
 changes have taken place. The stone floor which 
 we now see is not all lava. Along the ocean beach, 
 and in the beds of the rippling brooks, we see 
 pebbles of many colors, telling us of the different 
 kinds of rocks in the hard floor under us. There 
 are so many that it would take a long time to learn 
 all about them. 
 
 The stone which is used for the walls of build- 
 ings comes from this floor. It is dug from large 
 holes in the ground called quarries. All the beau- 
 
THE ROCK FLOOR. 21 
 
 tiful stones which are used for jewelry also come 
 from the rock floor. They are rough, when first 
 obtained, and have to be cut and polished. 
 
 Iron and copper are among the most useful of 
 the minerals found in the rock floor, but we think 
 the most of gold and silver. We should feel very 
 awkward without many of these things which are 
 dug out of the rocks, and we are glad that the soil 
 does not cover them all up. 
 
 The mantle of soil furnishes the necessary things 
 of life, and so makes it possible for us to live here; 
 but the rock floor supplies not only many useful 
 things, as we have seen, but, in the mountains, sur- 
 rounds us with grand and beautiful scenery. It 
 makes our lives more happy. 
 
 In the great plains of the Mississippi Valley, the 
 rock floor is buried out of sight. The people living 
 there do not know the pleasure of a home in the 
 mountains, where the great rocks stand high in 
 the air, and the rains and dashing streams have 
 carved them into all sorts of grand and rugged 
 cliffs. 
 
 In another lesson we shall see how the soil was 
 formed, and at last covered up so much of the rock 
 floor. 
 
22 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 Precipice (preVi-pis), necessary (ngs'Ss-sa-ry), furnishes 
 (fur'nish-ez), quarries (kwor'riz), imaginable (im-aj'i-na-ble), 
 Mississippi (mis'is-ip'i). 
 
 Precipice = a steep place, a cliff. 
 
 Quarry = a place where stone is dug out of the earth. 
 
 Jagged = rough. 
 
 Crust = a hard covering. 
 
HOW THE SOIL IS FORMED. 
 
 |E learned from the lava field that 
 there was a time, when our world 
 was a good deal younger than it 
 is now, when there was no soil 
 upon its surface. The great oceans, 
 and rivers, and bare rocks, were 
 
 all there was to be seen. 
 
 Perhaps Dame Nature grew tired of such a barren 
 
 world. However that may be, she at last covered 
 
 up all but the roughest places with a smooth carpet. 
 
 It was such slow work that I fear we would have 
 
 become weary if we had been compelled to watch 
 
 her. Look out upon the pretty valley and see 
 
 how smooth and level she 
 
 made the ground, and then 
 
 turn toward the mountains 
 
 where the great rocks rise 
 
 to the sky, and you will see 
 
 where she has not yet been 
 
 able to spread the carpet of 
 
 soil. 
 How did she do this 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 The earth without soil. 
 How soil forms. 
 "Work of animals in 
 
 forming: soil. 
 Residual soil. 
 Soil in valleys. 
 Work of the streams in 
 
 removing soil. 
 
 23 
 
HOW THE SOIL IS FORMED. 25 
 
 work, and where did she get the soil ? It will help 
 us to understand these things, if we look again, 
 after many hundreds of years have passed, at the 
 lava field near Mono Lake. 
 
 Generations of the great pines have grown up 
 and died, when we again cross the mountains to 
 the field of lava. How different everything looks. 
 We have much trouble in finding the place. 
 
 The lava is no longer rough and bare, and only in 
 a few places are there any rocks standing up from its 
 surface. A soft, dark mantle of soil covers all the rest. 
 Tall pines stand upon the soil, and send their roots 
 down through it into the crevices of the lava below it. 
 
 In the side of a ravine we see what the soil is 
 made of, and how it covers the lava. On the surface 
 there is a dark layer of decaying leaves and stems, 
 forming leaf-mold; and below it a dark, rich, clayey 
 soil, with no fragments of the rock in it. Farther 
 down it is almost a pure brownish clay, with only a 
 few roots running here arid there. This is the sub- 
 soil. Below the subsoil, and near the bottom, there 
 are fragments of the lava which crumble as we dig 
 them out. 
 
 Under the subsoil lies the lava, which is soft and 
 crumbling at the top; but in the bottom of the 
 ravine, where the water has washed off the decayed 
 lava, it is as hard as it was upon the surface so 
 many years before. 
 
26 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 We can also see in the sides of the ravine how 
 the roots of the trees have grown downward into 
 the cracks in the lava, and gradually shoved the 
 pieces apart. 
 
 Year after year, ever since the lava first cooled, 
 the rain and frost and air have been at work. For 
 a long time they did not seem to accomplish much, 
 but there are many things going on in the world 
 which we cannot see. 
 
 The water ran into the cracks, and as it froze 
 during the winter forced the masses of rock apart. 
 The fragments finally crumbled and turned to a 
 clay-like mass which formed a coating over the 
 rocks. 
 
 Little by little, the seeds of different plants were 
 carried to the lava field, either by the birds and 
 squirrels, or borne upon the wind. Many of them, 
 falling upon the crumbling rock where there was 
 a little moisture, sent their tiny roots down into the 
 cracks, and managed to live for a short time. When 
 they died, their leaves and stems enriched the soft- 
 ened rock, and so, year by year, made the surface 
 more fit for larger plants. 
 
 Trees grew up at last, and shaded the soil, so that 
 the moisture did not dry out so fast, and when the 
 trees died, they added their rotting trunks to the 
 soil. 
 
 Then the ground squirrels came and burrowed in 
 
HOW THE SOIL IS FORMED. 27 
 
 the soft material, turning it over and over, bringing 
 fragments of rock to the surface, where the frost 
 made them crumble into still smaller pieces. 
 
 Many other animals made their homes in this 
 gathering soil. Among them were the earthworms, 
 which we see stretched upon the ground after a rain. 
 They are stirring the soil all the time, and loosen- 
 ing it up so that the air can get into it. 
 
 The ants also are doing their part, as they tunnel 
 through the earth, and bring the little particles to 
 the surface. There are, in addition, some very 
 small animals, which we can see only when they 
 are placed under the microscope. They are called 
 bacteria. Every handful of earth contains thou- 
 sands of them. They are very necessary in fitting 
 the soil so that the roots of plants can make use 
 of it. 
 
 The soil which forms over the rock floor in this 
 way is called residual soil. The brooks are wash- 
 ing away particles all the time, and this soil is 
 what is left. 
 
 The soil in the valleys is formed in a different 
 way. The tiny particles of sand and clay of which 
 it is composed have, in many cases, been borne 
 miles by the rivers, and ocean currents. All of the 
 rock floor which we see in the mountains is soften- 
 ing and crumbling upon the surface just as the lava- 
 bed did. 
 
28 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 The raindrops wash the particles from the 
 mountain slopes into the brooks, and they in turn 
 carry them to the rivers. The latter leave them at 
 last either in the marshes near their mouths, or 
 bear them out to the ocean. 
 
 This is what the Sacramento River is doing year 
 after year, as it pours its muddy flood through San 
 Francisco Bay into the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 We will dip up a glassful of the dirty yellow 
 water, and see what happens when it becomes quiet. 
 In a few hours the water is clear, while upon the 
 bottom of the glass is a thin layer of mud. 
 
 Each spring the Sacramento overflows its banks, 
 and covers the lowlands. When the river becomes 
 smaller and the water runs off the meadows, there 
 is left everywhere a thin layer of mud. In this 
 way the soil of the level bottom lands has been 
 formed. Grasses grow upon it, and animals bur- 
 row in it, finally leaving it dark and rich. 
 
 We have already seen how necessary the soil is to 
 our existence. Plants cannot grow without it, and 
 without the plants there could be no animals. 
 
 We have also seen that it takes Nature many 
 years to cover the bare rocks with this rich carpet. 
 These things should make us careful when we 
 plough and dig in it, that we do not leave it so the 
 rains can carry it away. We should not permit 
 the grasses and trees upon the hills to be killed, for 
 
HOW THE SOIL IS FORMED. 29 
 
 their roots hold the soil. The soil in turn holds 
 the moisture. 
 
 In the mountains of the desert there are few 
 plants, and the soil is washed away as fast as it is 
 formed, leaving the rocks almost bare. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 Lava (la'va), moisture (mois'tur), enriched (6n-rlcht'), 
 burrow (bur'ro), plough (plou). 
 
 Lava = melted rock from a volcano. 
 
 Generation those living at one period. 
 
 Ravine = a deep, narrow hollow worn out by running water. 
 
 Subsoil = the soil beneath the surface soil. 
 
 Marsh = soft, wet ground. 
 
 Burrow = to dig a hole in the ground. 
 
A HANDFUL OF SAND. 
 
 HAVE here a handful of clean, white 
 sand, scraped up from the beach. It is 
 the sand which the children so delight to 
 play in, and which never soils their 
 IT. clothes. 
 
 It is the same kind of sand that 
 they use to make mountains and hills in their 
 geography studies. 
 
 Sand is not only nice to play in, but it is useful 
 in many ways. Glass is made of it, and the plas- 
 terer mixes it with lime to form the mortar with 
 which he lays the bricks, and plasters the walls of 
 our houses. 
 
 What is the history of the little grains which the 
 winds blow in our faces, 
 and the Vaves wash up 
 and down the beach ? 
 
 Examine these grains 
 with a pocket microscope 
 and you will see that the} r 
 are clear like glass and 
 quite smooth. They have 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Origin of sand. 
 Composition of granite. 
 Crumbling of granite. 
 How the saiid reached 
 
 the ocean. 
 Sorting the components 
 
 of the crumbling 
 
 granite. 
 
 31 
 
32 WESTEKN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 been thrown about by the waves, and rubbed upon 
 each other, until all the sharp points are gone. 
 
 We will call them quartz grains and the sand, 
 quartz sand. 
 
 Very long ago these grains of sand formed a part 
 of a granite mountain. The mountain was high 
 and rugged and stood upon the border of what is 
 now one of the deserts of Southern California. 
 
 Now the mountain is nearly gone, and the little 
 grains of which it was composed are scattered far 
 and wide. 
 
 The picture before us shows a low hill in the 
 desert. It is the heart of the old mountain, and is 
 all that is left of it. How beautifully it tells the 
 story of what Nature is always doing. She is tear- 
 ing the rocks down in one place, and building them 
 up again in another. 
 
 One lone granite pillar stands in the center of the 
 hill. Lying about on all sides are the great blocks 
 of granite which have broken off and tumbled down 
 the sides of the hill. 
 
 These blocks are still hard, and if you should hit 
 them with a heavy hammer they would not break. 
 Those farthest from the hill, which have lain on 
 the ground for a long time, are crumbling to little 
 grains, which will form a part of the desert sands. 
 
 Scrape up some of the sand, and look at it care- 
 fully. It consists mostly of grains of quartz like 
 
A HANDFUL OF SAND. 33 
 
 those upon the seashore, only they have sharp 
 angles instead of being rounded. Among the 
 quartz grains are some little black scales and par- 
 ticles of clay. 
 
 With a hammer you can soon crush a piece of 
 the granite to sand. Nature did not go to work in 
 that way. She is very quiet, and it takes her many 
 years to make great changes. 
 
 Let us look at a piece of the granite, to see what 
 it is made of, and then, perhaps, we can understand 
 how it crumbles to sand. 
 
 The clear, glassy grains which you cannot scratch 
 with a knife, are the quartz about which we have 
 been talking. 
 
 The shining black mineral which you can dig 
 out in thin scales with the point of a knife is called 
 mica. You have all seen it in the windows of 
 stoves. The mica is used there because it is not 
 easily broken or affected by the heat. 
 
 You will notice also some grains of another min- 
 eral, which is nearly white, but not as clear as the 
 quartz. This mineral has little faces, which reflect 
 the light, and it can be scratched a little with the 
 knife. It is called feldspar. 
 
 Now let us see, if we can, how Nature changes a 
 piece of solid granite to sand. 
 
 When the mountain of granite stood where the 
 hill does now, there were narrow cracks running all 
 
34 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 through it. They were just like those which can 
 be seen in the granite in the picture, if you ex- 
 amine it closely. 
 
 The rains soaked into the cracks, and the roots 
 of the bushes and trees penetrated them. As the 
 roots grew larger, they pried the masses of granite 
 apart, just as a man would do with a bar. The 
 loose pieces finally rolled down the mountain side. 
 
 As we have seen, every piece of granite is com- 
 posed of three different minerals, the quartz, the 
 feldspar, and the mica. As the sun shone upon the 
 granite it made it warm, and each grain expanded a 
 very little. At night, when it was cool, the grains con- 
 tracted. In this way they became loosened, and after 
 a long time slowly fell apart, forming sand. 
 
 This is Nature's way of tearing down a moun- 
 tain. It is very slow, but if you could live long 
 enough you could see how much she accomplishes. 
 
 The little brooks which used to run by the 
 granite mountain had plenty to do. As the granite 
 crumbled, the feldspar became soft, and turned to 
 clay. The brooks picked up the particles of clay first, 
 but they made themselves muddy in doing so. They 
 could not get rid of the mud which the clay made, 
 and so had to carry it to the ocean. 
 
 The water also washed the scales of mica along 
 very easily. Look in some brook on a summer day, 
 and you will see the shining scales of mica moving 
 
A HANDFUL OF SAND. 35 
 
 along on the bottom with the current. Perhaps the 
 brook is carrying them from some mountain which 
 is now being torn down. The most of the little 
 scales will not stop until they reach the ocean. 
 
 It was not so easy to move the grains of quartz, 
 but the brooks did it when the rains fell, and they 
 rushed along more swiftly. 
 
 The clay and the mica scales were carried far out 
 into the ocean, where the water was quiet, and then 
 fell to the bottom. 
 
 The quartz grains were not carried out so far, and 
 the waves piled them up on the beach. The waves 
 never tired of playing with the sand. They turned 
 the grains over and over, and ground them together, 
 until they were perfectly smooth. 
 
 You see now how the ocean sorted the different 
 minerals in the granite. It put the clay and mica 
 scales in one place, and the quartz grains in another. 
 The work is not always done so well, for along some 
 ocean shores the clay and mica and quartz are all 
 mixed together. 
 
 When the waves have done with the grains of 
 sand, and thrown them up high on the beach, the 
 wind takes a hand. It picks them up and whirls 
 them through the air as it does the snowflakes. 
 
 What do you suppose will become of the granite 
 pillar which is all that remains of the mountain 
 about which we have been talking? It seems to 
 
36 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 defy the rains and the frost, but by and by it also 
 will fall, and crumble to sand. Then there will be 
 nothing left to tell of the mountain but a small 
 mound of sand in the desert. 
 
 The forces of the weather never rest. They are 
 tearing down all the mountains around us. Although 
 the carpet of soil in which the trees and grasses grow 
 protects the rocks in many places, yet they are crum- 
 bling and decaying in spite of it. 
 
 After a time the mountains will all disappear, if 
 something does not lift them up again. 
 
 We love the wild rocks, and do not like to think 
 of their being torn down ; but we must be content, 
 because their materials are necessary to make the 
 soil. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 Microscope (mi'kro-skop), mica (mi'ka), feldspar (feld'- 
 sparO, defy (de-ff), decay (de-ka'). 
 
 Granite = a rock, composed of quartz, feldspar, and mica. 
 Quartz = a hard, glassy mineral. 
 
 Feldspar = a constituent of rocks. Clay is formed from feld- 
 spar. 
 
 Mica = a mineral separable into thin flexible plates. 
 Scale = a thin layer of any substance. 
 Mound = a little hill. 
 Pillar = an upright support; a column. 
 
THE WORK OF THE WIND. 
 
 HERE are many different forces 
 at work around us. The world 
 is never free from them, although 
 they go about their business so 
 quietly we cease to notice them. 
 
 The frost, the raindrops, the 
 river, and the ocean waves are 
 all doing something toward level- 
 ing the surface of the earth. 
 
 The wind also has a share in the changes which 
 
 are going on. It is different from the other forces, 
 
 in that it builds up hills as well as causes them to 
 
 be worn away. 
 
 When the trees are bending before the storm, and 
 
 the great breakers are coming in from the ocean, 
 
 we see what power the air 
 
 has as it rushes along. 
 We realize still better 
 
 what the wind can do if 
 
 we try to face it. The 
 
 grains of sand, and even 
 
 small pebbles scattered 
 
 37 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Various ways In which 
 the -wind works. 
 
 Sand storms. 
 
 The effects of 
 sand. 
 
 Sand-dtmes. 
 
 flying 
 
THE WORK OP THE WIND. 39 
 
 over the ground, are picked up by the wind and 
 thrown in our faces with such force as to make 
 the flesh tingle with pain. 
 
 The wind does work then. It uses the sand to 
 grind down the bare mountains in the deserts. 
 When it is through with the sand for a while, it 
 piles it up into great hills, called dunes. 
 
 The most of us have seen the dust storms, when a 
 " norther " is blowing. The sky is yellow, and the sun 
 almost hidden by the flying dust and sand. It gets 
 into the tightest houses, and settles on everything. 
 
 In the deserts the sand storms are furious things, 
 for there is nothing to break the sweep of the wind. 
 In the deserts of Arabia and Northern Africa, 
 people are sometimes smothered and buried in the 
 sand storms. 
 
 After feeling the powerful blows of the little 
 grains upon one's face, it is not hard to understand 
 how mountains can be worn away by them. 
 
 In the deserts the rocks have but little, if any, 
 covering, and the winds blow much of the time. 
 With the wind behind them, the little grains 
 are forever chasing each other over the surface. If 
 any rocks get in the way, they have to suffer. 
 Each grain is a chisel in the grasp of the wind, and 
 every time one strikes, it takes a very small bit of 
 the rock away with it. The rocks are thus sculp- 
 tured into all sorts of pinnacles and grooves. 
 
40 WESTERN SERIES OF HEADERS. 
 
 The sand plays strange freaks sometimes. Along 
 the railroad, in the Colorado Desert, it cuts into the 
 telegraph poles until they are worn through. 
 
 The beautifully polished pebbles which are scat- 
 tered over the desert owe their shining surfaces to 
 the blows of thousands of grains of sand, which are 
 always moving along the ground when the wind 
 blows. 
 
 In some portions of the Colorado Desert the wind 
 has piled the sand into great dunes. They do not 
 stay in one place, as hills usually do, but move 
 across the country in the direction in which the 
 wind generally blows. They march in ranks, like 
 an army, destroying everything in their path. 
 
 The dunes are formed in the same manner as 
 snowdrifts, and are shaped exactly like them. The 
 sand drifts upon the railroad tracks as the snow 
 does in the winter in the mountains, so that trains 
 are stopped until it can be shoveled off. 
 
 The work of the wind in forming dunes is 
 most frequently to be seen along the ocean. For 
 miles and miles the ocean waves break upon a 
 cushion of sand. The rivers have brought some of 
 the sand from the far mountains. Some of it the 
 waves themselves have made, as they ceaselessly 
 hammer the pebbles upon each other. 
 
 Each breaker lifts the grains of sand, whirls them 
 around, and throws them up the sloping beach. 
 
THE WORK OF THE WIND. 41 
 
 Some are left high and dry, above the reach of the 
 succeeding waves. Then, as soon as they are dry, 
 the wind takes them in charge. It rolls them over 
 and over, or carries them bodily through the air, 
 and finally piles them up in those great drifts, 
 which we have called dunes. 
 
 As our picture shows, each dune is long and nar- 
 row, and looks exactly like a snowdrift, even to 
 the little ripples upon its surface. The manner 
 in which the dunes travel is as follows: the wind 
 picks up the grains of sand on that side of the dune 
 from which it blows, and carries them over the top. 
 As soon as they reach a point which is protected 
 from the wind, they are dropped. Thus they suc- 
 ceed each other, as the dune slowly moves inland 
 from the beach. 
 
 Nothing can stop the march of the dunes. 
 Bushes, trees, and green meadows are buried under 
 the barren sand. The orrly way in which dunes 
 can be held is to get bushes or grass to grow upon 
 their surfaces. Then the wind can no longer get 
 hold of the sand. 
 
 On some coasts, the sand-dunes have overwhelmed 
 whole farms, and even villages. If a village stands 
 in the way of the creeping dunes, the people have to 
 leave. The houses are buried, and all traces of the 
 village disappear for years. But, as the dunes con- 
 tinually move, the houses may be uncovered in time. 
 
42 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 What a dreary sight the deserted village presents, 
 with the broken houses, and dead trees still stand- 
 ing in front of them. 
 
 Our picture shows some beautiful dunes upon the 
 edge of the Salinas River, in Monterey Count} 7 . 
 The river bottom is dry in the summer, and the 
 winds have drifted the sand over the bushes and 
 trees. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 Realize (re'al-iz), tingle (tm'g'l), dune (dun), sculpture 
 (skulp'tur), pinnacle (pin'-na-k'l), overwhelm (6'ver-hwelm'j. 
 
 * Norther "= a heavy wind from the north. 
 Chisel = a tool with a cutting edge on one end. 
 Overwhelm = to cover over completely. 
 Sculpture = to carve or cut. 
 Pinnacle = a high, sharp point. 
 
A CURIOUS CALIFORNIA RIVER. 
 
 OME of our California rivers have 
 strange ways. They do not act as 
 rivers ordinarily do. They seem 
 to flow bottom-side up. Ordinary 
 rivers run upon the top of the 
 ground and become larger toward 
 their mouths. 
 These curious rivers are found in portions of 
 
 California where the rainfall is light, and they have 
 
 to run a long distance to reach the sea. 
 
 The Salinas River is one of them. As we study 
 
 the map of California, this river appears to be one 
 
 of the longest and most important streams in 
 
 the Coast Ranges. If you 
 
 should start out in the 
 
 summer time to look for 
 
 this river you would be 
 
 disappointed. You can find 
 
 the Salinas Valley easily 
 
 enough, but where is the 
 
 river? 
 
 There, where it ought to 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Characters of ordinary 
 
 rivers. 
 Behavior of rivers in 
 
 dry regions. 
 Salinas River. 
 Effects of summer heat. 
 How the sand preserves 
 
 the water. * * 
 
 43 
 
I ' J 1 1 bi \ 
 
 i ' 
 
 V 
 
 'LL& 
 
A CURIOUS CALIFORNIA RIVER. 45 
 
 be, is a winding channel of sand, reaching as far 
 as you can see. High clay banks shut in the bed 
 of sand, which is half a mile wide. It must be the 
 river bottom, although there is apparently no 
 water in it. Every few miles it is spanned by 
 long iron bridges, so that it must be that water 
 flows here sometimes. 
 
 What then, has become of the river ? Its bed is 
 so dry that the afternoon sea breezes which sweep 
 up the valley and across its surface, blow the sand 
 into great drifts. .: - 
 
 The sand in the bed of this apparently dry river 
 is very deep. If you should dig down a few feet it 
 would become moist, and a little farther, you would 
 meet water. Now you have found the river. How 
 strange ! The sand, which is usually at the bottom, 
 is on the top. The river is actually flowing through 
 the sand, instead of on the surface. Why does it 
 do this ? The reason is very simple. 
 
 During the long dry summers the hot sun dries 
 up so much of the water that there is not enough 
 to rise above the sand, which is piled deep in the 
 bed. of the river. 
 
 The sand is like a sponge, because it absorbs a 
 large amount of water. As the little grains are not 
 packed tightly together, there are little empty 
 spaces about each one. Through these spaces the 
 river slowly passes down its sloping bed to the sea. 
 
46 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 In the winter the storms are frequently severe, 
 and floods of water are brought by all the rivulets 
 to the main river. Then the flood sweeps down 
 the channel, washing down its banks until it forms 
 a broad sandy bed. 
 
 Far away in the gulches are hidden the little 
 springs which feed the river during the summer. 
 The grasses and ferns shade them, while over- 
 head bend the pines and oaks, and the hot sun can- 
 not get at them. 
 
 Farther down the slopes, the springs unite in the 
 rivulets which run more slowly, and are in many 
 places open to the sun. 
 
 These little streams at last unite in the main 
 river which, for a time, runs over a rocky bed be- 
 tween the hills. 
 
 Soon the banks become more open; the hills 
 leave the river, and a broad valley takes their place. 
 The river seems to hesitate about going farther, for 
 there are no longer tall trees and overhanging 
 banks to protect it from the rays of the greedy 
 summer sun. With what intensity they beat down 
 through the long days. 
 
 The river seems doomed, for it would all be gone 
 long before reaching the sea if it had to flow over the 
 hard rock floor which it had among the hills. 
 
 But the sand comes to the rescue. The little 
 grains of sand, which the river has been trying for 
 
A CURIOUS CALIFORNIA RIVER. 
 
 < ^S2^4^r- 
 
 so many years to wash out of its bed and carry to 
 the sea, now do the river a good turn. The sand 
 was in the river's way, and blocked its channel, 
 when it swept along so full and strong in the winter. 
 Now the river is glad to accept its protection. 
 
 The sand has buried the rock floor all the rest of 
 the way to the ocean. Gladly does the river creep 
 in between the little grains, and hide itself from 
 the sun. It looks a little selfish however, for now 
 the thirsty cattle follow its bed for miles, hunting 
 in vain for some water to drink. They are fortu- 
 nate if they at last find a little spot where the sand 
 is so shallow that the river has to come to the top. 
 It peeps out for a few rods, and then disappears 
 again in the sand. 
 
 How wise Nature seems in thus preserving the 
 river, which would otherwise be entirely dried up 
 by the summer heat. It furnishes water to the 
 people who live along -its banks, who would other- 
 wise have trouble in getting it. Now all they have 
 to do is to dig a hole in the sand of the river bed, 
 and there they find plenty of pure, cool water. 
 
 Although the river flows upon the top of the sand 
 for only a little time each year, yet the bridges are 
 quite necessary. When the sand is full of water, it 
 forms what is called quicksand. It is then very dan- 
 gerous. A team will sink into it almost as quickly 
 as into water, and it is very hard to get it out. 
 
48 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 Where the sand is very deep, as in the deserts, it 
 drinks up all the water that falls and never gives it 
 back. In our rivers the bedrock keeps the water 
 near the surface. 
 
 As the days become cooler in the fall, the air 
 does not take up so much of the water, and a little 
 of it again comes to the top, and runs over the sand. 
 It increases until the first heavy rains come, when 
 the broad winding strip of sand becomes a muddy 
 torrent. 
 
 Streams in South America which head in the 
 high mountains, and flow across the deserts, have 
 the same habit. When the snows begin to melt on 
 the olistant mountains, the people go out to watch 
 for the coming of the river. When it does come 
 running down over the dry sand they are happy, 
 for without the water there would be no crops the 
 coming year. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORD'S. 
 
 Hesitate (hez'i-tat), intensity (In-ten'sl-ty), protection 
 (pro-tek'-shun), preserving (pre-z6rv'ing), irrigate (ir'ri-gat). 
 
 Coast Ranges = a series of mountain ranges bordering the 
 
 Pacific Coast of the United States. 
 Gulch =a ravine, or deep bed of a torrent. 
 Shallow = having little depth. 
 Irrigate = to moisten land by means of a stream made to flow 
 
 over it. 
 
THE STORY OF SAN FRANCISCO BAY. 
 
 has been a 
 long time making Cali- 
 fornia. She has put gold 
 in one place, and silver in 
 another. She has lifted up 
 mountains, and torn them down again. 
 
 She has buried the Coast Ranges under the ocean, 
 and then raised them up again as though she en- 
 joyed the sport. 
 
 She has turned things upside down so many 
 times that we are not quite sure she will not do it 
 again. How strange it 
 would be if we should 
 wake up some morning 
 and find San Francisco 
 Bay dry land. Stranger 
 things than that have hap- 
 pened here. 
 
 Can you picture to your- 
 selves how San Francisco 
 Bay would look if there 
 were no water in it; if 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Former condition of San 
 Francisco Bay. 
 
 Trace on the map the 
 old course of the Sac- 
 ramento River. 
 
 Submerged valley in 
 Monterey Bay. 
 
 Bay filling up. 
 
 Location of cities. 
 
 Islands in the bay. 
 
THE STORY OF SAN FRANCISCO BAY. 51 
 
 the fertile valleys which surround it extended all 
 over it? 
 
 There would be room for many farms, and quan- 
 tities of vegetables could be raised. However, they 
 might not find sale, for if there were no bay 
 here, there would be no city of San Francisco. 
 There would be no Golden Gate, with the ships 
 sailing in and out past the lighthouses and the 
 foghorns. 
 
 This is the way it really was many years ago. 
 The land was much higher, and the Sacramento 
 River flowed where the bay now is. Did the river 
 empty into the ocean where the Golden Gate is ? 
 We will answer the question by asking if it could 
 have flowed anywhere else, if some giant had built 
 a great dam across the mouth of the bay ? 
 
 There is, indeed, another way. It is through the 
 Santa Clara Valley, past the city of San Jose. This 
 broad valley is only slightly raised above the level 
 of the ocean, and extends south to the Paj.aro River, 
 which flows into the bay of Monterey. 
 
 The Santa Clara Valley is so nearly level that, as 
 you ride through it on the cars, it is hard to tell 
 just where the highest point is. On the north, the 
 streams flow into San Francisco Bay. On the south, 
 they unite with the Pajaro River and so reach 
 Monterey Bay. 
 
 You can see now that if the mouth of San Fran- 
 
52 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 cisco Bay were dammed up, the Sacramento could 
 easily flow south into Monterey Bay. What a 
 strange sight it would be to see this large river 
 flowing past Oakland and Alameda, and through 
 the Santa Clara Valley, where the city of San Jose* 
 now stands. 
 
 You know from the geography the shape of Mon- 
 terey Bay, and where the Pajaro and Salinas rivers 
 flow into it. It has been discovered by soundings 
 that there is a great valley extending east and west 
 through the bay, but entirely buried by the ocean. 
 
 It is believed that when the land was higher, and 
 Monterey Bay was dry land, that a large river 
 flowed through this valley. You can easily guess 
 what river it was. It was that which we call the 
 Sacramento. 
 
 Then a time came when the coast sank, and all 
 the lowlands along the shore were flooded. The 
 sea, of course, broke through the Coast Range of 
 mountains at the lowest point, which is the Golden 
 Gate. After this happened, the Sacramento River 
 did not have to flow away round by San Jose' and 
 Monterey to get into the ocean, but could go directly 
 through the gap made in the hills between San 
 Francisco and Sausalito. 
 
 While the bay region was dry land, several hills 
 rose in the fertile valley. When the ocean broke 
 in and flooded the land, the hills which were 
 
THE STORY OF SAN FRANCISCO BAY. 53 
 
 not entirely covered up, formed islands. One of 
 these we call Goat Island, another Angel Island, 
 and a third, Alcatraz Island. Those hills which 
 were just covered by the water, formed reefs. The 
 reefs did no harm to the canoes of the Indians, 
 but when the great ships came some ran onto the 
 rocks and were injured. 
 
 To make the Golden Gate more safe for ships to 
 pass through, these rocks will have to be blown out. 
 
 The Sacramento River, and the smaller streams 
 which flow into it, are continually at work trying to 
 fill up the bay. They do this by the aid of the mud 
 and sand, which the rains wash into their channels. 
 
 Many small arms of the bay are already so nearly 
 filled that the bottom is exposed at low tide. The 
 marshes back of the mud flats are high enough for 
 a kind of grass to grow upon them. 
 
 The long wharves, which have been built out into 
 the bay, break the currents of water which are carry- 
 ing mud out into the ocean, and more of it settles to 
 the bottom. In order to dig out this mud, which 
 is settling all the time, machines called dredgers 
 have been built. They scoop up the mud from the 
 bottom, and so keep the water deep enough for the 
 great ships. 
 
 Man is helping Nature fill up San Francisco Bay, 
 and many years from now it will not be as large or 
 as deep. 
 
54 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 This is not all of the history of San Francisco 
 Bay. Many other things have happened here. It 
 was once so deeply buried beneath the ocean that only 
 the tops of the Berkeley Hills, Mount Tamalpais, 
 and the Santa Cruz Mountains, rose above the water. 
 
 The ocean extended up through the straits of 
 Carquinez, past Vallejo and Benicia. The San 
 Joaquin and Sacramento Valleys formed large, deep 
 bays into which ships could have sailed if there 
 had been any people to sail them. 
 
 Now that we know something of the story of San 
 Francisco Bay, we may wonder why the great city 
 which bears the same name was built here. Did 
 you ever think that we cannot build a city any- 
 where that we want to? We have to take advan- 
 tage of the way in which Nature has arranged the 
 mountains, valleys, and bays. 
 
 If California had been discovered and settled at 
 a time when San Francisco Bay was dry land, you 
 may be sure that no great city would have been 
 built here. The city would have grown up where 
 there was a harbor for ships. It might have grown 
 up on Monterey Bay. 
 
 Where a number of inland streams and valleys 
 unite in a deep and protected bay, that is the place 
 for a great city to be built. So you see why the 
 largest city of the Pacific Coast has grown up on 
 San Francisco Bay. 
 
THE STORY OF SAN FRANCISCO BAY. 
 
 55 
 
 The bay has a narrow entrance, and is well pro- 
 tected from the storms. It is broad and deep, and 
 its long arms reach out into the many valleys which 
 converge toward it. Nature has destined it to be 
 the centre of trade of a great region. 
 
 How much more interest the bay will have for 
 us, now that we know something of its history. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 Vegetable (vej'e-ta-b'l), Pajaro (pa'-ha-ro), Sausalito 
 (saw-sa-lee'to), Alcatraz (al-ka-traz'), Tamalpais (ta-maPpis), 
 Vallejo (val-la'ho), Benicia (be-nish'e-a), Salinas (sa-lee'nas), 
 dredger (drej'-er). 
 
 Submerged =under water. 
 
 Scoop = to shovel, or dip up with a ladle. 
 
 Sounding = ascertaining the depth of any part of the ocean. 
 
 Reefs = Rocks at or near the surface of the water. 
 
 Converge = to approach nearer together. 
 
 Destined = set apart for a use or purpose. 
 
AN ANCIENT OYSTER BED. 
 
 EAR the summit of the Coast 
 Ranges, far from the ocean, I 
 found an oyster shell. There it 
 lay in the sandy soil, looking so 
 old and worn, I could imagine 
 that hundreds of years had 
 passed since it saw the ocean. 
 
 Did some one carry it there, or did a bird bring 
 it from the seashore? It hardly seemed possible, for 
 there are none like it upon the beach. Besides, 
 there are no birds living now which could carry a 
 shell of such size. 
 
 The one which lay before me seemed a giant in 
 comparison with those in the market, and is prop- 
 erly named Ostrea titan. 
 The oyster which once 
 lived in this shell would 
 have made a whole meal. 
 A half dozen of the com- 
 mon oysters would hardly 
 make more than so many 
 mouthfuls. 
 
 56 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 A bed of fossil sliells. 
 Where oysters live. 
 Picture of tlie ancient 
 
 oyster bed. 
 A catastrophe. 
 Elevation of sea bottom. 
 
AN ANCIENT OYSTER BED. 57 
 
 If you had ordered some oysters in a restaurant, 
 I think you would be astonished to see a waiter 
 corne in, carrying a single big oyster upon a platter. 
 Just think of an oyster with a shell a foot and a 
 half long. Such a big fellow would have to be carved 
 like a piece of roast beef. . 
 
 Many such oysters must have lived once upon a 
 time, for on looking about near where I had found the 
 first one, I discovered a whole bed of them. They 
 were sticking out of a layer of hard sand, which ex- 
 tended along the top of a low hill. 
 
 Where the rain had washed the dirt away, other 
 and smaller shells appeared. There were scallops 
 and periwinkles, and clams which looked very much 
 like those now living in the ocean. 
 
 The layer of sand and fossil shells looked just 
 like an old sea beach ; but how did it come here, 
 high in the mountains? Oysters do not live in 
 rivers or lakes. They are found only in the salt 
 water. 
 
 The Coast Ranges must have been under the sea 
 a long time ago. As the earth was raised the 
 water ran off, and the place where the shore was at 
 that time is now many miles from the ocean. 
 
 Suppose you try to form a picture in your mind 
 of that old beach where the oysters lived in the 
 clean, white sand. 
 
 There were not many things to disturb the peace 
 

AN ANCIENT OYSTER BED. 59 
 
 and quiet of the great oysters, whose shells were so 
 thick that no animal could bite them open. Besides, 
 there were then no people living upon the earth. 
 So that they were not troubled by picnic parties, or 
 the men who hunt for oysters at low tide, in order 
 to carry them off to market. 
 
 Many generations of the oysters lived there hap- 
 pily in the shallow water, among the islands where 
 the Coast Ranges were to stand in the distant 
 future. 
 
 The oysters had plenty to eat, and their shells 
 grew so large and heavy that they could hardly 
 open them. When they died, the waves buried 
 them in the clean sand. The young oysters took 
 their places, and in this way the bed of sand and 
 shells became many feet thick. 
 
 The ocean tides rose and fell twice a day in those 
 times, just as they do now. The oysters did not 
 mind it. In fact, they rather enjoyed the little 
 time during which the tide ran away and left them. 
 
 But one day something unlooked for happened. 
 The tide went out farther than usual, and left the 
 bed of oysters bare for a long time. After a few 
 hours had passed, and the salt water had dried off 
 from them, they became very thirsty. O, for a drink 
 of the cool salt water. Why did the hot sun shine 
 upon them so long? Why did not the tide come 
 back? 
 
60 WESTERN SERIES OP READERS. 
 
 Their shells gaped wider and wider; but alas, it 
 was all in vain. In a little time they all died. 
 
 When it was too late the tide swept in again ; not 
 quietly as it had done so many times before, but 
 with a rush of muddy, dashing waves. The water 
 came in with such force that it did not stop until it 
 had swept far over the land, uprooting the trees 
 and washing away the soil. 
 
 The currents and waves washed mud and sand 
 and rubbish from the land over the bed of oysters, 
 and it was buried very deep. 
 
 The water kept rising, until it covered all of the 
 islands, and there was no land in sight. 
 
 After ever so long a time had passed, the water 
 began to go down, and the land where the islands 
 had been, rose again above the water. The land 
 continued to rise, and after a time the water all ran 
 off. The islands became connected by dry land, and 
 so were no longer islands. 
 
 This land which had been raised above the water 
 was only bare rocks and mud and sand. It looked 
 just as San Francisco Bay would look if the water 
 were all drained off. 
 
 The winds and the birds brought seeds, and all 
 kinds of plants sprang up where the sea used to be. 
 
 You may wonder what became of the bed of 
 oysters. It was so completely buried that one 
 would never suspect there had ever been one. 
 
AN ANCIENT OYSTER BED. 61 
 
 Something was raising the land higher all of 
 the time, and by and by it began to look a little 
 like our Coast Ranges. The rains which fell washed 
 out little ravines, which finally grew to be canons. 
 The rains also worked upon the hills, and washed 
 away into the canons so much of the rocks and soil 
 that the bed of oyster shells at last stuck out of the 
 ground in plain sight. 
 
 This is the history of these rough and worn 
 oyster shells. What fun it is to dig them out of the 
 sand where they have been buried all these years. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 Oyster (ois'ter), Titan (ti'tan), gape (gap), periwinkle 
 (pgr'i-win'k'l). 
 
 Oyster = a marine mollusk, of the genus Ostrea. 
 
 Titan = pertaining to the Titans, of great size. 
 
 Fossil remains of a plant or an animal found in stratified 
 
 rock. 
 
 Tide = the rise and fall of the sea. 
 Scallop = a bivalve shell with radiating ribs. 
 Periwinkle = a small gastropod shell. 
 
A RAINSTORM IN THE DESERT. 
 
 OU have all heard of the 
 deserts of Eastern Califor- 
 nia. They are formed of 
 broad, sandy valleys, with 
 mountains of almost bare 
 rock, lying between them. 
 
 The high mountains, be- 
 tween these deserts and the coast, cut off the cool 
 breezes, and during the long summer days the air 
 becomes so hot that when it blows upon one's face 
 it seems like the breath from an oven. 
 
 It is not the heat, however, that makes this region 
 a desert. It is so barren because there is very little 
 rain. One would think that thelizards and the rattle- 
 snakes would have such a country all to themselves. 
 The desire for gold, however, draws men across 
 the blistering sands to the far away mountains, 
 and some of them are never heard of again. 
 
 Two prospectors once made their camp in a range 
 of mountains in the Mojave Desert. They had been 
 fortunate, and found a cool spring which no one but 
 Indians had seen before. They built a cabin in the 
 
A RAINSTORM IN THE DESERT. 63 
 
 canon near it, for they intended to stay there and 
 hunt for gold. 
 
 The canon extended away back into the moun- 
 tains, and some time, water must have flowed in it, 
 but now it was perfectly dry. As rains so seldom 
 fell upon the mountains the prospectors felt quite 
 safe. 
 
 During the middle of the hot days little columns 
 of sand were caught up by the winds, and moved 
 slowly across the sandy desert at the mouth of the 
 canon. Fleecy clouds also gathered about the tops 
 of the mountains, but disappeared as night 
 came on. 
 
 Months passed quietly in the canon, but one 
 day the clouds gathered heavier than usual. They 
 grew quite black, and a few rumblings of thunder 
 were heard. 
 
 The miners looked at the clouds so far away, and 
 longed for their cool shadows, but after a time, as 
 the sun continued to shine upon them, they forgot 
 all about the clouds. 
 
 In the meantime something was happening in 
 the dark clouds. They settled down upon the tops 
 of the mountains, and a few drops began to fall. 
 As these drops cooled the air, the clouds sent them 
 down thicker and thicker. Finally a perfect flood 
 was pouring from them upon the barren mountain 
 
A RAINSTORM IN THE DESERT. 65 
 
 There was little soil to hold the falling drops, 
 and they quickly gathered into rills. The rills ran 
 over the ledges of rock and into the little ravines. 
 They poured from all sides, for the clouds seemed 
 to have broken and turned all of their moisture 
 into raindrops at once. 
 
 The floods of water tumbled and roared into the 
 gulches. They became larger each moment, as 
 every side canon added its share. The torrents 
 were angry and muddy looking. They had picked 
 up what little soil there was and all the loose 
 fragments of rock, besides, there were trunks and 
 branches of the few stunted trees which managed 
 to live upon the mountains. 
 
 It was years since such a rain had fallen here, 
 and a large amount of rubbish had accumulated. 
 Many fragments had fallen from the cliffs into the 
 canons, and one might think that the water would 
 have trouble getting over or around them. 
 
 On the contrary, it did not seem to be delayed at 
 all. It picked up and carried along all but the very 
 largest ones, apparently as easily as it did the 
 bird's nest which had been torn from a bush. 
 
 In a short time all the torrents reached the main 
 canon. There they united and went thundering 
 down toward the little cabin of the miners. The 
 men had heard the sound of the coming waters, 
 but did not know what it meant until a wall of 
 
66 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 water appeared sweeping around a bend in the 
 canon above them. 
 
 In an instant the men were out of the bed of the 
 canon, and climbing its sides. They were just in 
 time to reach a point of safety as the foaming flood 
 went thundering past. 
 
 At its front, huge bowlders, almost as large as 
 their cabin went rolling over and over. The water 
 was thick with mud and sand and bowlders. 
 
 The clouds had cleared away, and the rain 
 stopped by the time the flood had reached the main 
 canon, and so the water went down almost as 
 quickly as it had risen. After a few hours, there 
 remained only a little stream of muddy water, 
 hunting its way among the bowlders which dotted 
 the bed of the canon. 
 
 The miner's cabin had escaped the torrent, but 
 just in front of it was a dirty channel, many feet 
 wide. The willows by the spring had been swept 
 away, and all was dirty and desolate. 
 
 What had become of the great mass of water and 
 rubbish ? It swept down to the mouth of the canon, 
 and there spreading out upon the sandy floor of the 
 open desert, soon spent its force. Some of the 
 bowlders were carried three miles out into the 
 desert. The water did not stop there, but with the 
 mud and sand, flowed fully ten miles before it sank 
 into the dry sand. 
 
A RAINSTORM IN THE DESERT. 67 
 
 This is the picture of what we generally call a 
 cloudburst. When rains fall upon the mountains 
 of the desert they often come in torrents of this 
 kind. As there is so little soil, the water gathers 
 and runs off very quickly. 
 
 In places where it rains more frequently, soil 
 collects, and the grasses and trees which spring up 
 keep it from washing away. 
 
 We can easily see that the desert mountains will 
 finally be torn down by such cloudbursts. The 
 mountain tops are cool, and at times change what 
 little moisture there is in the air into raindrops. 
 When the mountains have been worn away the 
 springs will dry up, and the desert become more 
 barren still. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 Mojave (m5-ha'va), fortunate (for'tu-nat), condense 
 (kon-dSns'), column (kol'uin), accumulate (ak-ku'-mu-lat), 
 moisture (mois'tur). 
 
 Prospector = one who hunts for minerals. 
 
 Gulch = a ravine; deep bed of a torrent when dry. 
 
 Stunted = dwarfed. 
 
 Rubbish = waste matter. 
 
 Cloudburst = a sudden, heavy rainstorm. 
 
 Condense = to change into another form by cold or pressure. 
 
 Moisture =that which makes damp or wet. 
 
THE STORY OF PETROLEUM. 
 
 HERE was a time very long ago 
 when there were no Coast Ranges in 
 California. The waves of the Pacific 
 Ocean rippled in the sunlight, where 
 the cities of San Francisco, Santa 
 Barbara, and Los Angeles now stand. 
 In this old ocean the hungry porpoise 
 
 chased the little fishes, and many strange monsters 
 
 swam to and fro. 
 
 Sometimes the sailor thinks that he catches sight 
 
 of some of these long, snake-like monsters playing 
 
 near his ship. No one believes him, yet he may be 
 
 right, for we know by the bones which have been 
 
 found that there were once 
 
 such animals in the sea. 
 You have read of the 
 
 whales, those great animals 
 
 which are hunted for their 
 
 oil; but did you ever think 
 
 that the petroleum in our 
 
 evening lamps also comes 
 
 from the sea, from the 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Animals of the ocean. 
 Necessity of sunlight. 
 Bottom of the ocean. 
 Ooze. 
 
 Petroleum. 
 Tar, bitumen. 
 Bituminous rock. 
 Uses of petroleum. 
 
 69 
 
70 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 bodies of very small animals which lived long 
 ago? It is a strange story, and you may be inter- 
 ested in hearing it. 
 
 The world did not look then as it does now, though 
 the ocean was filled with plants and animals swim- 
 ming or floating in it just as at the present time. 
 They did not know nor care that the bottom of 
 the sea in which they lived was to be called Cali- 
 fornia. All they wanted was sunlight, plenty to 
 eat, and a great ocean in which to live. 
 
 In order to find out more about these little ani- 
 mals, and what became of them when they died, 
 let us take an imaginary trip to the bottom of that 
 old sea. We shall have to be dressed as divers are, 
 with helmets on our heads, and heavy weights at- 
 tached to our feet. 
 
 The bright sunlight follows us down many feet, 
 as we sink through the clear water, but it gradually 
 becomes dim, and, long before we reach the bottom, 
 it is as dark as it is at midnight, when the stars are 
 hidden by heavy clouds. 
 
 In the upper portion of this sea the water is full 
 of animals and plants of every size, shape, and 
 color. The fishes and their relations stare at us for 
 an instant with their great round eyes, and then 
 are gone. But the little animals, which are not 
 much more than mouth and stomach, are not at all 
 disturbed by our visit. 
 
THE STORY OF PETROLEUM. 71 
 
 We see that each layer of water has its peculiar 
 animals, just as each kind of bird has its own place 
 in which to live, and build its nest. The bodies of 
 the most of these animals are so small that, as they 
 float before our eyes, they seem like so many par- 
 ticles of dust. A cupful of water would contain 
 thousands of them. 
 
 As the light grows dimmer, the animals are not 
 so numerous, for they cannot make their homes 
 where the light of the sun does not reach. There 
 are some, however, with little lanterns like the 
 fireflies, which makes it possible for them to live 
 in the bottom of the sea. By the aid of this dim 
 phosphorescent light, we can just make out what is 
 going on around u 
 
 At last, when about half a mile below the sur- 
 face, we reach .the floor of the sea, which stretches 
 away in every direction like a great plain. The 
 bottom is soft, and we sink deep into a slimy ooze 
 which feels much like the mud in a stagnant pond. 
 
 This is a dreary place, for the waters are perfectly 
 quiet, and the few animals move about very slowly. 
 Our attention is attracted by little particles that are 
 slowly sinking through the water. Most of them 
 are so small that they look like tiny snowflakes. 
 Has there been a storm above, and are these the 
 little flakes of snow which disappear as they strike 
 the water? 
 
72 WESTERN SERIES OP READERS. 
 
 We hold out our hands and catch a number, 
 and examine them closely. To our surprise we find 
 that they are the bodies of the little animals which 
 live in the water far above. As they grow old and 
 die, their bodies sink down through the still water, 
 until at last they come to rest upon the floor of the 
 ocean. 
 
 Dipping up some of the ooze in which we stand, 
 we see that it is formed of the same material. 
 Living in this ooze, and feeding upon it, are worm- 
 like animals. 
 
 Perhaps you have already thought what we ought 
 to call this place. It is the cemetery of the sea. 
 Here the bodies of all the animals, which are not 
 dissolved in the water, come to rest. Among their 
 little skeletons and shells, which are not half as big 
 as a pinhead, there are bones of the larger animals, 
 such as the fish and seal. 
 
 In this soft, slimy material, which is so slowly col- 
 lecting, there are particles of dust from the land. 
 A north wind whirled them into the air, and out 
 over the ocean, and then dropped them. 
 
 Year after year the bed of ooze increases, until 
 thousands of feet of material are deposited upon 
 the bed of the ocean. That which is undermost, as 
 you will readily see, must be pressed upon very 
 heavily by that above, so that the whole mass be- 
 comes constantly harder and more compact. 
 
THE STORY OF PETROLEUM. 73 
 
 Thus things went on for an unknown time in the 
 deep ocean, which then occupied the place where the 
 Coast Ranges now stand. Finally, these quiet times 
 came to an end. Something strange was about to hap- 
 pen. There were queer sounds, and rockings of the 
 earth, and all the animals which could, fled away. 
 
 The bottom of the sea was raised so that the bed 
 of ooze, which during all these years had become 
 quite hard, was raised nearly to the surface of the 
 water. Then, from the nearest land, the ocean 
 currents brought sand and mud, and spread them 
 layer after layer over the surface of this old ceme- 
 tery, of which we have been talking. 
 
 Long, long years passed by, and thousands of 
 feet of sand and clay and gravels were washed on 
 top of what was once the bed of ooze. The clays 
 and gravels were hardened and became stone. 
 Then another great earthquake took place, and the 
 sea bottom was lifted high above the waters into a 
 great range of mountains. 
 
 During the raising of the mountains, the bed of 
 ooze was squeezed very hard, so hard that it be- 
 came quite warm, and a strong smelling gas was 
 formed from the materials of the little animal 
 bodies. At last this gas, which is poisonous and 
 invisible like that formed from burning coal, found 
 some cracks in the rock through which warm water 
 was flowing, and came to the surface. We can see it 
 
74 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 bubbling up in many of the little springs which we 
 find in the Coast Ranges. Many birds and small ani- 
 mals, coming to drink at the springs, breathe the 
 poisonous gas, and drop dead before they can get 
 away. 
 
 There was also formed in the bed of ooze a 
 brownish or greenish liquid. This is petroleum 
 just as Nature gives it to us. Before it is fit to use 
 in our lamps, it must be refined. 
 
 The crude petroleum, which is made far below 
 the surface, soaks into the pores and cracks of 
 the surrounding rocks, and some of it at last 
 reaches the surface, flowing out with strong smell- 
 ing springs of sulphur water. The petroleum in 
 some of these springs is thin, and dries up like so 
 much water, but in other springs it is very thick 
 like tar, and gathers in large springs. The bear and 
 deer, coming down to drink of the queer tasting 
 water, sometimes fall into the tar, and as it is so 
 sticky, they seldom get out. 
 
 Prospectors found hills of sandstone filled with 
 the thick black oil, or tar, and called the sticky 
 mass bituminous rock. The tar which they found 
 nearly pure, and dried out so that it was hard, they 
 called asphaltum. They discovered that it was 
 very useful for making street pavements, and opened 
 large quarries in different parts of the Coast Ranges, 
 and shipped it to the cities. 
 
THE STORY OF PETROLEUM. 75 
 
 Other prospectors found little streams of the thin 
 oil flowing from the cracks in the rock, and put- 
 ting up derricks, like those for windmills, they 
 bored holes so that the oil would come out faster. 
 The holes were made hundreds of feet deep, and 
 sometimes they obtained one hundred barrels of 
 oil in a day from a single well. 
 
 Over some of the springs of gas, tanks have been 
 built for collecting it, and people have used it for 
 lighting houses. 
 
 The oil we have used for many purposes. From 
 one part is made naphtha and gasoline. Another 
 part is used for burning in our lamps. From the 
 thick portion paraffine is made, also the analine 
 dyes, and oils for lubricating machinery. 
 
 As we look at the clear oil in our lamps, it is hard 
 to imagine that it has had such a strange history. 
 The little animals which lived long ago in the sea 
 never dreamed, if they dreamed of anything, that 
 they would be so useful. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 Porpoise (por'ptis), ooze (ooz), phosphorescent (f6s'fSr- 
 gs'seut), cemetery (sgm'e-t6r-y), constantly (kon'stant-ly), 
 poisonous (poi'z'n-iis), petroleum (pe-tro'le-um), bitumi- 
 nous (bi-tu'm6n-nus), quarries (kwdr'riz), naphtha (naf'tha 
 or nap'tha) gasoline (gas'6-lin), lubricating (lu'bri-kaf), 
 paraffine (par'af-fin). 
 
76 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 Porpoise = a small sea animal allied to the whale* 
 
 Phosphorescent = shining without sensible heat. 
 
 Ooze == soft mud or slime. 
 
 Stagnant = not running, motionless. 
 
 Crude Petroleum = petroleum as it comes from the earth. 
 
 Tar = a soft bitumen, residue left after the evaporation of 
 
 petroleum. 
 Naphtha, Gasoline =volatile inflammable liquids, derived 
 
 from petroleum. 
 Lubricate = to make slippery. 
 Paraffine = a white, waxy substance. 
 Analine dye = Dyes prepared from petroleum. 
 
THE HISTORY OF A PACKAGE OF BORAX. 
 
 N the center of one of the desert valleys 
 of Eastern California there is a group of 
 men at work. The heat is almost unbear- 
 able, and they move slowly about. 
 
 What are they doing in this desolate 
 region ? They are gathering the crude 
 borax, which forms a layer of almost daz- 
 zling whiteness over the ground as far 
 as one can see. 
 
 We would hardly know how to get along without 
 borax. It is useful for so many purposes. Our borax 
 formerly came from Europe, and cost much more. 
 Now it has been found in great abundance in the 
 deserts of California and Nevada. 
 
 Borax goes through many 
 processes before it is fit 
 to use. It finally reaches 
 us in the form of a white 
 powder, put up in neat 
 little packages. 
 
 The history of borax de- 
 posits, and how the crude 
 
 KEFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Where borax is found. 
 Marsh 
 
 How the Borax 
 was formed. 
 
 The preparation 
 
 borax . 
 Marketing of borax. 
 
 of 
 
 77 
 
78 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 material is purified and sent to market, is an inter- 
 esting one. 
 
 There was a time, long ago, when more rain fell 
 in these desert regions. The valleys had no out- 
 lets, being shut in by the mountains on all sides. 
 As a result, the water running down the mountain 
 canons, flowed out into the valleys and formed 
 lakes. 
 
 The streams carried down sand and mud, while 
 the waves spread this material over the beds of the 
 lakes, forming a soft, but even floor. 
 
 The streams also brought other things, such as 
 soda and borax. These they had dissolved out of 
 the rocks over which they flowed. The mud made 
 the waters dirty looking, but the salt and borax 
 were invisible, just as the salt in the ocean cannot 
 be seen. 
 
 A time came when the lakes began to dry up. 
 The streams were smaller, and the heat of the sun, 
 as it poured down upon the water, evaporated more 
 than the streams carried in. 
 
 Every year the lakes became smaller and shal- 
 lower. The streams had left so much borax and 
 soda in them during the many years since they 
 were formed, that the water at last became unfit to 
 drink. If you will dissolve some borax and soda 
 in a glass you can tell how the waters of the lakes 
 tasted. 
 
THE STORY OF A PACKAGE OF BORAX. 79 
 
 Now set the glass out of doors, and let it stand 
 until the water has entirely dried out, or evaporated. 
 The borax and soda will appear again as a white 
 crust upon the bottom of the glass. 
 
 Something like this happened in these old lake- 
 beds. When the water had ail evaporated, there' 
 were miles and miles of mud flats. The borax and 
 soda which had been in the water were left mixed 
 with the mud. 
 
 As the mud dried upon the surface, the water 
 which soaked up from below kept bringing the borax 
 and soda, little by little, to the surface. After a time 
 a white layer covered the mud flats. 
 
 It looked as if there had been a snowstorm, 
 only the white deposit did not disappear in the hot 
 sun. 
 
 What a change had come over the old lake 
 bottom, As far as one could see, there was this 
 white coating over the mud flat. It glistened so 
 brightly in the sun as to almost blind one's eyes. 
 
 The borax deposits were not disturbed for many 
 centuries; but at last a prospector in crossing the 
 desert discovered them. Buildings were put up, 
 and men went to work scraping the borax into 
 piles. 
 
 It was then placed in large tubs of hot water 
 until entirely dissolved. The dirt which was mixed 
 with it settled to the bottom, and the water with 
 
THE STORY OF A PACKAGE OF BORAX. 81 
 
 the borax was drawn off into pans, where it was 
 allowed to cool. 
 
 In the dry air of the desert the water soon evapor- 
 ated, leaving the borax in the bottom of the pans. 
 
 To get the borax to the railroad it was necessary 
 to haul it nearly one hundred miles. Several 
 wagons were built which would hold half as much 
 as a freight car. They had wheels seven feet in 
 diameter, the tires being nearly a foot wide, so that 
 they would not sink in the sand. 
 
 Three wagons were hitched together. Two were 
 loaded with borax, and the other carried water for 
 the mules to drink. What a long string of mules 
 was needed to haul these wagons. There were 
 twenty of them. When the mules were all hitched 
 up, and the driver had climbed into his saddle, the 
 sight was an interesting one. 
 
 It took them three days to cross the desert, over 
 a road which was almost as smooth and level as a 
 railroad. 
 
 There they went, slowly creeping over the desert. 
 All that we could see of them at first was a great 
 cloud of dust. As they cairif near, the heads of the 
 mules appeared through the dust, and then the out- 
 lines of the wagon boxes. 
 
 The mules looked dusty and tired, and so did 
 the driver. With the creak of the wagons, and the 
 steady sounds of the hoofs, they passed. 
 
82 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 As the sun went down they stopped, and un- 
 hitching the mules, made camp for the night. The 
 precious water which the tired animals had been 
 hauling all day was given them to drink, and they 
 lay down to rest. 
 
 In this way the borax was taken to Mojave and 
 placed upon the cars. When it reached Oakland 
 it was purified farther, then ground and put in 
 little packages for sale. 
 
 Borax not only helps in cleaning, but is useful 
 in many other ways. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 Borax (bo'raks), dazzling (daz'-zllng), purified (pu'ri-lid), 
 dissolve (diz-zSlv'), diameter (di-am'e-ter), Mojave (016- 
 ha'va). 
 
 Borax = a compound of boracic acid and soda. 
 
 Deposit = that which is laid down or deposited from a 
 
 solution. 
 
 Marsh =low, wet ground. 
 Soda = a white substance, having an alkaline taste. 
 
WHERE OUR SALT COMES FROM. 
 
 MONG the most wonderful mines in all 
 the world, are the salt mines of Aus- 
 tria. There, chambers larger than 
 houses have been dug out of the 
 solid salt. Salt obtained in this 
 way is called rock salt. 
 
 Salt is found in California, but 
 here we do not have to dig underground for it. 
 
 You all know how salty the sea water is. Sailors 
 have to carry all of their drinking water with 
 them. If it should be used up, they would be as 
 badly off, with the sea water all around them, as 
 those who are lost upon the desert. 
 
 The most of our salt comes from the sea. In 
 some places Nature has collected the salt for us 
 upon old sea bottoms, which 
 are now dry. In other 
 places, we make it directly 
 from the salt sea water. 
 There are many such salt 
 works upon the eastern side 
 of San Francisco Bay, near 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Source of salt. 
 
 Salt mines of Austria. 
 
 Making salt from sea 
 
 water. 
 Salt beds in Colorado 
 
 desert. 
 
 83 
 
84 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 Alvarado. There the sea water is kept in ponds, 
 and simply allowed to evaporate. You can try it 
 yourself by placing some salt water in a basin and 
 allowing it to stand until the water has dried up. 
 There will then be a coating of little salt crystals 
 over the bottom of the basin. 
 
 A marsh over which the sea water flows at high 
 tide is selected. It is then cut into square fields by 
 shoveling up embankments. Gates lead from one 
 field to another, and connect with the water out- 
 side. This permits them to be filled when the tide 
 is high. 
 
 When a pond is full of salt water the gate is 
 closed, so that it cannot run out when the tide goes 
 down. It is then allowed to stand for weeks in the 
 sun, and with the winds blowing over it. When 
 the water has nearly evaporated, the gate is again 
 raised at high tide, so that the pond can fill up 
 again. 
 
 This process is repeated until the salt water or 
 brine in the pond is very strong. The water, when 
 it passes off into the air in the form of little in- 
 visible particles, cannot carry the salt away with it. 
 Consequently, every time the water is let in, the 
 pond is richer in salt. 
 
 Finally, the brine is as strong as it can be made, 
 and the salt begins to separate from the water, and 
 fall to the bottom. You can understand more 
 
WHERE OUR SALT COMES FROM. 85 
 
 clearly now this is done by dissolving all the salt 
 you can in a glass of water, and then allowing it to 
 stand until some of the water has evaporated. 
 Little crystals of salt will soon begin to appear 
 around the sides of the glass. 
 
 When a thick layer of salt has gathered upon the 
 bottom of the pond, the water is drawn off. Then 
 the men go to work with shovels, and throw it out 
 on the banks in piles. 
 
 Nature has made the great beds of salt in differ- 
 ent parts of the world in very much the same way. 
 We only imitate Nature when we make it by evapo- 
 rating sea water. 
 
 Some of the salt beds have been buried deeply 
 by sands and clays which have been washed over 
 them. To get at the salt in these beds, we some- 
 times dig shafts, as is done in mining for coal. Men 
 go down in these shafts, and quarry the salt. In 
 some places, the salt water is pumped up from wells, 
 and then allowed to evaporate as in making salt 
 from the sea water. 
 
 When the old sea bottoms, upon which the salt 
 lies, have not been covered up, the salt is very easy 
 to get. This is the way the salt is found at Sal ton, 
 in the Colorado Desert. 
 
 That portion of the desert which is below the 
 level of the sea was once the head of the Gulf of 
 Lower California, and was covered with salt water. 
 
86 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 As the Colorado River built its delta out into the 
 gulf, the water covering the desert became nearly 
 cut off from the rest of the gulf. 
 
 Under the influence of the hot sun and dry air, 
 the water was continually evaporating. To keep 
 up the supply, the sea water flowed in from the gulf 
 to the south. This process is, as you see, quite like 
 that carried out artificially. 
 
 Thus the great pond or lake, for it was many 
 miles across, at last came to form a very strong 
 brine. After a time the delta of the Colorado 
 River cut the lake off entirely from the Gulf of 
 Lower California. Then the water began to dry up, 
 and the salt to settle to the bottom, and mix with 
 the mud. 
 
 When the clear water was all gone, the mud and 
 salt formed a thick layer all over the bottom of the 
 old lake. The air was so dry that the mud 
 hardened on the surface, but it still remained soft 
 underneath this crust. 
 
 How does the bed of pure salt form upon the sur- 
 face of the former lake bottom, which is now white 
 and glistening as far as you can see ? It is in this 
 way. You have all noticed the little salt crystals 
 which appear upon the surface of a roll of butter 
 when it is placed in the dry, warm air. The salt 
 was in the butter before, but it was dissolved, and 
 you could not see it. 
 
WHERE OUR SALT COMES FROM. 
 
 87 
 
 The dry air brought it to the surface of the butter. 
 There the water in which the salt was dissolved 
 evaporated, and left the little crystals of salt. 
 
 The same thing takes place upon the bed of the 
 old salt lake at Salton. When a layer several inches 
 thick is formed, it is scraped up. The Indians do 
 the most of the work in this hot region. With 
 
 SALT PLOW AT WORK AT SALTON SEA. 
 
 plows and scrapers, many hundred tons of salt are 
 gathered every day. When the salt has been scraped 
 into rows, it is shoveled upon the cars and taken 
 to the mill. There it is ground and put up in 
 form for sale. 
 
 We think it would be a very hard thing to go 
 without salt. Yet, during some of the wars, people 
 have been shut away from the salt beds, and have 
 had to learn to eat their food without it. 
 
88 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 You know how the animals like salt. The 
 hunter takes advantage of this fact, and waits for 
 the deer when they come to drink at the salt licks. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 Alvarado (al'va-ra-do), artificially (ar'ti-fish'al-ly), Sal- 
 ton (sal'-t6n), evaporate (e-vap'o-rat). 
 
 Evaporate = to pass off in vapor. 
 Invisi ole = that which cannot be seen. 
 Imitate = to follow as a pattern, to copy. 
 Brine = strong salt water. 
 Dissolve = to become fluid; to be melted. 
 Salt licks = springs containing salt. 
 
MONO LAKE. 
 
 OU have all read of Great Salt 
 Lake, in Utah. Its waters are 
 so salt that if you should fall into 
 it, it would be impossible to 
 sink. It is a good place in which 
 to learn to swim, although the salt 
 is very disagreeable, if you get 
 your head under the water. 
 
 Do you know that there is a lake in California 
 which is fully as interesting as Great Salt Lake? 
 It is known as Mono Lake, and lies on the edge of 
 the desert country east of the Sierra Nevada Moun- 
 tains. 
 
 Common salt is the most important substance 
 in the water of Great Salt Lake, but our Cali- 
 fornia lake contains as 
 much soda as it does salt. 
 You all know what soda 
 is. It is put into biscuits 
 to make them rise, and if 
 there is too much of it the 
 biscuits are yellow. 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Lakes with no outlet. 
 
 Mono Lake. 
 
 History of the lake. 
 
 Soda. 
 
 Islands In Mono Lake. 
 
 Volcanic features. 
 
90 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 There is so much soda in Mono Lake that if the 
 water were all evaporated, and people could get it, 
 there would be enough to last all the bakers in the 
 world for many years, and give everybody the 
 dyspepsia. 
 
 There are so many queer things to be seen around 
 Mono Lake that I will tell you about some of them. 
 
 The lake lies in an inclosed basin, without any 
 outlet. The barren desert lies all around it, except 
 upon the west. On that side the snowy Sierra 
 Nevada Mountains rise very abruptly. They reach 
 a height of a mile above the lake, while the lake 
 itself is more than a mile above the level of the 
 ocean. 
 
 Several dashing streams of pure, cold water from 
 the melting snows upon the mountains flow into the 
 lake. Nevertheless, its basin never becomes full so 
 that streams can run out. 
 
 Where do you suppose all the water goes to ? It 
 is taken up as invisible vapor by the thirsty air, 
 and is carried out over the hot deserts. The water 
 of the lake is- clear, and it looks as if it would be 
 good to drink, but one little taste is enough. It is 
 so bitter and salty. 
 
 The brooks that flow into the lake are full of 
 trout, but if any are accidentally carried into the 
 lake, they turn over on their backs and die im- 
 mediately. 
 
92 WESTERN SERIES OP READERS. 
 
 It is delightful water to go swimming in, for it 
 feels so warm and soft. But you must not forget 
 and stay in too long, for it would eat into your skin, 
 and leave it smarting and sore. 
 
 What a washtub this great lake would make. 
 Every afternoon when the wind blows, the waves, 
 as they break upon the shore, raise a bank of foam 
 looking just like soapsuds. The water is indeed 
 very good for washing clothes, but the clothes must 
 not be left in too long, for the water takes the color 
 out and leaves them rotten. 
 
 Many years ago, when icy glaciers covered the 
 Sierra Nevada Mountains, the water was higher in 
 the lake than it is now. Pebbly beaches where the 
 waves used to break, extend along the sides of the 
 hills many feet above the present beach. The water 
 then was not so full of soda and salt, and fish may 
 have lived in it. 
 
 After the glaciers had melted, less water flowed 
 into the lake, and it began to dry up. As the water 
 became lower in the lake it grew more alkaline and 
 salty. For you know that if a spoonful of salt or 
 soda is dissolved in a pitcher of water it will not 
 taste as strong as it would if the same amount be 
 placed in a small dish, such as a glass. 
 
 If the water of the lake should entirely dry up, 
 there would be left a white layer of salt and soda 
 all over the bottom. The substances dissolved in 
 
MONO LAKE. 93 
 
 the water do not go away with the watery vapor 
 which the air takes up. 
 
 The water of the lake is now so strong that one 
 would think nothing could live in it. But there is 
 an insect which lays its eggs in this water. The 
 larvaa, when they hatch, are thrown up by the 
 waves along the shore, and give a very disagreeable 
 odor. The Indians, however, think them a delicacy, 
 and gather them in large quantities. After they are 
 dried, they are packed away for winter use. 
 
 The region around Mono Lake is dotted with vol- 
 canoes. Although none are active now, it was differ- 
 ent once. I am afraid we should have had as hard 
 a time as the people of Herculaneum and Pompeii 
 if we had lived near Mono Lake a few hundred 
 years ago. 
 
 Streams of hot lava flowed over the country, and 
 the volcanoes threw out clouds of pumice and ashes, 
 which settled over everything. There must have 
 been terrible earthquakes too. 
 
 We will visit the two islands in the lake, and see 
 the effects of the volcanoes and earthquakes. We 
 have to row several miles in the hot sun before 
 reaching the first island. 
 
 There are many strange things upon these islands. 
 Near the larger one springs of hot water come up 
 through the lake, making a very nice place to bathe, 
 if one does not get too near the springs. In the 
 
94 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 black lava near by, are crevices through which 
 steam is constantly issuing with a loud, puffing 
 noise. On a cool morning, the steam forms quite a 
 cloud over the island. 
 
 On one of the islands is a group of craters, where 
 explosions underneath the surface have blown the 
 rock into fragments and left deep holes. The holes 
 look much as they would if they had been blown 
 out by giant powder. 
 
 In the center of the island there is a deep hole of 
 a different kind. It certainly looks as if the bottom 
 had fallen out. 
 
 The smaller of the islands is composed entirely of 
 lava. It has almost no soil and only a few bushes. 
 The island seems to have been pushed up from un- 
 derneath the lake by some recent earthquake. 
 
 The rocks are shattered, and full of cracks. In 
 the bottom of some of these there is water, and in 
 their darker corners owls make their home. 
 
 We feel like walking lightly, for it almost seems 
 as if the jar of our feet would send the island crum- 
 bling to the bottom of the lake. 
 
 Although the island has no springs upon it, a 
 band of goats is kept there. They are very wild, 
 and run like deer when we come in sight. 
 
 There are many other interesting things about 
 Mono Lake. Many springs come up in the bottom 
 of the lake. They carry lime dissolved in their 
 
MONO LAKE. 95 
 
 waters, and have built up strange looking little 
 towers. Some of these reach above the water. They 
 are hollow inside, and the water runs up through 
 the hollow and out over the top just like a fountain. 
 You may want to know where all of the salts in 
 the lake came from. A little must have been dis- 
 solved in the spring water, but the most was brought 
 in by the streams which flow down from the moun- 
 tains. They are constantly removing a little of the 
 rock over which they flow, and as no streams run 
 out of the lake, everything that is brought in must 
 stay there. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 Glacier (gla'sher, or glas'i-er), larvae (lar've), pitcher 
 (pich'er), pumice (pum-is), Herculaneum (her-ku-la'ne-um), 
 Pompeii (p6in pa'ye). 
 
 Substance = the material of which things are made. 
 
 Evaporate = to change a liquid into vapor. 
 
 Abruptly = suddenly. 
 
 Invisible = that which cannot be seen. 
 
 Accident = an unexpected event. 
 
 Glacier= a stream of ice slowly moving down a mountain or 
 
 canon. 
 
 Shatter = to break in pieces. 
 
 Larvae = the young, or immature stage of an insect. 
 Pumice = light, porous lava. 
 Crater = the mouth of a volcano. 
 
THE STORY OF THE COLORADO RIVER. 
 
 OME rivers flow through broad val- 
 leys nearly their whole length. They 
 hardly know what a cliff or waterfall 
 is. Others tumble and foam be- 
 tween steep rocks, where there is not 
 even room for a footpath. 
 
 Different rivers can tell different 
 stories, but there is not one that can 
 
 tell a more interesting story than the Colorado. 
 
 For more than two hundred miles it flows in a 
 
 canon, which is more than a mile deep, and often 
 
 so narrow that the sun reaches it but a little time 
 
 each day. 
 
 This great river seems 
 
 almost like a living thing. 
 
 It never rests, but moves 
 
 on just the same, year 
 
 after year. It has a great 
 
 work to do, and though 
 
 it has been busy for thou- 
 sands of years, it has made 
 
 only a small beginning. 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Locate Colorado River. 
 Gulf of California. 
 Formation of deltas. 
 Canons. 
 
 Stratified rocks. 
 Colorado Desert. 
 Work of rivers. 
 Salt on Sea. 
 
THE GRAND CANON OF THE COLORADO RIVER. 
 
98 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 The task which has been given it is enough to 
 discourage anything but a river. It is to carry 
 away to the sea, grain by grain, the particles which 
 make up the mountains and plateaus which form 
 its basin. A river basin, as you know, includes all 
 the land sloping toward one stream. 
 
 After working all these years, it has done little 
 more than cut this deep canon. It has yet to carry 
 away the material of the great plateau through 
 which it runs. 
 
 The river does not have to work alone however, 
 for it has many assistants. In the first place, there 
 are the branch streams which flow into it. Each 
 one of these grinds out a canon for itself. As these 
 tributary streams reach back toward the mountains 
 which inclose the basin of the Colorado, each one 
 in turn splits up into smaller ones. These in turn 
 divide into little rills nourished by the springs and 
 melting snows. 
 
 The raindrops, and the heat, and the frost are at 
 work upon the mountains, breaking the solid rock 
 into little fragments. These tumble into the rills, 
 which bear them to the brooks, and the brooks give 
 them to the rivers, which finally all unite in the 
 yellow and muddy Colorado. 
 
 Sometimes the brooks bring more particles of 
 sand and clay to the rivers than they can carry. 
 Then their beds are filled up, and they overflow the 
 
THE STORY OF THE COLORADO RIVER. 99 
 
 valleys along their banks. But where they run 
 swiftly, they bear along all the rubbish given to 
 them, and keep their channels clean. 
 
 If the water of the Colorado were clear, it would 
 have nothing with which to do its work. The sand 
 and pebbles, which its swift current bears along, 
 are its tools. They are rolled and shoved along the 
 bottom, and gradually wear away the solid rock. In 
 this way the river slowly cuts deeper into the 
 plateau. 
 
 Each tributary stream does the same thing, so 
 that there is formed a perfect network of canons, 
 which makes it impossible to travel across the 
 country. 
 
 Here, where the great walls rise so many thou- 
 sands of feet, there is a good opportunity to learn 
 something about the rocks of which they are made. 
 They are not massive and dark, like the lava about 
 which we have read, but are formed of layers of 
 different colors. The layers lie perfectly flat, like 
 the boards in a lumber pile, and extend up and 
 down the canon as far as one can see. 
 
 The dark layers we will call shale. They are 
 formed of hardened clay. The reddish layers are 
 composed of little grains of sand, colored with 
 something like iron rust. We will call them sand- 
 stone. Rocks made of layers in this way are said 
 to be stratified. 
 
100 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 Before the Colorado River existed, what is now 
 this great plateau was beneath the sea. A river, 
 perhaps as muddy as the Colorado, flowed into this 
 old sea. The sand and mud, which it brought 
 down, were washed around by the waves and cur- 
 rents, and spread out in layers just as we see them 
 in the walls of the canon. 
 
 After a time this old sea bottom was slowly and 
 gently raised, until it was more than a mile above 
 the surface of the water. It formed a great plateau. 
 
 Rains fell upon the plateau, and the brooks in 
 which the drops collected ran here and there, 
 hardly knowing, at first, what direction to take, be- 
 cause the surface was so level. Finally, all those 
 upon one slope united in a valley, and flowed toward 
 the south west, at last reaching the Gulf of California. 
 
 In this way the Colorado River was born. It 
 went to work at once carrying off" the waste mate- 
 rial from the hills, and at the same time cutting a 
 canon. It will continue this work for a long time 
 to come. 
 
 What has the river done with all the little par- 
 ticles of sand and clay which it has taken from the 
 mountains, and from the canon ? Let us follow it 
 toward its mouth, and we may be able to learn. 
 
 When the Colorado leaves the canon, it winds for 
 long miles through desert hills and sandy plains. 
 As it nears the Gulf of California, its banks be- 
 
THE STORY OF THE COLORADO RIVER. 101 
 
 come lower and more muddy. Now it enters upon 
 a great plain, which gives place to a tidal marsh, 
 and then to the open waters of the gulf. 
 
 This is where the river leaves its load of mud. A 
 great delta has been formed, filling up nearly all of 
 the northern end of the gulf. A long time ago, 
 before the Colorado River had brought down so 
 much mud, the Gulf of California reached north 
 into California. It covered what we now call the 
 Colorado Desert. 
 
 Gradually the mud from the river spread out 
 over the gulf until the plains of the delta extended 
 quite across it. The very northern end of the gulf 
 was not filled with the mud, and being cut off by 
 the delta to the south, a salt lake was formed. 
 
 The climate in this region is very warm and dry, 
 and little by little, the water dried up, leaving a 
 deposit of salt. In this way the basin of the Colo- 
 rado Desert was formed. The center of the basin 
 is now about three hundred feet below the level of 
 the sea. 
 
 When the river is high it sometimes overflows its 
 banks, and a part of the water turns back and 
 empties into this basin of the desert. Then a large 
 body of shallow salt water is formed, called Salton 
 Sea. The air is so hot and dry however, that it soon 
 evaporates. 
 
 Little seashells are scattered at various places 
 
102 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 over the desert. The animals which once inhabited 
 them crawled about in the mud, when this region 
 formed apart of the Gulf of California. Around the 
 edges of the desert one can also trace the ancient 
 beach, where the waves used to break. 
 
 We see now what a great work the Colorado 
 River has done. It is still busy carrying mud and 
 sand, and may some time fill up nearly the whole 
 gulf. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 Canon (kan'yun), rubbish (rub bish), plateau (pla-to'), 
 lava (la'va), shale (shal), stratified (strat'i-fld), channel 
 (chan'nei), delta (deTta) evaporate (e-vap'6-rat). 
 
 Discourage = to dishearten. 
 
 Particles = small parts of anything. 
 
 Canon = a deep gulch. 
 
 Massive = having no regular form. 
 
 Stratified = formed in layers. 
 
 Plateau = a flat, elevated area of land. 
 
 Sand = fine grains of stone. 
 
 Clay = soft, tenacious earth. 
 
 Tidal marsh = a flat covered by the ocean at high tide. 
 
WHAT WE SAW IN AN OCEAN CLIFF. 
 
 [HE picture before us represents a 
 part of a high cliff on Point 
 Loma, near San Diego. The 
 shore here can be explored only 
 at low tide, and even then it is 
 difficult to reach. 
 
 The rocks forming the cliff are 
 arranged in horizontal la}^ers, and 
 caves appear in them at different places. One of the 
 largest of the caves is shown in the picture. 
 
 Boys always delight in exploring wild places, 
 and Point Loma had the greatest attraction for us 
 on this account. We dis- 
 covered this cave on one 
 of our expeditions. It was 
 so interesting that we took 
 a picture of it. 
 
 After exploring the cave, 
 which extended into the 
 rock more than one hun- 
 dred feet, we sat down on 
 the rocks. Dangling our 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Locate San Diego. 
 
 Caves. 
 
 Stratified rocks. 
 
 How stratified rocks 
 are formed. 
 
 Earthquakes . 
 
 Fissures IP the rocks. 
 
 Formation of moun- 
 tains. 
 
 103 
 
AN OCEAN CAVE, POINT LOMA, SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, 
 
WHAT WE SAW IN AN OCEAN CLIFF. 105 
 
 feet in the water, which at ebb tide flowed back 
 and forth very quietly, We studied the cliff and 
 the cave. 
 
 We were interested in the regular layers df rock, 
 formed one above the other, and wanted to know 
 why the waves dug out a cave at this particular 
 place. 
 
 Perhaps you would be interested, too, if we should 
 tell you what we learned about them. 
 
 Each layer of rock is called a stratum, and the 
 whole series is said to be stratified. Those layers 
 which stand out sharply are harder than the others. 
 They consist of grains of sand tightly packed to- 
 gether, and are called sandstone. 
 
 Those layers which have been worn away most 
 are softer than the sandstone. They consist of clay 
 which has been squeezed very hard. They are 
 called shale. 
 
 These stratified rocks were formed in the bed of 
 the ocean and then lifted up to the place in which 
 we saw them. 
 
 You may be able to understand how they were 
 formed if you should examine the mud flats when 
 the tide is very low. A deep trench dug across the 
 mud flats would show them to be made of layers 
 like those in the cliff. They would be soft, but 
 formed of the same materials, sand and clay. 
 
 The little particles which make up the flat have 
 
106 WESTERN SERIES OP READERS. 
 
 been brought by the waves and tides. If you 
 turned a handful of soil into a pitcher of water the 
 little grains of sand would go to the bottom imme- 
 diately, but it would take some time for the fine 
 particles of mud to settle. 
 
 This is the way it is in the shallow water of the 
 flat. In the winter, when the weather is stormy 
 and the currents strong, sand is washed onto the 
 flat. During the long summers it is very different. 
 The water is more quiet, and only the fine particles 
 of mud are deposited upon the flat. 
 
 In this way, as year after year passes, you can see 
 that a succession of layers of sand and mud would be 
 formed in the water. The ones at the bottom would 
 be squeezed and made hard by the weight of those 
 above. The sand would be changed to sandstone, 
 and the clay to shale. 
 
 Now that we have seen how the different layers 
 in the cliff were formed, we want to know something 
 about the cave. 
 
 The waves have dug in a long distance, and at 
 every storm they go a little farther. At the back 
 end of the cave is a beach of pebbles. These 
 pebbles are the tools which the waves have been 
 using to wear away the rock. 
 
 Study the picture carefully, and you will see a 
 broad line upon the face of the cliff. It extends 
 from the cave across the layers of rock, slanting up- 
 
WHAT WE SAW IN AN OCEAN CLIFF. 107 
 
 ward toward the left. Along this line the rocks 
 have been broken and ground to pieces. This is 
 called a fault, and was formed long ago, during 
 a heavy earthquake. 
 
 The sea bottom was being raised, when suddenly 
 the rocks forming it broke, and those on one side of 
 the crack slipped past those on the other. You can 
 see from the picture that this is true, for the layers 
 on one side do not fit those upon the other. 
 
 The waves, dashing against the cliff, found the 
 broken place, and soon dug the clay and pieces of 
 rock out of the crack. They kept on enlarging the 
 hole, until the cave was formed. 
 
 Our picture teaches another very important 
 thing. It is, that breaks of the same kind as that 
 in the cliff have made some of the great mountain 
 ranges of the world. Such is the origin of the 
 Sierra Nevada, the most rugged range of moun- 
 tains upon the Pacific Coast. 
 
 Perhaps you do not see how such a little crack 
 could make a range of mountains. It is really 
 quite simple. 
 
 Suppose you are watching a carpenter, who has 
 stacked up a great pile of boards on two saw- 
 horses. You can imagine that each board is a 
 layer of rock which lies flat like those in the cliff. 
 
 Now the carpenter goes to work, and after meas- 
 uring the boards the length he wishes, begins at 
 
108 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 the top of the pile, and saws it into two parts. 
 There is nothing to hold up the ends of the pieces, 
 and when the last board is cut they tip up, and one 
 end of each part falls to the ground. 
 
 The line along which the carpenter has sawed the 
 boards into two pieces you can imagine is a break 
 in the crust of the earth. The end of one pile of 
 boards slips down past the other, and forms a val- 
 ley, while the parts which stick up form mountain 
 ranges. 
 
 The Sierra Nevada Mountains are represented by 
 the end of the pile of boards which sticks up. 
 The great desert basin of Nevada is represented by 
 the end of the pile which fell down. 
 
 The earthquakes which we feel may mean that the 
 rocks have slipped past each other along a crack. 
 While the ends of the board pile have slipped past 
 each other only a few feet, in the Sierra Nevada 
 Mountains the slip is in some places two miles. 
 
 Our picture of the sea cliff has made clear some 
 of the most interesting things in the formation of 
 the earth. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 Stratum (stra'ttim), horizontal (h6r'i-z6n'tal), carpenter 
 (kar'pSn-ter), Sierra Nevada (se-er'ra ne-va'da). 
 
WHAT WE SAW IN AN OCEAN CLIFF. 
 
 109 
 
 Horizontal = parallel to the horizon; on a level. 
 Stratum = a bed of earth, or rock, of one kind. 
 Crust=the outer portion of the earth. 
 
 Shale = a sedementary rock, formed of clay, having a lami- 
 nated structure. 
 
 Sandstone = a rock made of grains of sand cemented together. 
 Ebto tide = the flowing back of the tide. 
 
HOW ISLANDS ARE FORMED. 
 
 "SLANDS are interesting things. What 
 fun it is to discover an island, 
 and play Robinson Crusoe. The 
 island may be nothing more than 
 a sand bar, or a little bare rock, 
 but for the boys it is an island 
 just the same. It calls up pic- 
 tures of shipwrecks in some far away part of the 
 world. 
 
 Islands are made in different ways, but if there 
 were no water there could be no islands at all. 
 
 Suppose we try to imagine our globe without 
 any water. Its whole surface would be made 
 up of mountains, valleys, and plains. Now, if on 
 this dry world it should 
 rain torrents for years and 
 years, the water would 
 run into all the lowest 
 places, and form the oceans 
 which are spread out be- 
 fore us. 
 
 If more water 
 
 were 
 no 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 What are Islands. 
 "Water necessary. 
 Ways In which Islands 
 
 are made. 
 Work of the -waves. 
 The tools of the waves. 
 
112 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 turned into the oceans, they would rise higher, 
 and cover up more of the land. There are moun- 
 tains beneath the sea just as on the land, only they 
 are not high enough to rise above the water. 
 
 The continents are the large bodies of land which 
 stick up out of the water. The small ones are called 
 islands. You can easily see that if there were more 
 water, many of the islands would be entirely covered 
 and hidden from sight. If there were less water, 
 new islands would stick their heads up. 
 
 You have seen the same thing happen in the 
 rivers in the summer time. As the water goes 
 down, many little islands and sand bars come into 
 sight, and some of these you can finally walk out to 
 without wetting your feet. 
 
 There is another very different way in which 
 islands are formed. 
 
 If you have ever visited the sea shore, you have 
 seen how the waves are always beating against 
 the rocks. Sometimes the waves are small, and 
 break very gently, but in stormy weather it is 
 different. 
 
 Water by itself cannot wear away the hard rocks. 
 It is only when the waves have something to work 
 with that they accomplish anything. 
 
 The tools of the waves are grains of sand, pebbles, 
 and bowlders, which lie along the shore. As each 
 wave runs back you can hear the rumble of the 
 
HOW ISLANDS ABE FORMED. 113 
 
 pebbles rolling down the beach. When the next 
 wave comes, it picks them up and hurls them with 
 great force against the cliffs. 
 
 With each blow a little of the rock is ground from 
 the cliff. When the waves have succeeded in wear- 
 ing out a hollow at the bottom, the cliff caves 
 down. Each new fragment of the rock cliff falling 
 into the ocean is in turn used as a hammer by the 
 waves. In this way they slowly eat into the land. 
 They grind it away little by little, in the form of 
 sand and mud, which the currents of water then 
 spread over the ocean bottom. 
 
 On some sea coasts the land is being destroyed so 
 fast that houses, and even whole farms, are washed 
 away. 
 
 But you may ask what has this to do with the 
 making of islands. Look closely at this picture of 
 a wild part of the California coast, and perhaps you 
 can tell. The first thing which will attract your 
 attention are some rocky islands, with the waves 
 foaming all about them. At the right side of the 
 picture is the mainland with which the islands 
 were once connected. The broad strip of water in 
 the front of the picture was formerly occupied by 
 the land. 
 
 The waves hunt out all the soft places in the rocky 
 cliffs, just as you would do if the same work were 
 given you. They hurl the bowlders and pebbles. 
 
114 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 against the cliffs, and dig caves and passage-ways 
 where the soft spots are. 
 
 After a long time the shore is dug into so far 
 that bays are formed, where little boats may anchor 
 safely. Bat the harder rocks remain as headlands, 
 or capes, between the bays. 
 
 The waves continue to beat against the rocks, 
 until some of the headlands are left entirely sur- 
 rounded by water. This is the way the islands 
 which appear in the picture were made. How 
 boldly and defiantly they face the storms. At first, 
 they are only a little distance from the mainland, 
 but as the waves keep at work they are left farther 
 and farther out in the ocean. 
 
 The waves have a long task ahead of them to 
 tear the islands down. The water is quite deep 
 about them, and the pebbles have been washed 
 toward the shore. 
 
 Under the attack of the atmosphere and waves the 
 islands will finally crumble away, and in the place 
 of each there will be left only a reef upon which the 
 waves will break in stormy weather. 
 
 New islands will be formed as long as the waves 
 continue to tear down the cliffs. 
 
 Islands assume strange shapes sometimes. . If 
 you will examine the picture carefully, you will see 
 that the island farthest away looks very much like 
 a lion at rest. It is called Lion Rock. 
 
HOW ISLANDS ARE FORMED. 115 
 
 "What picturesque rocky hills these islands would 
 make if the sea should retreat and leave them upon 
 the dry land. I suppose that all children who know 
 anything about the sea, and have wandered along 
 the shore, have ^wished that they could explore 
 the bottom, and climb up on the rocky reefs and 
 islands. 
 
 The sea birds use the islands for nesting places, 
 and cover them with the white guano which is so 
 valuable for making land produce heavier crops. 
 
 The sea lions and seals also make use of the 
 islands, for they are more protected from hunters. 
 At certain seasons of the year nearly all the rocky 
 islands along the coast of California are inhabited 
 by the bellowing sea lions. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 Anchor (an'ker), picturesque (pik'tur-6sk'), guano 
 (gwa'nd). 
 
 Hurl = to throw. 
 
 Pebbles = small, rounded stones. 
 
 Bowlders = like pebbles, but much larger. 
 
 Beach = a sandy, or pebbly, shore. 
 
 Defiantly = boldly, insolently. 
 
 Crumble =to break into small pieces. 
 
 Guano = deposits left by birds upon shores or islands. 
 
 Sea lion = a species of seal. 
 
 Seal = an aquatic mammal. 
 
THE STORY OF THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. 
 
 HE fame of the Yosemite Valley has 
 gone all over the world. People 
 travel thousands of miles for the pur- 
 pose of spending a few days there, 
 looking at the cliffs and waterfalls. 
 What is there about this valley 
 
 which makes it so attractive? There are cliffs 
 
 and waterfalls in other places. 
 
 We can tell best, if we see the valley with our 
 
 own eyes. It is a long ride, up and down wooded 
 
 mountains, and by roaring streams, into the very 
 
 heart of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. 
 
 We begin to wonder where the valley is, when all 
 
 at once, passing a turn in the road, we come out on 
 
 the edge of a great precipice. 
 Far below, so far that the 
 
 pine trees look like little 
 
 bushes, lies the beautiful 
 
 Yosemite Valley. There 
 
 are green meadows and 
 
 forests, through which 
 
 winds a shining river. 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 of the Yo- 
 
 Discovery 
 
 Semite. 
 
 Character of the valley. 
 How formed. 
 Work of the streams. 
 Work of the glaciers. 
 
 116 
 
THE STORY OF THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. 117 
 
 On every side of the valley rise walls of rock. In 
 some places, they are almost a mile high. At sev- 
 eral points little streams, flowing down from the 
 higher mountains about the valley, tumble in 
 streaks of foam over the walls of rock. 
 
 The valley seems like a picture in a frame of bare 
 granite mountains, and you wonder how it came 
 there. 
 
 Some pfeople have thought that, during an earth- 
 quake a long time ago, the bottom fell out of the 
 mountains, and left the deep hole in which the val- 
 ley now lies. We do not think this is the way it 
 was formed. We think the brooks and rivers can 
 tell us more about how it was done. 
 
 A long time ago the Sierra Nevada Mountains 
 were not so high as they are now. There were no 
 deep canons, and bare granite peaks, but in their 
 places valleys and rolling hills. 
 
 Then something began to lift the hills higher and 
 higher. They became colder, and it snowed and 
 rained a great deal. This gave the rivers much to 
 do. They could no longer play truant in shady 
 ponds, as they used to do. They had to run more 
 swiftly to reach the San Joaquin Valley, and dashed 
 from rock to rock over their rough beds. 
 
 The streams said to themselves, if we can only 
 wear the rocks away, and dig deep gorges between 
 the mountains, we shall then not have to run so 
 
118 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 fast, and besides, we shall be hidden from the sun 
 the most of the day. 
 
 They went to work with a will, and by the aid of 
 the sand and pebbles, which the brooks brought 
 them, they ground away the rocks over which they 
 flowed, and in this way cut deep channels. 
 
 Those rivers, which were the largest, and flowed 
 over the softest rock, accomplished the most, and at 
 last hid themselves deep down between the moun- 
 tain walls. 
 
 In this way the Merced got ahead of its brother 
 rivers, and dug out the beautiful Yosemite Valley. 
 It had to carry away much material, for the valley 
 is eight miles long, and more than a half a mile 
 wide and deep. But it did it, nevertheless, by 
 taking the rock away, a few grains at a time. The 
 most of this waste was left in the San Joaquin 
 Valley, and it is this which makes the great valley 
 smooth as a floor. 
 
 The Merced River had many tributaries, as it 
 flowed through the Yosemite Valley, but they were 
 small, and did not cut down into the granite rock 
 as fast as the main river did. So, in order to get to 
 the river, they had to jump over the great walls 
 about the valley. In this way, the pretty water- 
 falls were formed. Some of them are so high that the 
 water turns to spray before it reaches the bottom of 
 the valley. 
 
THE STORY OP THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. 119 
 
 Now that the valley was cut out, the Merced River 
 felt quite happy. Its work was almost done. But 
 disappointment came to the river as it does to 
 people. The climate continued to grow colder, and 
 it snowed so much, that it seemed to the river that 
 the whole world must be covered by the white sheet. 
 
 In the winter, the water of the river froze, and it 
 could not run, but in the summer it had to do 
 double work, because of the m-elting snows. 
 
 After a time more snow fell in the winter than 
 could melt the coming summer, and it increased so 
 much that it began to slide down the mountain 
 sides and to fill up the canons which the rivers 
 had dug. 
 
 The snow became hard and icy like the snow- 
 balls which the boys have made on a warm after- 
 noon and left out over night to freeze. The valley 
 of the Merced River was filled at last with the ice. 
 It moved along so slowly that one would have had 
 to watch it a long time to be sure that it did 
 move. 
 
 You can imagine how the ice acted by watching 
 a little stream of molasses on a cold morning, only 
 that the molasses is sticky, while the ice was not. 
 
 Such a stream of ice is called a glacier, and this 
 cold time upon the mountains the Glacial period. 
 
 How the glacier did tear the mountain sides as 
 it moved down the valley ! It broke off all the pro- 
 
120 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 jecting points of rock and scraped them along, pol- 
 ishing the old bed of the river and the sides of the 
 canon. 
 
 For many years the ice filled the valleys, and 
 they would surely have been forgotten if any one 
 had lived in California then. 
 
 The cold came to an end, however, and the ice 
 melted away, giving the valley over to the river 
 again. 
 
 The river hardly recognized its old home. Every- 
 thing was greatly changed. All the trees and soil 
 had been carried away by the ice, and there was 
 nothing but barren granite. How the granite did 
 shine in the sunlight! It was polished in many 
 places as smooth as a mirror. 
 
 The river did not have as quiet a time in the 
 Yosemite Valley as it used to. Great bowlders, 
 which the glacier had dropped, were strewn all 
 over it, and the river had to hunt for a new 
 channel. 
 
 The river went to work to make the valley 
 smooth and fertile as it was before, but it was very 
 slow work. The ice had swept every bit of soil 
 from the mountain slopes, and it was some time 
 before the rain and frost could pry the particles of 
 the rock apart, and furnish sand and clay for the 
 brooks to carry to the river. 
 
 At last the river succeeded in covering up the 
 
THE STORY OF THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. 121 
 
 most of the bowlders in the valley, and grass and 
 trees sprang up. Innumerable bright flowers cov- 
 ered the bottom lands, and in the meadows the red 
 strawberries grew without any one but the birds to 
 eat them. 
 
 What a happy valley this was, all shut in from 
 the outside world ! The wild animals made it their 
 home, but there was no one to see the grand cliffs 
 and beautiful waterfalls. The animals thought only 
 of something to eat and a comfortable home in 
 the winter. The brooks, as they jumped over the 
 cliffs in haste to join the river in the valley below, 
 sang to the empty air. 
 
 Time went on, until some Indians, hunting 
 through the woods which had grown up on the 
 surrounding mountains, accidentally came to the 
 edge of the cliffs and looked over. 
 
 The valley seemed so inviting that they went 
 back for their friends; then they all climbed down 
 the steep walls into the valley, and made their 
 homes there. 
 
 When the miners came to the mountains, the 
 Indians frequently went out on stealing expedi- 
 tions. They were often followed, but for a long 
 time succeeded in escaping to their well-hidden 
 homes. 
 
 One day they were less fortunate, and were traced 
 to the valley, where a fight took place. The miners 
 
122 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 drove the Indians out and took possession of the 
 beautiful valley. 
 
 It was so difficult to get into the valley, that for a 
 long time but little was known about it. When the 
 rude trails were replaced by smooth roads, many 
 people went to visit it, and the story of the wonder- 
 ful valley spread all over the world. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 Yosemite (yo-s6in'i-te), gorge (gorj), accomplished (ak- 
 kSm'plisht) San Joaquin (san-wah-keen), tributary (trlb'u- 
 ta-ry), glacier (gla/sher or glas'i-er), recognized (rk'6g-niz'd), 
 polished (pdl'-isht), strewn (strun or stron), expedition (ks' 
 pe-dish'un), possession (p6z-ze"sh'un), fortunate (ior'tu-nat). 
 
 Tributary = a stream flowing into a larger river or lake. 
 Granite = a rock formed of quartz, feldspar, and mica. 
 Gorge = a narrow passage between mountains. 
 Fertile = fruitful, productive. 
 Trail = a path or road through a wild region. 
 
WHEN THE MASTODON LIVED. 
 
 OST of us have seen the elephant, 
 with his curious trunk, great dan- 
 gling ears, and stumpy legs. How 
 alarmed we should be to meet 
 some day a number of these ani- 
 mals roaming wild in the woods! 
 
 If we had lived here several 
 thousand years ago, however, we 
 should have become as used to 
 
 elephants as the people of Africa and India 
 
 now are. 
 
 We cannot realize how long a time a thousand 
 
 years is, for even one year 
 
 seems to pass so slowly. 
 
 All that we can know is 
 
 that a long time ago, when 
 
 our Pacific Coast home 
 
 was very different, many 
 
 strange animals lived here. 
 
 Among them was one great 
 
 animal in particular, which 
 
 looked much like the ele- 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Fossil bones. 
 
 The mastodon. 
 
 Animals living with the 
 mastodon. 
 
 The glacial period. 
 
 Santa Barbara Islands. 
 
 The teeth of plant- 
 eaters. (See text-books 
 upon geology.) 
 
 123 
 
WHEN THE MASTODON LIVED. 125 
 
 phant, only that it was larger, had long shaggy 
 hair and great curved tusks. 
 
 We have read of such animals having been found 
 frozen in the snow of the far north, but what reason 
 have we to suppose that they ever lived in California? 
 
 It came about in this way. One of the streams 
 where we used to fish had been swollen by days of 
 heavy rain, and as it rushed along, it tore away the 
 grassy bank in many places. Half a mile below the 
 house it formed a cliff, about forty feet high. Here 
 we went to hunt for the smooth and prettily colored 
 pebbles which had washed out of the bank. 
 
 One day we found that the water had exposed 
 something very different. There were some giant 
 bones sticking out of the hard clay, some fragments 
 of tusks, teeth as large as our heads, and leg bones 
 fully four feet long. 
 
 We had never seen an animal which was as 
 large as this one must have been when it was alive. 
 Even the elephant at the show could not have stood 
 more than half as high. We had heard stories of 
 great animals which had lived here before people 
 came, but they never seemed true. It was said 
 that these animals roamed about our home in the 
 foothills, eating the leaves and branches of the 
 trees, and that when they died their bones were 
 covered up in the gravel of the creeks or in the 
 mud of the lakes. 
 
126 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 We asked an old man, who seemed to know a 
 great deal, to come and help us dig the bones out. 
 When they were all lying on the bank we sat down to 
 rest, and he told us many things about this animal 
 and the time when it lived. 
 
 He said that these fossil bones belonged to a 
 mastodon, and that it lived so long ago that we 
 would grow tired trying to think how long. He 
 said also that we would not have known the coun- 
 try around our home. The most of the plants and 
 trees were different, and there were many other 
 strange animals besides the mastodon. 
 
 This was all so new to us, and so interesting, that 
 we wanted to know more about those times, and so 
 he continued. 
 
 Before the mastodon lived here the country was 
 warm, and the mountains not so high as they 
 are now. But there came a time when the land 
 began to rise, and as it rose the climate became 
 colder, until snow, instead of rain, fell on all the 
 hills and mountains. 
 
 Jack Frost, who loves cold weather, gradually ex- 
 tended his kingdom over all the high mountains of 
 the Pacific Coast. Every winter it became a little 
 colder and a little more stormy. The winter snows 
 grew deep, and covered up all the bare rocks, and 
 at last, even the tallest trees were completely hid- 
 den. The animals and birds who made their homes 
 
WHEN THE MASTODON LIVED. 127 
 
 in the mountains, either died or moved into the val- 
 ley, where it was still warm. 
 
 The country kept rising, until the shore of the 
 ocean was farther west. It was at last all dry land 
 between the Santa Barbara islands and the present 
 mainland. 
 
 What a strange looking country it was. The 
 mountains, so cold and white, rose above the val- 
 leys where trees and grasses abounded, and all sorts 
 of queer animals chased each other through the 
 brush or nibbled the grass of the meadows. 
 
 There were several kinds of elephant-like ani- 
 mals, of which the mastodon was the largest. The 
 teeth that we have found show us that these 
 animals were plant-eaters, for the surfaces of the 
 teeth are flat, and fit for grinding the leaves and 
 stems of plants rather than for tearing flesh. 
 
 We can picture to ourselves herds of these 
 clumsy, shaggy creatures as they fed upon the 
 brush in some shady spot. All at once, perhaps, 
 they start to run, as a lion, as fierce as any in the 
 African jungle, bounds into their midst, and the 
 earth shakes beneath their great feet. 
 
 In another place might be seen a group of ani- 
 mals, appearing much like the camel, only larger. 
 They were the ancestors of the llama, of South 
 America, which the Indians use for pack-animals. 
 
 In addition to the sloth and tapir, which are not 
 
128 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 found now in North America, there were wild hogs 
 and wolves and deer. The ferocious looking buffalo 
 may also be added to our picture. 
 
 Two kinds of wild horses wandered through the 
 larger valleys. One of them was a third larger than 
 any living now. We wonder what has become of 
 them, for when America was discovered there were 
 no wild horses here. The great bands of horses 
 which used to roam over the plains of Texas and 
 South America descended from the horses which the 
 Spaniards brought over with them. 
 
 The ice and snow covered the mountains for many 
 centuries. At last a change came. Not so much 
 snow fell during the winter, and in the summer 
 more of it melted, so that the rocky peaks began to 
 appear here and there. The glaciers, which are 
 only streams of ice, melted slowly, and the rivers 
 were high and thick with mud. 
 
 The climate changed in the valleys. The animals 
 of which we have been talking did not seem so nu- 
 merous. Many of them were sensitive to changes, 
 and as less rain fell, and the plants began to dry 
 up, they disappeared one by one. Some of these 
 animals went to other regions and some died. Many 
 skeletons were scattered around in the sun ; these soon 
 decayed and disappeared. A few were preserved by 
 being buried in the swamps and river bottoms. 
 These are the ones which we often find to-day. 
 
WHEN THE MASTODON LIVED. 129 
 
 The mastodons and other animals, as they fed 
 here and there, had wandered out to the region of 
 the Santa Barbara islands. When the climate be- 
 came warmer, it was because of the fact that the 
 land was sinking. So, by and by, the sea again 
 flowed in through the Santa Barbara channel and 
 cut the animals off, so that they could not retreat 
 to the mainland. They died there, and the rains 
 washed soil over many of their skeletons. The 
 waves are now at work tearing down the islands, 
 and as they wash away the cliffs, the buried bones 
 of these old animals are frequently exposed. 
 
 As the climate continued to grow warm, different 
 plants and animals took the places of those that 
 had died, for we know that every living thing is 
 adapted to the place in which it is found. 
 
 The plants which had come down from the north 
 with the cold of the Glacial period, for that is what 
 we call the time when the mountains were so 
 snowy, retreated as the snow melted. We still find 
 a few of them living on the highest mountains, 
 where the cold yet remains. 
 
 For many long years after the ice and snow left 
 the mountains, they showed nothing but bare rock. 
 Little by little the soil gathered, the winds and 
 birds carried seeds, and the trees, bushes, and 
 grasses began to grow. With the new vegetation 
 came the animals which are now living here. 
 
130 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 Since the Pacific Coast has been settled, we have 
 found large numbers of the bones of the animals 
 which used to live here. Having the bones, we 
 can tell a great deal about those ancient times. Do 
 you not think it is interesting to know what hap- 
 pened on our earth long before we were here ? 
 
 Summer and winter succeeded each other many 
 times, and California came to look much as it does 
 now. We are not certain that the Indians lived 
 here with the mastodon, but they must have had 
 their homes here for centuries before the early ex- 
 plorers came. 
 
 After what our wise old friend had told us, the 
 great bones upon the bank seemed full of stories of 
 the past. We imagined them alive again, and 
 clothed with flesh, and the mastodon feeding in the 
 valley, at the foot of the snowy mountains. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 Elephant (eTe-fant), mastodon (mas't5-d6n), fossil (f6s'- 
 sil), jungle (jun'g'l), llama (lii'ma), sloth (sloth), tapir (ta'per) 
 centuries (sen'tu-riz), glacier (gla'sher). 
 
 Mastodon = an extinct animal, related to the elephant. 
 Fossil =the remains of an animal dug from the earth. 
 Jungle a dense growth of brushwood, grasses, etc. 
 
WHEN THE MASTODON LIVED. 131 
 
 Glacier = a stream of ice, slowly moving down a mountain or 
 
 valley. 
 Llama = an American ruminant, allied to the camel, but with 
 
 no hump. 
 Tapir =a hoofed animal, with five toes on the front feet and 
 
 three on the hind feet. 
 Climate = the condition of a place with reference to heat and 
 
 moisture. 
 Glacial Period = a time when large glaciers covered the 
 
 northern and central portions of America and Europe. 
 
THE MAKING OF MOUNTAINS. 
 
 E have learned from our study of 
 the ocean cliff, that earthquakes 
 and the formation of long cracks 
 in the earth, have much to do 
 with the making of some kinds 
 of mountains. We have also 
 
 learned how great volcanoes like Mount Shasta are 
 
 built up. 
 
 There is still another way in which mountains 
 
 arise, and we can understand it by studying an 
 
 apple. 
 
 We have all noticed how wrinkled the skin of an 
 
 apple becomes when it stands for a time in the dry 
 
 air. The apple shrinks, 
 
 because some of the juice 
 
 evaporates. The skin is 
 
 then left too large, and as 
 
 it clings tightly to the pulp 
 
 underneath, it is finally 
 
 obliged to wrinkle. 
 
 Nearly all the substances 
 
 of which the earth is made, 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 A shrinking apple. 
 
 Original condition of the 
 earth. 
 
 A cooling earth. 
 
 Effect upon the crust. 
 
 Folded strata. 
 
 The formation of moun- 
 tains. 
 
 133 
 
134 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 shrink as they become cooler, and expand with 
 increase of heat. The earth, as you have learned, 
 was once hot all over. It has now become cold, 
 and hard upon the outside, but it is still hot 
 and soft inside. This inner part of the earth far 
 below us is cooling all of the time, and as it does 
 so, it shrinks, leaving the hard crust upon which we 
 stand, too large. 
 
 Now, what happens? The crust has to settle down, 
 and in doing so, it forms folds, just as the skin does 
 upon an apple. 
 
 A large part of the crust of the earth is arranged 
 in layers. There are layers of pebbles, sandstone, 
 clay, and other rocks. These, when they are 
 formed in the bed of an ocean or lake, are nearly 
 level. When the crust of the earth folds, these 
 layers are tipped up at all sorts of angles. 
 
 We cannot go into the canons in any portion of 
 the Coast Ranges without seeing these layers stand- 
 ing more or less steeply. It is easy to make some 
 of the wrinkles or folds, in the same way that those 
 upon the earth are made. We will take some sheets 
 of paper,and holding the opposite sides in each hand, 
 shove them together. The paper will bend in folds. 
 
 The folds upon the earth are sometimes so large 
 that they form high mountains. We can often see 
 the layers arching like a rainbow upon the sides of 
 the canons. 
 
THE MAKING OP MOUNTAINS. 135 
 
 Our picture shows some folded rocks upon the 
 coast of California. These layers of sandstone, 
 which are now folded into the form of a letter S, 
 were once flat and even. We can hardly imagine 
 what a great force it requires to bend solid rocks in 
 this manner. 
 
 If the skin of an apple consisted of layers, they 
 would appear folded, just as the rocks are in the 
 picture. 
 
 A SHRUNKEN APPLE. 
 
AN EXTINCT VOLCANO: 
 
 E have all been startled at some 
 time or other by the sudden 
 escape of steam from the safety- 
 valve of an engine. 
 
 With a loud, explosive noise, 
 the steam bursts out for a 
 moment, and then stops. 
 
 The engine-boiler is made in such a way that, 
 when the pressure of the steam inside has reached 
 the limit of safety, some of it can escape. If it 
 were not for the safety- 
 valve, the boiler might be 
 blown to pieces. 
 
 Did you ever think that 
 there are mountains on 
 our earth which behave 
 much like the safety-valve 
 of an engine? Such moun- 
 tains are called volcanoes. 
 
 The ground over which 
 we walk seems perfectly 
 firm and solid, yet the 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 The cause of volcanoes. 
 
 How volcanoes are 
 made. 
 
 A volcano in action. 
 
 Extinct volcanoes. 
 
 Mount Shasta. 
 
 Cascade Range. 
 
 Late volcanic eruption 
 in California. (See 
 Physiography of the United 
 States for further informa- 
 tion.) 
 
 137 
 
138 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 earthquakes which shake it once in a while, and 
 the volcanic eruptions, teach us that there are 
 giant forces shut up within it. 
 
 Miles below our feet the heat is so great that the 
 rocks are melted, just as the iron is in a furnace. 
 There is steam in those regions also, and it is try- 
 ing to get out in the same way that the steam tries 
 to get out of the engine-boiler. 
 
 Water soaks down through the rocks to these hot 
 regions, and is there changed to steam. When the 
 pressure of the steam becomes too great, it blows a 
 hole thro ugh the crust of the earth at some weak spot. 
 
 The steam is mixed with the melted rock or 
 lava, and when it makes a hole to the surface, the 
 whole mass is blown high in the air. This is the 
 beginning of a volcano. 
 
 Some of the lava is blown into pieces so small 
 that they seem like dust, and float many miles 
 before settling to the ground. These fine particles 
 are called volcanic ashes. 
 
 The heavier pieces do not float away in the wind, 
 but fall back around the mouth of the volcano. 
 Some of them look like masses of slag from a fur- 
 nace, and are known as cinders. Others are heavy 
 and round like cannon balls, and are called bombs. 
 
 This material gradually builds up a rim about 
 the opening. The basin-like depression thus 
 formed in the center is called the crater. 
 
AN EXTINCT VOLCANO. 139 
 
 Mount Shasta is the most perfect of the great 
 volcanoes upon the Pacific Coast. There it stands 
 in Northern California, so tall and grand, a giant 
 among the other mountains. Through the long 
 summer, its cap of pure white snow attracts you. 
 Is there anything so wonderful as this great moun- 
 tain rising three miles above the level of the sea ? 
 
 Yet a long time ago this mountain began as a 
 little volcano. If we could have stood then upon the 
 top of the mountain, and looked down into the 
 crater, we would have seen some interesting things 
 taking place. 
 
 We would have seen the red-hot lava with the 
 steam rising from its surface, once in a while 
 settling down almost out of sight in the throat of 
 the volcano, and showing a tube-like opening 
 leading down into the earth. 
 
 Then the lava would rise again, bubbling with 
 the escaping steam, just as a pudding does. As 
 each bubble broke, a great cloud of steam would 
 escape. 
 
 When more steam had formed than could escape 
 in this way, it would gradually lift the whole mass 
 of lava, until boiling and foaming, it would run 
 over the lowest place in the rim of the crater, and 
 down the side of the mountain. 
 
 If we had been there when the explosions took 
 place, it would have been very dangerous. We 
 
140 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 should have had to crawl under some projecting 
 rock, to escape being hit by the chunks of the fall- 
 ing lava, which had been blown into the air. 
 
 The heat, the steam, the poisonous air, and the 
 glare of the lava at night, would have been terrify- 
 ing. Then, when the explosions took place, it 
 would have seemed as if the whole mountain were 
 being blown into the air. 
 
 Just watch your mother make a hasty pudding 
 some day, and you will get an idea of how the lava 
 acts. If the bubbles of steam should blow some of 
 the hot pudding in your face, it will seem all the 
 more real. 
 
 A volcano not only acts like a safety-valve, but 
 like a cannon as well. The steam blows the lava 
 up through the throat of the volcano, as powder 
 does the shot from the cannon. The comparison 
 is all the more real, because the masses of lava 
 hurled into the air are called bombs. 
 
 Some of the lava which flowed out cooled around 
 the top. This, together with the chunks which were 
 thrown out, slowly built up the top of the volcano. 
 At last, it towered high above all the surrounding 
 mountains. 
 
 How the ashes and lava desolated the country 
 around the volcano ! One stream of lava reached 
 the canon of the Sacramento River, and followed it 
 for nearly fifty miles. The heat of the lava turned 
 
AN EXTINCT VOLCANO. 141 
 
 the river to steam, and not until the lava cooled 
 could the river flow there again. 
 
 The lava was so hard, that when the river did 
 begin to flow again, it cut a new channel by the 
 side of the old one, which the lava had filled up. 
 
 Mount Shasta now stands there so quiet, it is hard 
 to imagine the exciting events of its history. All 
 the volcanoes along the line of the Cascade Range, 
 including Mt. Hood and Mt. Rainier, are now ex- 
 tinct. By that we mean that the lava in their 
 throats has become cold and hard, and the openings 
 far down into the earth, through which the steam 
 hurled the lava, are closed. 
 
 Mount Shasta was the last of these volcanoes to 
 become extinct. It has probably not been so, very 
 many centuries, for there are several places upon 
 its summit where the hot sulphurous gases still 
 issue from the crevices in the lava. In fact, we are 
 not quite sure that Mount Shasta is extinct. It 
 may break out again some time. 
 
 You know that Vesuvius, that great volcano on 
 the Bay of Naples, was supposed to be extinct 
 nearly two thousand years ago. The people, who 
 lived there, had no traditions of its ever having 
 been in eruption. They built villages and set out 
 vineyards on its slopes. 
 
 It broke forth again, without warning, in the year 
 79 A.D. Streams of lava flowed down the mountain, 
 
142 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 destroying everything in their path. Clouds of vol- 
 canic ashes also fell, burying whole cities, which 
 remained there undisturbed for centuries until 
 they were almost forgotten. 
 
 Near Lassen's Peak, which is also a volcano, there 
 is a stream of lava which must have issued from 
 the earth not more than two hundred years ago. 
 The trunks of pine trees, which were killed by the 
 falling ashes, are still standing. 
 
 If Mount Shasta is really a dead volcano, the rain, 
 and frost, and little rivulets, will gradually tear it 
 down. They are at work upon it now, but so slowly 
 do they work, that it will be many centuries before 
 they will succeed in affecting it very much. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 Valve (valv), volcano (v61-ka'no), cinder (sin'der), 
 bombs (b6ms or bums), terrifying (ter'ri-fi'-ing), explosion 
 (eks-plo'zhun), centuries (sen'tu-riz), extinct (Sks-tinkt'). 
 
 Valve = a lid opening only one way. 
 
 Steam = the vapor of boiling water. 
 
 Foam =an aggregation of bubbles upon the surface of a 
 
 liquid. 
 Extinct = extinguished, put out. 
 
CAVES. 
 
 | HAT delights the boys most when 
 they are climbing among the 
 rocks is to find a cave. There 
 is something very attractive to 
 them about a hole in the ground. 
 They want to explore it at once, 
 and see where it leads to. 
 
 It may be that boys like caves so well because 
 our ancestors used to live in them, and found them 
 of great protection at many times. 
 
 In rocky countries, many animals make their per- 
 manent homes in caves. The greatest caves that we 
 know anything about are in Kentucky. The largest 
 is the Mammoth Cave, in which one can walk for 
 miles without ever coming 
 out to the light. Caves 
 like these in the limestone 
 are made by running water. 
 The rain water soaks down 
 through the soil and into 
 the cracks in the lime- 
 stone. Little by little it 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Mammoth Cave. 
 Kinds of caves. 
 Caves in the lava. 
 Effect of caves upon sur- 
 face -water. 
 Streams in caves. 
 
 143 
 
CAVES. 145 
 
 dissolves the rock, and after a time great caverns 
 are formed, through which the streams run. 
 
 There are a few caves in the limestone upon 
 the Pacific Coast, but no very large or interesting 
 ones. 
 
 Many caves are formed in other ways. Ocean 
 waves are interested in caves. They have slowly 
 worn them out of the cliffs, against which they are 
 perpetually dashing. 
 
 Ocean caves were years ago, the favorite resort of 
 smugglers and pirates, and many interesting stories 
 have been written about them. 
 
 Some of the caves into which the ocean used to 
 dash are now above the reach of the waves. That 
 many of them have been used as camping-places by 
 the Indians, is shown by the smoked walls. 
 
 The most interesting caves are found in the lava- 
 fields of the Northwest. The lava rocks which cover 
 so much of Northeastern California, Oregon, and 
 Washington are full of holes and cracks and under- 
 ground passage-ways. 
 
 There are many things which make us believe 
 that there are caves all over this region. In riding 
 over the lava, the rock frequently sounds hollow 
 under the horses' feet. Besides this, there is little 
 surface water for miles. The water from the snow 
 and rain, runs into the cracks in the lava and gath- 
 ers in underground streams. 
 
146 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 In some places the caves have fallen in, and we 
 can actually explore them. 
 
 These caves are very different from those in the 
 limestone on the seashore. They were not made by 
 water, but by the lava when it cooled, and the 
 water has simply made use of them. 
 
 Some of the underground passages must be many 
 miles in length. North of Mount Shasta there is one 
 called Pluto's Cave. It was formed by a long, narrow 
 stream of lava. A crust of solid lava formed on 
 the outside of the stream while it was still hot and 
 soft inside. What do you suppose happened then? 
 It was a very strange thing. The insiole flowed on 
 and left the hardened shell. Thus a long hollow 
 tube was formed, which looked on the inside some- 
 thing like a railroad tunnel. 
 
 This cave has been followed more than a mile 
 without finding the end. It is very rough inside, 
 and the walls, where they have not caved, show the 
 hollows and ridges of the crust. The cave is in 
 places eighty feet high and seventy feet broad. 
 
 It is a queer sensation to climb through one of 
 these caves, where a red-hot and steaming lava 
 stream once flowed. 
 
 In the Modoc lava-beds there are many such 
 caves partly broken in. It is here, you will remem- 
 ber, that Captain Jack and the Modoc Indians took 
 their stand against the soldiers. The Indians took 
 
CAVES. 147 
 
 refuge in the caves, where there was plenty of 
 water. They knew the country perfectly, and it 
 would have taken an army to have driven them out. 
 
 The caves through which the underground 
 streams flow are generally too small to explore, be- 
 sides, one would be troubled with the water. Many 
 of them are deep under the lava, and would never 
 be known if it were not for the canons which 
 cross this region. 
 
 The canons have been formed by the larger 
 rivers flowing across the lava-beds. Many of the 
 streams underneath the lava are thus exposed. 
 Some of them are so large that we might call them 
 rivers. A perfect torrent of water pours out of an 
 underground passage in the canon of the upper 
 McCloud River. The volume of water is so great 
 that it doubles the size of the stream. 
 
 Moss Brae Falls, in the canon of the Sacramento 
 River, has the same origin. It comes, under the 
 lava, from Mount Shasta, fully twenty miles away. 
 The water is pure, and almost ice-cold. It never 
 sees the light of day after leaving the melting 
 snows high on the slope of Shasta until it runs down 
 over the fern-covered ledges into the Sacramento 
 River. 
 
 Other large springs issue from under the ends of 
 lava-beds. Springs of this kind form Fall River, 
 an important tributary of the Pitt River. An in- 
 
148 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 teresting feature of rivers that are formed of such 
 springs is that they flow nearly the same size the 
 year around. 
 
 One of the springs which forms Fall River is so 
 large that it has been used to run a saw-mill. 
 
 Other springs of equal size are scattered all along 
 the base of the Cascade Range. 
 
 All these things show us that caves are among 
 the most interesting features of the lava-beds. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 Attractive (at-trakt'-iv), favorite (fa'ver-It). soldier (sol' 
 jer), tributary (trib'u-ta-ry), feature (fe'tur). 
 
 Limestone = a rock made of carbonate of lime. 
 
 Mt. Shasta = an extinct volcano, in Northern California. 
 
 Modoc Lava Beds = A rugged field of lava in Northeastern 
 California. 
 
 Smuggler = one who brings into, or ships goods out of a coun- 
 try without paying duties. 
 
 Pirate = one who robs on the seas. 
 
 Explore = to search carefully. 
 
CRATER LAKE. 
 
 UR world is very old, and many 
 things have happened upon it 
 since it began moving around the 
 sun. We would have opened our 
 eyes very wide at some of these 
 things if we had been there to see 
 them. 
 
 The ocean now covers sunken continents, where 
 wild animals once roamed and trees waved their 
 branches in the wind. Sea shells upon the moun- 
 tain tops tell an equally wonderful story of sea 
 bottoms which have become dry land. 
 
 There was a time, long before people lived upon 
 the earth, when central Oregon was beneath the 
 sea. The ocean did not 
 always remain there, how- 
 ever, for earthquakes oc- 
 curred and great cracks 
 opened in its bed. From 
 these cracks flowed streams 
 of melted lava, which slowly 
 cooled, and as the years 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Locate Cascade Moun- 
 tains. 
 Volcanoes. 
 Mount Mazama. 
 Crater. 
 
 History of Crater Lake. 
 Features of the lake. 
 
 149 
 
CRATER LAKE. 151 
 
 went on were heaped one upon the other, until the 
 Cascade Mountains were formed. 
 
 On the summit of these mountains, and rising 
 many thousand feet higher, were the great volcanoes 
 which we call Shasta, Mazama, Rainier, and Hood, 
 besides many smaller ones. 
 
 All but Mt. Mazama you will find marked upon 
 the maps. This was a great mountain, almost as 
 high as Shasta; and you ask why it is not down 
 also. Simply because no such mountain exists 
 there to-day. In its place is Crater Lake. Listen, 
 and I will tell you the strange story of Mt. 
 Mazama. 
 
 For centuries Mt. Mazama poured out smoke, 
 ashes, and streams of lava. At last, the fire nearly 
 died out in the mountain, and only now and then a 
 little steam issued from its top. The rough and 
 jagged lava rocks upon its slopes grew cold. 
 
 The climate became cold, and the Cascade Moun- 
 tains were covered with snow and ice all the year 
 round. What is now the Willamette Valley was 
 then a lake. Long streams of ice, formed from the 
 hardened and partly melted snow, moved slowly 
 down the mountains to the lake, and breaking off, 
 floated out upon its surface. 
 
 The region all about Mt. Mazama was a desolate 
 one. All the vegetation, even the tallest trees, were 
 buried under the snow. No living thing was to 
 
152 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 be seen, except when some Arctic animal wandered 
 over it. 
 
 After a time the climate grew warmer, and the 
 snow melted away. Grass and bushes, and finally 
 trees, covered the mountains again. 
 
 A family of bears, searching for a home, came to 
 a deep cave under the lava on the slope of Mt. 
 Mazama, and stopped there. The home was well 
 chosen, for during the cold winters the bears re- 
 treated far into the cave, where the snow could not 
 reach them. 
 
 During the summers they had the huckleberries, 
 which grew in the meadows, a little farther down 
 the mountain, all to themselves, for the most of the 
 other animals, as well as the birds, seemed afraid of 
 the mountain. 
 
 The years passed happily, until the bears began 
 to be suspicious that something was going on within 
 the mountain. Strange rumblings were heard, and 
 the rocks often trembled. Once the mouth of the 
 cave was nearly closed by a rock which had rolled 
 down. In the winters the heat began to disturb 
 their long sleep, so that more than once they 
 thought spring had come, when it was still mid- 
 winter. 
 
 Finally, one night, when returning from an ex- 
 pedition, they saw the sky above the summit of the 
 great mountain on which they lived, lighted up 
 
CKATER LAKE. 153 
 
 brightly, and shortly after, fine, suffocating ashes 
 began to fall. 
 
 At last, when an unusually heavy earthquake 
 shook the cave, our family of bears could stand it 
 no longer, and started pell-mell down the mountain 
 side to find a safer place. 
 
 In the days that followed the heat increased. 
 There were loud, thundering noises, and earth- 
 quakes so severe that they broke the trees down. 
 Even the most sluggish of the animals left their 
 homes and fled away from the mountain. 
 
 After a time these disturbances ceased, and Bruin 
 and his family wandered back up the mountain. 
 But, somehow, things looked different. The trees 
 and bushes were all dead, and the green meadows 
 where the huckleberries used to grow were buried 
 under a layer of soft ashes. 
 
 All at once they came out upon the edge of a 
 great precipice. They could go no farther, for in 
 front of them, where the mountain had risen so 
 many thousands of feet, there was a hole nearly a 
 mile deep and several miles across. 
 
 In the bottom there was a red-hot mass of lava, 
 which bubbled up, and threw out great jets of steam. 
 
 What it all meant the bears did not know, but it 
 seemed as if the mountain had been melted and 
 fallen in. One look was sufficient, and then they 
 turned and fled from the spot. 
 
154 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 Year after year passed, but the bears did not 
 return. The lake of lava at last became cold. The 
 rains fell and gathered in this old crater of the 
 sunken Mt. Mazama. 
 
 Explorers discovered this beautiful lake hidden 
 away in the forests which now cover the summit 
 of the Cascade Range. The surface of the lake 
 lies two thousand feet below the top of the circling 
 cliffs which formed the old crater. 
 
 The water is nearly half a mile deep, and clear 
 and blue it lies there in the quiet of the mountain 
 woods. On an island in the lake there is a small 
 volcano, but it is also covered with trees. Probably 
 it has been centuries since it threw out ashes and 
 lava. 
 
 The eagles build their nests in the cliffs, and the 
 deer come down to drink. Will it always be so? 
 We cannot tell. Some time the fire may be 
 lighted again, and smoke and ashes fill the sky, but 
 we hope not. 
 
 This is the story of Mt. Mazama, the mountain 
 which fell in. Do you wonder that it is not located 
 in the geography ? 
 
CRATER LAKE. 155 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 Ranier (ra'ner), Willamette (wll-a'm6t), suffocating (siif 
 fo-ka'ting), disturbance (dte-turb'ans), century (sn'tu-ry), 
 sufficient (suf-fish'ent). 
 
 Jet = a sudden rush of water from a pipe. 
 Crater = the mouth of a volcano. 
 Huckleberries = the fruit of a low shrub. 
 
THE LAVA PLATEAU OF THE NORTHWEST. 
 
 F you want to get the juice out of an orange 
 without peeling it, how is it done ? Why, 
 it is a very simple matter. Cut a little 
 hole in the orange, and then squeeze it in 
 your hands. 
 
 The great round earth on which we 
 live is like an orange in some ways. It 
 has a hard skin, or crust, on the out- 
 side, while it is soft on the inside. 
 
 Now, if there were a hole, or crack, in the crust 
 of the earth, and some mighty giant should squeeze 
 it, what do you suppose would happen? The soft 
 material inside would come up through the cracks 
 and run out over the surface exactly as the juice 
 of an orange does. 
 
 Many different times in 
 the history of the earth the 
 melted rock inside of it has 
 flowed out and over the 
 green surface, making it 
 rocky and barren. We must 
 not think, however, that 
 
 156 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 The crust of the earth. 
 The Interior of the 
 
 earth. 
 Locate the Columbia 
 
 Plateau. 
 
 Origin of this plateau. 
 Columbia River canyon. 
 
THE LAVA PLATEAU OF THE NORTHWEST. 157 
 
 a giant really squeezed the earth, for there are 
 no such things as giants. Instead of that, the lava 
 was pressed out by the weight of the crust upon 
 which we walk. 
 
 Our earth was once a fiery, glowing mass, like 
 most of the stars, but now the outside has become 
 solid and cold. At least, it seems solid, except when 
 we feel it rocking during an earthquake. 
 
 Far below the surface it is still soft and hot. The 
 crust is very heavy, and once in a while it settles 
 down a little, and squeezes out some of this soft ma- 
 terial, which we call lava. 
 
 You may wonder how we know that it is hot 
 inside. In many parts of the earth lava can now 
 be seen in the craters of volcanoes, steaming like 
 some hot pudding. Many of the hot springs which 
 are so abundant upon the Pacific Coast are caused 
 by the heated rocks far below the surface. In some 
 places mines have been worked that are nearly a 
 mile deep. It has been found that the deeper the 
 miners go the hotter it becomes. So we are quite 
 sure that it is hot enough to melt the hardest sub- 
 stance not very many miles below the surface. 
 
 In portions of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho 
 so much lava has been squeezed out that it has 
 formed a high table land, or plateau, hundreds of 
 miles in extent. It is called the Columbia Plateau, 
 because the Columbia River flows across it. 
 
158 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 The plateau was originally almost as level as a 
 floor, but since the lava cooled, cracks have formed 
 in it, and some portions have been raised to form 
 high mountains. 
 
 How do you suppose this country looked before 
 the lava flood buried it ? It probably looked very 
 much as mountains generally do. There must have 
 been hills and valleys and running streams. 
 
 There came a time of terrific earthquakes. Great 
 cracks formed in the rocks, and floods of fiery lava 
 flowed up through them. The lava was very thin, 
 and ran over the country, almost as easily as water 
 would have done. It filled the valleys first, leaving 
 the hills sticking up ; but the heat must have been 
 so great as to kill every living thing over many 
 hundred square miles. 
 
 Then for many years no more lava came out. If 
 we had lived there we should have felt safe again. 
 The steaming lava became entirely cold. The 
 winters and summers succeeded each other, until 
 the hard rock crumbled a little on the surface, and 
 trees grew up. Among them were pines and 
 spruces, just like those we find on the mountains 
 now. There must have been animals and birds also. 
 
 Then again, without warning, the crust was 
 broken, and more lava came boiling out. It killed 
 and buried the forests, and spread farther than it 
 had before. After a time it was quiet again. 
 
THE LAVA PLATEAU OF THE NORTHWEST. 159 
 
 How many times this was repeated we hardly 
 know, but at last the whole country, for hundreds 
 of miles around, was completely buried. 
 
 These would have been terrifying sights if we 
 could have seen them all. Steam, hot air, volcanic 
 dust, and fiery lava were everywhere. It would 
 have seemed as if the earth were turning inside out, 
 and that everything upon it was to be killed. 
 
 Thus the Columbia plateau was made. After the 
 lava had become cold, the rain water formed lakes 
 at different spots upon its surface. Many interesting 
 animals lived around these lakes. Their bones, 
 which are still found, show that they were quite 
 different from the animals living there now. 
 
 Far to the east of the lava plateau, were the 
 Rocky Mountains. The lava 'had not covered 
 them. The streams from these mountains flowed 
 westward, and united in one large river, which we 
 call the Columbia. 
 
 Ever since the Columbia began, it has been cut- 
 ting its channel into the lava of the plateau. It has 
 now the deepest and most rugged canon of all the 
 rivers of the Northwest. 
 
 The river has cut through the different layers of 
 lava which flowed at different times. What we can 
 see now in the canons enables us to tell what hap- 
 pened so long ago. 
 
 We might compare this plateau to a layer-cake. 
 
160 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 Each stream of lava would then represent one 
 layer in the cake, and the soil between the layers 
 the jelly. How boldly and clearly the layers of 
 black lava stand out on the walls of the canons. 
 The thin layers of soil between them contain frag- 
 ments of petrified trees and impressions of leaves. 
 They tell the story of how the country was once 
 buried bv the lava. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 Columbia (ko-lum' bi-a), fiery (fi'er-y, or ffry), glowing 
 (glo'ing), petrified (pel'rl-fld). 
 
 Glowing = white with heat. 
 
 Volcanic dust = fine particles of lava thrown out of a 
 
 volcano. 
 Petrified trees = trees that have been turned to stone. 
 
DOWN IN A GOLD MINE. 
 
 'F it were not for the gold hid- 
 den away in the mountains of 
 the Pacific Coast, this region 
 would not contain as many 
 people as it does. In the 
 early days, when gold was first 
 discovered in California, there 
 were no railroads. 
 When it was known that gold was to be had 
 here for the digging, thousands of people started 
 from the East for California. They had to en- 
 counter all kinds of dangers. They crossed the 
 broad deserts, climbed mountains, in whose canons 
 Indians waited, or sailed half around the world. 
 
 After the pioneers 
 
 reached California, they 
 had yet to find just where 
 the gold was. They ex- 
 plored the brooks and 
 rivers of the Sierra Nevada 
 Mountains, and discovered 
 that in many places the 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Placer mining. 
 
 Quartz. 
 
 Quartz veins. 
 
 Gold. 
 
 Mother-lode. 
 
 How gold is mined. 
 
 161 
 
MAY LUNDY" GOLD MINE NEAE THE SUMMIT OF THE SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS. 
 
DOWN IN A GOLD MINE. 163 
 
 gravels in their beds were full of grains of gold. 
 This is placer gold, and digging for it is called 
 placer mining. 
 
 The miners found little pieces of quartz with the 
 gold, and soon discovered that both came from quartz 
 veins, which appeared wherever the rain, or the 
 streams, had washed the soil away from the rocks. 
 
 The little white pebbles, which we find in all the 
 brooks, are quartz. They are so hard that your 
 knife blade cannot scratch them, and often as clear 
 and transparent as glass. 
 
 A quartz vein is a long, narrow band of quartz 
 extending across the country. Quartz is so much 
 harder than the other rocks that it often stands up 
 in prominent points above the rest of the country. 
 
 All the children who live in the Sierra Nevada 
 Mountains have heard of the Mother-lode. Those 
 who live in other places would perhaps like to know 
 something about it. The Mother-lode is formed by 
 a line of quartz veins, which reach for more than 
 a hundred miles through the foothills. These veins 
 are very large and rich, and the miners called them 
 the Mother-lode, because they thought the gold in 
 the gravels of the streams all came from them. 
 
 Hundreds of mines have been worked here, and 
 every one who is looking for a mine, wants it to be 
 upon the Mother-lode, because he thinks it is so 
 rich. 
 
164 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 We must not think that all the quartz pebbles 
 which we find in the brooks contain gold, for we 
 would be greatly disappointed. The miner some- 
 times spends years hunting for a vein of quartz 
 with enough gold in it to pay him for working it. 
 He prospects the vein by pounding a piece of the 
 quartz to dust in a mortar, and then washing away 
 the dust in a pan, or spoon made of horn. If there 
 is any gold, it settles to the bottom, and appears as 
 a string of little shining yellow grains. 
 
 An old prospector had lived for years in a log 
 cabin in a gulch in the mountains. He had a 
 mining claim upon the Mother-lode, but for a long 
 time had not been able to find just where Nature 
 had put the gold, for she does not sprinkle it in all 
 the quartz. 
 
 The day came at last when he found some quartz 
 with specks and threads of gold. The disap- 
 pointed look in his face was changed to a happy 
 one. He built a new cabin, and threw away his 
 old clothes. 
 
 He had worked years, digging holes along the 
 vein of quartz, in the hunt for gold. These holes 
 looked like so many wells, only there was no water 
 in them. He had raised the quartz from the bottom 
 of the holes by hand. The windlass which he used, 
 with its rope and bucket, looked just like that em- 
 ployed by well-diggers. 
 
DOWN IN A GOLD MINE. 165 
 
 Now, in place of this windlass, there stands a large 
 mill, from which comes, through all the day and 
 night, the steady thump, thump, of the heavy iron 
 stamps, as they pound the quartz to pieces, and 
 set free the shining grains of gold. 
 
 We will go down in the mine, and see what he 
 has found. At one end of the room is a dark 
 hole, surrounded by a railing. It is called a 
 shaft, and through it the quartz is raised to the 
 surface. 
 
 A steel rope is running up from the shaft, and 
 over a wheel on some timbers above us. A little 
 behind stands the engineer, ready to stop the ma- 
 chinery at a second's notice. 
 
 As we watch, a great square bucket, or skip, as 
 the miners call it, comes in sight, rising out of the 
 dark shaft. It passes to the floor above, where the 
 ore is dumped, and is then lowered for us. We 
 climb in, but not without some fear. At a signal, 
 the engineer moves a lever, and we seem to fairly 
 drop into the dark hole. 
 
 Down, down, we go for some moments. The air 
 becomes cold, and by the light of the feeble candles 
 we catch glimpses of mossy timbers, and bare, wet 
 rock, as we fly past. Several lighted stations, where 
 men are at work, come into view, and quickly dis- 
 appear. 
 
 Little streams of water run down the sides of the 
 
166 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 shaft, and drip upon us, but with rubber coats on, 
 we do not mind it. 
 
 The bucket slackens its speed, and comes to a 
 stop close to a platform, and we climb out. We are 
 two thousand feet down in the earth, and although 
 it is cold, the air is not bad, for there are pipes lead- 
 ing to the surface, through which fresh air is con- 
 stantly pumped. 
 
 The men began digging upon the vein of quartz 
 at the surface, and followed it all the way down this 
 shaft. They think it extends much deeper still. 
 
 To the right and left of the landing upon which 
 we stand, tunnels, or drifts, as they are also called, 
 extend away into the darkness. 
 
 We start out to walk to the end of one of them, 
 where the miners are at work breaking down the 
 quartz. The timbers which hold up the roof of the 
 tunnel hide the most of the vein, but in a few 
 places we can see it glistening brightly. 
 
 We meet a group of men at the end of the tunnel, 
 and stop to see what they are doing. Here stands 
 an iron car, holding about a wagon load of the ore. 
 It is pushed back and forth between the place where 
 the men are at work and the shaft. 
 
 Two men are loading it with chunks of quartz, 
 which have just been blasted down from the vein, 
 which we see sparkling overhead. Another man 
 holds a short steel bar, called a drill, while his com- 
 
DOWN IN A GOLD MINE. 167 
 
 panion strikes steady blows upon it. In this way a 
 round hole is slowly cut in the solid rock. This is 
 called drilling. 
 
 Holding a candle close to the vein, we can see 
 little specks of gold scattered through the quartz. 
 The foreman calls this rich ore, and we are ready 
 to agree with him. A wagon load of it would make 
 us almost rich. 
 
 It is nearly noon, and the men are going to blast 
 down some more of the quartz, before going up to 
 their dinner. Sticks of dynamite, which look like 
 candles, only they are yellow, are placed in the 
 holes which have been drilled. A dark, thick 
 string, called a fuse, is put in the end of each, and 
 left sticking out of the hole. 
 
 When all is ready, the fuse is lighted, and we 
 hasten back through the tunnel, and enter a side- 
 tunnel, or cross-cut. Here we are safe, and wait for 
 the blasts to go off. 
 
 Suddenly, we hear a sharp click, seeming to come 
 out of the wall of the tunnel. Then there follows 
 an explosion, which shakes the solid rock. 
 
 It is very dangerous to work in some mines. If 
 the rock is soft, it keeps settling slowly into the 
 tunnels, breaking timbers more than a foot through. 
 In some mines, there is so much water that the 
 pumps have to be kept going all the time, or the 
 rnen would be drowned. 
 
168 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 The men who work in mines get so used to living 
 underground that they do not think anymore about 
 it than we do of going into a dark cellar. 
 
 We hasten back through the smoke, which has 
 come from the blasts, and reach the shaft. Our 
 guide pulls a cord, which gives the engineer the 
 signal, and we are drawn up again in the bucket. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 Quartz (kwarts), transparent (trans-par'ent), explosion 
 (gks-plo'zhun), dynamite (di'na-mit), engineer (6n'ji-ner'), 
 machinery (rna-shen'er-y), lode (lod). 
 
 Quartz = a hard, glassy mineral. 
 
 Prospect = to look over or explore for something. 
 
 Liode-=a metallic vein, or series of veins. 
 
 Mortar = a strong vessel in which substances are pounded. 
 
 Stamp = a kind of heavy hammer for crushing ores to 
 
 powder. 
 
 Windlass = a machine for raising weights. 
 Ore = the natural condition of a metal. 
 Shaft = a well-like excavation in the earth. 
 Drift = a passage cut through the rocks, a tunnel. 
 Dynamite = an explosive substance. 
 
WHERE THE QUICKSILVER IS MADE. 
 
 'HO has not seen the silvery sub- 
 stance in the tube of a thermom- 
 eter, and noticed how it rises 
 when it grows warm and falls 
 when the cold comes again; or, 
 if the bulb be broken, followed 
 with wondering eyes the glitter- 
 ing drops as they rolled over the floor ? 
 
 This substance, so heavy and bright, which be- 
 haves so strangely, is quicksilver, or mercury. 
 When people first discovered it they called it 
 liquid silver, because it looked so much like silver. 
 It is the only metal which looks like a liquid at the 
 ordinary temperature, but 
 there are many others 
 which become liquid if 
 they are put in a furnace 
 where it is very hot. 
 
 Quicksilver is useful for 
 many purposes. It is 
 mixed with tin to form 
 the coating for the backs of 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Different forms of quick- 
 silver. 
 
 Where found. 
 
 Volcanoes. 
 
 Hot springs. 
 
 A quicksilver mine. 
 
 Extraction of quick- 
 silver from the ore. 
 

WHERE THE QUICKSILVER IS MADE. 171 
 
 our mirrors. The miner uses it to collect the little 
 particles of gold as the water carries them away. 
 Calomel is one form of quicksilver. We may 
 have some time taken this white powder as a 
 medicine, and can remember how badly it made 
 us feel. 
 
 Did you ever think that we do not get many 
 things without working for them ? The hunter has 
 to tramp often many long miles before he finds any 
 game. Our lessons, too, cannot be learned without 
 hard work. 
 
 Nature treats us in the same way. She has hid- 
 den away her most precious things in the rocks, 
 and we have to hunt long and earnestly for them. 
 She does not give us quicksilver in the pure condi- 
 tion in which we see it in the thermometer, but 
 combined with sulphur in the bright red mineral 
 known as cinnabar. 
 
 The prospector spends his life hunting for min- 
 erals. He goes through all the mountains, and 
 looks carefully at the many kinds of rock, and per- 
 haps at last discovers some that contain little specks 
 of this mineral about which we are talking, the 
 bright red cinnabar. 
 
 Opposite the Sacramento Valley, near the sum- 
 mit of the Coast Ranges, there were once, many, 
 many years ago, some great volcanoes. We all 
 know that volcanoes are mountains out of which 
 
172 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 come smoke and ashes, and sometimes fiery masses 
 of melted rock. 
 
 The volcanoes at last became cold, but the 
 springs about them remained hot for a long time. 
 Some are warm even at the present time, and are 
 used for bathing and drinking, as they contain sub- 
 stances which are valuable as medicine. 
 
 Where many of these springs run out over the 
 surface of the ground, prospectors have found de- 
 posits of cinnabar. The cinnabar was brought up 
 by the water from deep down in the earth, where it 
 is so hot that the rocks are almost melted. 
 
 In this region there is a little stream called Sul- 
 phur Creek, and along it, there are many hot 
 springs and veins of cinnabar. One large spring, 
 in particular, comes out of the ground on a hill- 
 side facing the creek, and here some miners have 
 dug a tunnel hundreds of feet long. We will take 
 advantage of their work to go under the ground, and 
 possibly we shall find something very interesting. 
 
 In the story books one goes on imaginary excur- 
 sions to the center of the earth, crawls through 
 caverns, and is let down over precipices to the edge 
 of boiling lakes, but here we are going to take a 
 real trip away under the ground, far from the 
 bright sunlight, and see with our own eyes what 
 Dame Nature, who seems never to get tired, is doing 
 there in her hidden workshop. 
 
WHERE THE QUICKSILVER IS MADE. 173 
 
 Hot, steaming water runs out of the tunnel, 
 bringing with it a current of warm, choking air, 
 which smells much as a lighted sulphur match. 
 However, we need not be afraid, for the miners work 
 here all day, although they have to come out of the 
 tunnel once in a while for fresh air. 
 
 Before entering, we have to take off our outer 
 clothes, for our guide, who is dressed very lightly, 
 tells us, as the sweat pours down his face, that it is 
 rather warm inside. 
 
 Holding a lighted candle in one hand, and in 
 the other a little hammer to knock off specimens, 
 we start in single file into the dark hole. On first 
 getting inside we commence to cough, and are 
 almost choked with the hot, stifling air, but after a 
 time we get used to it, and manage to keep up with 
 our guide. 
 
 We tramp on with our dim candles for some 
 moments, passing now and then a narrow cavern, 
 from which comes the sound of gurgling waters. 
 At last we reach the point where the miners are at 
 work, and we stop and look around. What wonders 
 meet our eyes! Deep, narrow crevices lead away, 
 until lost in the darkness, in which we imagine 
 strange shapes, as out of them come the steam and 
 choking vapors from the unknown regions be- 
 low us. 
 
 We hear running waters in every direction. 
 
174 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 They pour from some of the openings, almost boil- 
 ing hot, and drip upon us from overhead. The 
 walls everywhere sparkle in the light. 
 
 The hot waters are bringing up many other 
 things besides the cinnabar, and are gradually fill- 
 ing up the open caverns with the most beautiful 
 specimens. In addition to the bright red cinnabar, 
 there is the yellow sulphur, and if we look closely, 
 a little gold will be found in some places. 
 
 Most beautiful are the little crystals of sulphur 
 which form from the choking vapors which we are 
 breathing. They coat the walls, and sparkle like 
 thousands of gems whichever way we turn. 
 
 The sweat covering our bodies, the stifling and 
 poisonous air, the boiling water at our feet, and the 
 sparkling walls, shutting us in on all sides, make it 
 easy to imagine ourselves miles below the surface of 
 the earth. 
 
 We can remain no longer, and hurry back to the 
 fresh air of the outside world. We have had a 
 strange trip into the earth. We have seen one of 
 the most wonderful quicksilver mines in all the 
 West. In most mines the water is cold, and Dame 
 Nature is taking a rest after her work. She is 
 waiting for new earthquakes, new volcanoes, and 
 new hot springs. 
 
 Let us follow the ore from the mine and see what 
 becomes of it. A little car running upon a wooden 
 
WHERE THE QUICKSILVER IS MADE. 175 
 
 track brings it to the mouth of the tunnel. There 
 it is put upon wagons and hauled to the mill, in 
 the valley, where it is placed in a furnace, over a 
 hot fire. 
 
 There it is roasted for a long time. The quick- 
 silver is driven off in the form of invisible vapor, 
 and passed into cool chambers, where it is condensed 
 in the same way as the moisture from the air con- 
 denses upon a glass of cool water. 
 
 Working with quicksilver is very dangerous, for 
 if one breathes much of the gas from the furnace, or 
 the dust from the ore, it will slowly poison him. 
 The Chinamen who are employed in most of the 
 mines and about the furnaces go with moist cloths 
 tied over their noses and mouths. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 Thermometer (ther-mom'e-ter), calomel (kal'o-mel), mer- 
 cury (mer'ku-ry), cinnabar (sin'na-bar), sulphur (sul'fur), 
 glittering (glit'ter-ing), precipice (pr6s'i-pis), crevice (kr6v' 
 is), ore (or), vein (van), invisible (m-vizl'-b'l). 
 
 Mercury = a liquid metallic element. 
 
 Silver = a soft, white metal. 
 
 Thermometer = an instrument for measuring temperature. 
 
 Sulphur = an inflammable yellow mineral. 
 
176 
 
 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 Mineral = an inorganic substance, having a definite compo- 
 sition. 
 
 Vein = a narrow mass o. k intersecting other rock. 
 Tunnel = a passage cut through rocks at right angles to a vein. 
 Specimen = a sample; a small part of anything. 
 Crevice = a narrow opening resulting from a crack. 
 Vapor = any substance in a gaseous condition. 
 Ore = the native form of a mineral. 
 
 Condensed = made smaller, changed from a gas to a liquid. 
 Furnace = a place for melting metals. 
 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A NUGGET. 
 
 OU must not expect me to tell just 
 how I was made, or all the things 
 that have happened to me. You 
 would not understand it all. 
 
 Besides, I am a little puzzled my- 
 self to know who left me in the 
 vein of quartz. However this may 
 be, I lay for a long time deep 
 down in the earth, with solid rock all about me. 
 
 It seemed for a time that I was to stay there for- 
 ever, but as the years went past it began to be less 
 dark, and I could see a little daylight coming down 
 through the cracks in the rocks above. 
 
 The frost and the rain- 
 drops were at work with 
 their picks and shovels, 
 breaking the rocks apart 
 and rolling the little grains 
 down the mountain slopes 
 to the brooks. 
 
 The brooks were tired 
 of flowing so fast and 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Nuggets. 
 
 Veins. 
 
 How the rocks are 
 
 broken down. 
 Story of Sierra Nevada 
 
 Mountains. 
 
 Ancient river channels. 
 Hydraulic mining. 
 
 177 
 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A NUGGET. 179 
 
 tumbling over the rough bowlders, and they were 
 glad to help all they could in breaking the moun- 
 tains in pieces. They picked up the grains of sand, 
 and carried them along, but the pebbles and 
 bowlders they could only roll over and over along 
 the bottom, 
 
 They finally ground to pieces all the pebbles but 
 those made of quartz. This interested me, because 
 it was the quartz which held me so tightly. 
 
 At last the rock and quartz were broken away, 
 and I rolled out upon the surface of the ground. 
 How different everything seemed. Now I could 
 enjoy life. I was upon a hill upon the western 
 slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, but they were 
 not as rugged and wild as they are now. 
 
 I had heard it whispered that there was a giant 
 inside the earth, who slept the most of the time, but 
 when he turned over he raised the mountains, and 
 made them tremble. However that may be, it had 
 been a long time since the mountains had been dis- 
 turbed, and the frost and the raindrops and their 
 assistants had almost, torn them down. 
 
 They were still at work, and did not want me to 
 lie there in their way. They were jealous of my 
 pretty yellow color. They need not have bothered, 
 however, for there were then no men there looking 
 for nuggets like me. 
 
 As I lay upon the mountain side I saw some 
 
180 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 strange animals feeding upon the bushes by the 
 river. There was a rhinoceros, and a large camel 
 with a hump on its back. Farther away there were 
 other large animals, which looked like elephants. 
 Long after, when I was brought down to San 
 Francisco, I learned that they were mastodons. 
 
 The raindrops wanted to roll me into the brook. 
 They washed the sand from under me, and let me 
 go rolling down the bank. Finally, after a long 
 time, I was tumbled into the river, and sank in a 
 deep hole. 
 
 The river washed sand and pebbles over me. 
 Sticks of wood and some large bones were mixed 
 up with the sand. The bones must have belonged 
 to one of the animals I had seen. 
 
 The river flowed over me for a long time, and 
 buried me so deeply that I thought I would never 
 get out again. I was not alone, however, for other 
 nuggets were scattered through all the gravel near 
 me. I felt proud, for I was the largest of them all. 
 
 All this time the raindrops were bringing the 
 little pieces of rock to the streams, and the streams 
 were carrying them away to the sea. The moun- 
 tains, after a long time, became so low that it did 
 not rain so much upon them. Then the rivers be- 
 came smaller. Their work was nearly done. 
 
 At last something happened within the earth, 
 and volcanoes were formed. They blew out steam 
 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A NUGGET. 181 
 
 and ashes and chunks of lava. There were light- 
 nings and heavy showers. The falling water 
 washed the mud and pieces of lava from the sides 
 of the volcanoes and into the rivers. The rivers 
 could not carry it all down to the Sacramento VaU 
 ley, and so their channels were piled full. 
 
 As a result of all this, I was buried many few 
 deeper. 
 
 After that the earth about me became very cold, 
 and I concluded that the river above me was frozen. 
 The cold continued for a long time, and when it 
 went away it rained a great deal, and the river rose 
 and swept along noisily. 
 
 The lava bowlders and gravel which had been 
 washed over me had by this time become cemented, 
 so that the water could not carry it away. Then it 
 went to work and washed out a new channel where 
 the rock was softer. At this behavior of the river 
 I lost all hope of ever getting out again. 
 
 For a long time the river kept digging its new 
 channel deeper. It at last made a canon more than 
 one thousand feet deep/and I was left on what was 
 now a high hill. 
 
 When the world had become ever so much older, 
 and many more things had happened, some men 
 came walking along on the ridge under which I 
 lay buried. They had pans and a pick, and would 
 here and there dig up some of the gravel and 
 
182 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 carry it to a little creek. There they carefully 
 washed it, to see if there were any little particles of 
 gold in it. 
 
 If that was what they were looking for, I could 
 give them a great deal. But they could not see 
 me hidden so far below. After they had prospected 
 at different places on the hill, they found enough 
 gold to satisfy them, and then went to work to run 
 a stream of water over the gravel. They wanted to 
 wash it away so as to get at the gold. 
 
 The men built a reservoir, and laid a pipe from 
 it to the place where they wanted to wash the gravel. 
 Then they made some long boxes, called sluices, 
 with little cross bars in the bottom, to catch the gold 
 when the water carried the gravel through the 
 boxes. 
 
 When all was ready, they turned the water into 
 the pipe. With what force it flew from the nozzle. 
 It looked like a stream from a fire engine, only it 
 was larger and much more powerful. 
 
 The men turned the stream against the bank of 
 gravel, and it tore it down very fast. The gray 
 bowlders were rolled around as though they were 
 little pebbles. As fast as the water washed the 
 gravel down, it was carried through the sluices 
 where the gold was caught. 
 
 When they reached the bottom of the gravel 
 they found what the miners call the bed-rock. 
 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A NUGGET 183 
 
 This is the rock over which the old stream flowed 
 so long before. In the crevices of the bed-rock 
 they found nuggets as large 5 as walnuts, and felt 
 very well satisfied. 
 
 What a surprise was in store for the miners who 
 had worked so long. One day the stream of water 
 washed the gravel from around me, and with a rush 
 of the muddy water I rolled out of the gravel bank. 
 How they rejoiced at the great yellow nugget. 
 
 I was so heavy that it was all one of them could 
 do to carry me. After being admired for a long 
 time I was put in a safe place. Every little 
 while, however, they could not resist coming to 
 look at me. 
 
 They said I was worth many thousands of dol- 
 lars. I was taken down to San Francisco and 
 placed in a window, but with heavy bars around 
 me, to keep people from carrying me away. 
 
 This is my story. I had an interesting life. My 
 end, however, was a sad one. I was sent to the mint 
 and melted down, and made into many different 
 pieces, which people carried around in their 
 pockets 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 Cemented (se-m6nt'-ed), jealous (jgl'tis), sluice (slus), 
 reservoir (rSz'er-vwor'), rhinoceros (ri-nSs'e-r6s). 
 
184 
 
 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 Rhinoceros = a large thick-skinned animal. 
 
 Mastodon = an extinct kind of elephant. 
 
 Volcano = a mountain which throws out lava, ashes, etc. 
 
 Reservoir = a place where water is stored. 
 
 Cemented = united firmly. 
 
 Sluice = a long box, through which water runs. 
 
 Nozzle = a short, tapering joint at the end of a hose or pipe. 
 
 Nugget = a native lump of a precious metal. 
 
COAL, GRAPHITE, DIAMOND. 
 
 >AN we think of three things which 
 are apparently so very unlike? The 
 first is a piece of coal, which is burn- 
 ing brightly in the grate. The 
 second is the black lead, or graphite, 
 in my pencil. The third is a clear, 
 
 sparkling diamond in my ring. 
 
 Although they seem to have nothing in common, 
 
 yet they are all formed of the same substance. This 
 
 substance is called carbon, and it came from the 
 
 plants which lived upon the earth a long time ago. 
 Graphite and diamond are pure carbon. Coal is 
 
 not pure, for it gives off a 
 
 suffocating gas when it is 
 
 burning, and leaves some 
 
 ashes. Does it not seem 
 
 strange that the diamond, 
 
 which is the hardest of all 
 
 minerals, and which shines 
 
 with such a beautiful lus- 
 ter, is made of the same 
 
 substance as the dirty black 
 
 REFERENCE TOPICS. 
 
 Origin of carbon. 
 
 Different forms of car- 
 bon. 
 
 Formation of coal. 
 
 Kinds of coal. 
 
 Graphite. 
 
 Origin of diamonds. 
 
 Where are diamonds 
 found ? 
 
 185 
 
186 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS 
 
 soot which comes from the coal, and lodges in the 
 chimneys ? 
 
 The graphite is black, like coal, but otherwise, it 
 is quite different. It does not burn, if placed in 
 the fire, and for this reason it is used for crucibles 
 to melt other minerals in. It is soft and greasy, 
 and besides being used for pencils, is valuable for 
 lubricating machinery. 
 
 It will be interesting to know how each of these 
 three minerals was made. We will study the coal 
 first, because the others have been made from it. 
 
 We all know what swamps are. Perhaps, in try- 
 ing to go through them, we have gotten into the 
 brush, and have been scratched and tumbled into 
 the water. In such places, the vegetation grows 
 very thickly. The leaves, twigs, and trunks of the 
 trees, when they fall, are partly buried in the mud 
 and water, and so, when they decay, cannot dry up 
 and blow away as they would in the open air. Year 
 after year the dead vegetation accumulates, until a 
 bed a number of feet thick is formed. 
 
 Now, if something should happen to the brook 
 which flows through the swamp, and the water 
 should become dammed up, the swamp would be 
 turned into a lake, and the bushes and trees would 
 be killed. 
 
 When the brook was high, mud and sand would 
 be washed into the lake, and the old swamp would 
 
COAL, GRAPHITE, DIAMOND. 187 
 
 be deeply buried. This is the way in which the 
 beds of coal originated. In some coal beds, miners 
 have found the stumps of trees still standing where 
 they grew, and impressions in the mud of pretty 
 leaves and ferns. 
 
 After the vegetation in the swamp has been 
 buried, it still takes a long time for it to be made 
 into true coal. In some parts of the country, vege- 
 tation is now collecting in swampy places, which 
 will some time make coal, if it is buried and pre- 
 served long enough. 
 
 The most of our coal beds were formed so long 
 ago that we can have no real idea of the time. The 
 surface of the earth was very different, and the 
 fruit-bearing trees, and higher animals, as well as 
 man, had not yet come upon the earth. 
 
 The climate of a large part of the earth must 
 have been warm, and like that in the tropics at the 
 present time. The ancient swamps, of which we 
 are speaking, contained luxuriant growths of 
 palms, tree-ferns, lepidodendrons, and many other 
 plants. 
 
 After the swamps had lasted a long time, the 
 earth's surface would sometimes sink, and permit 
 them to be covered by mud and sand, either from 
 a river or ocean. As the years passed, they would 
 become so deeply buried and pressed upon by the 
 earth over them, that the vegetable matter would 
 
188 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS 
 
 change its appearance, and there would at last 
 result a layer of black shining coal. 
 
 Years passed, and some new earthquake raised 
 the beds of coal, and the layers of sand and clay, 
 high in the air, until they formed mountains. 
 When people came they discovered the seams of this 
 black substance sticking out of the sides of the 
 mountains, or in the canons. They found that it 
 would burn, and were made very happy, for in some 
 parts of the earth there are few trees which can be 
 used for fuel. 
 
 All they had to do to get the coal, which showed 
 upon the mountain sides, was to dig it out; but in 
 some places, Nature did not uncover it, and they 
 had to sink shafts hundreds of feet deep in order to 
 get what they wanted. 
 
 We cannot tell how much of the heat of the sun 
 is stored in the coal beds. We know that it must 
 be a very large amount, for the rays of the sun were 
 necessary to make the plants grow from which the 
 coal was made. Some people have called coal solidi- 
 fied sunlight. We are not sorry that Nature has pre- 
 served the vegetation of the swamps which were 
 upon the earth so long ago. It is pleasant to think 
 that she did it for our especial benefit, but it may 
 be that she would have done it just the same if we 
 had no use for it. 
 
 There are many different kinds of coal. That 
 
COAL, GRAPHITE, DIAMOND. 189 
 
 which was made last is the poorest. It is called lig- 
 nite, because it is nearest wood in its appearance. 
 
 Coal which is older, and contains more carbon, is 
 called bituminous. The best coal is found in the 
 rocks which have been heated and squeezed the 
 most. This coal is called anthracite, and is almost 
 pure carbon. The soot which coal leaves when it 
 burns, is formed of little particles of carbon which 
 were not burned. 
 
 Lignite and bituminous coal are both found upon 
 the Pacific Coast. Nature has placed in the rocks 
 of California, so many different kinds of minerals, 
 that when it came to the coal she must have got 
 tired, for there is not a great deal here. There 
 were, probably, not many swampy places in this 
 region for the coal-forming vegetation to grow in. 
 Coal, in greater or less quantities, is found in nearly 
 all parts of the world. The whalers have dis- 
 covered it far north of the Arctic circle. 
 
 Now let us see what is the connection between 
 coal and the black lead of our pencils. Black lead, 
 or graphite, is formed from coal. When coal is 
 heated far below the surface of the earth, where 
 there is no air to permit it to burn, it is changed 
 to graphite. Ice does. not seem at all like water, 
 although it is only water under a different form. 
 Thus it is with graphite, which is the carbon of 
 the pure anthracite coal under a different form. 
 
190 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 Now we come to the diamond. It hardly seems 
 possible that this sparkling gem is made of the same 
 substance as graphite. 
 
 When the diamond is heated very hot it disap- 
 pears in the form of invisible carbonic acid gas. 
 This is the deadly gas which comes from coal when 
 it is burning. Our breath, as it comes from our 
 lungs, is also laden with this gas. 
 
 Like the graphite, the clear diamonds were made 
 deep in the earth, where it is very hot. The carbon 
 came up through the rocks as an invisible gas, and 
 condensed in little cavities, thus forming the beau- 
 tiful diamond crystals. 
 
 You can understand how this was done by placing 
 a small pinch of sulphur in one end of a glass 
 tube, and heating it. The sulphur will be driven 
 away as invisible gas, and condense again in little 
 crystals in the cool part of the tube. 
 
 Diamonds have been made artificially upon the 
 sides of furnaces where there was very great heat. 
 These diamonds are no larger than a pinhead, arid 
 are not fit for jewelry. Nature makes the crystals 
 of diamond as large as a robin's egg. They have 
 shining faces upon them, but have to be cut and 
 polished before they show all their beauty. 
 
 The most of our diamonds come from Africa and 
 Brazil. A few have been found in California in the 
 gold-bearing gravels of the placer mines. 
 
COAL, GRAPHITE, DIAMOND. 191 
 
 We sometimes hear people spsak of California 
 diamonds. They generally refer to clear little 
 crystals of quartz, and not to real diamonds. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 Suffocating (suffo-ka'ting), lubricating (lu'brl-ka'ting), 
 luxuriant (lugz-u'ri-ant), bituminous (bl-tu'ml-nus), an- 
 thracite (an'thra-sit), lepidodendron (16p'i-d6-dSn'dr6n). 
 
 Carbon = one of the elementary substances. 
 
 Lmster = the character of the light reflected from the surface 
 
 of a mineral. 
 Crucible = a vessel in which minerals are placed to be 
 
 melted. 
 Tree ferns = a fern having a tall trunk, with a cluster of 
 
 fronds at the top. 
 
 Lepidodendron = a genus of fossil trees. 
 Shaft = a well-like excavation in the earth for raising ore. 
 Carbonic acid gas = a poisonous gas composed of oxygen 
 
 and carbon. 
 
 Sulphur = a yellow, inflammable mineral. 
 Cry stal = the regular form which a mineral substance takes 
 
 when it solidifies. 
 Liaden = loaded, burdened. 
 
SOME ANIMALS OF LONG AGO. 
 
 E have learned that 
 the surface of the 
 earth upon which 
 we live is changing 
 all the time. What 
 was once the ocean 
 bottom is now dry 
 
 land, and some of the mountains which used to 
 
 rise so high have been worn down until they are 
 
 now but little above the level of the ocean. 
 
 Have the animals around us always remained as 
 
 they are now, or have they, too, changed, as the 
 
 years have passed by? There are many things 
 
 which make us feel sure 
 
 that they have changed 
 
 very much indeed. The 
 
 strange skeletons which 
 
 are often dug up are not 
 
 like those of any living 
 
 animals. 
 
 All of the animals have 
 
 their fathers, and grand- 
 
 REFEREXCE TOPICS. 
 
 Animals change. 
 
 The world without life. 
 
 Life in the sea. 
 
 Extinct monsters. 
 
 Reptiles. 
 
 Birds. 
 
 Horses. 
 
 192 
 
SOME ANIMALS OF LONG AGO. 193 
 
 fathers, and great-grandfathers, just as we do. If 
 the animals do not change, the bones which we find 
 which belonged to their grandfathers, who lived ever 
 so long ago, ought to be just like the bones of those 
 living now. But the bones of those ancient ani- 
 mals are so different, we must believe that they 
 have changed. 
 
 There were birds long ago, but they were different 
 from our birds, which sing so sweetly on spring 
 mornings. There were horses long ago, but they 
 were not like the horses which pull our heavy 
 wagons. There were reptiles, but they were not 
 like the lizards which we see sunning themselves on 
 the rocks. 
 
 The skeletons which are often found sticking out 
 of the banks by the river, or when wells are being 
 dug, tell us a true story of many of the animals 
 which lived upon the earth a long time ago. 
 
 Let us try to form a picture of those old times, 
 when everything was so different. If we should go 
 back far enough, we should find the earth without 
 any living thing upon it. For long, long years, the 
 waves dashed against the bare rocks. The world 
 was young then. 
 
 At last, some life appeared in the ocean. There 
 were first, little animals so small we could hardly 
 have seen them without a miscroscope. Then ap- 
 peared the little mollusks, with their hard shells, 
 
194 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 the soft worms, the crabs, and the floating jelly-fish. 
 But neither through all the ocean, nor upon the 
 land, was there yet an animal with a backbone. 
 
 The world would then have been a dreary place 
 for us. We could not have gone either fishing or 
 hunting, and there were no fruits or berries. To 
 be sure, there were several sorts of clams and 
 mussels, but we would have grown tired of them. 
 
 The years rolled around then as they do now, and 
 new animals appeared. There were fishes after a 
 while, but they were queer fellows, and very differ- 
 ent from any which we see in the markets. They 
 were the first of the backboned animals. 
 
 While the fishes were multiplying in the ocean, 
 a few small plants began to grow upon the land, 
 and insects finally came to feed upon them. 
 
 As the years went on, some of the fishes got so 
 they could live out of the water a part of the time. 
 It was pretty awkward walking on the land with 
 their fins, and so it came about that legs took the 
 place of the fins. Their whole bodies changed, and 
 so at- last these animals, whose grandfathers were 
 once fishes, came to look more like the alligators 
 than anything else. 
 
 These animals changed more and more. Many 
 made their homes on the land, but others continued 
 to spend a part of their lives in the ocean. They 
 were the fathers of some of the strangest animals 
 
SOME ANIMALS OF LONG AGO. 
 
 195 
 
 that ever lived upon the earth. We could not 
 imagine anything more terrifying, even in our 
 wildest dreams, than some of the animals which now 
 came to live here. 
 
 LEAPING DINOSAUR. 
 
 One clumsy animal, which had a length of eighty 
 feet, walked about upon its hind legs as the kangaroo 
 does. Its body was as large as a whale. Its long 
 tail dragged upon the ground as it moved sluggishly 
 along the beach, or through the swamp. 
 
 There were others of a very different shape, which 
 were able to fly by the aid of great, bat-like wings. 
 They were not birds at all, but flying reptiles. They 
 were of such size that they could pounce upon and 
 carry off all but the largest animals. What a 
 scampering to cover there must have been among 
 the animals, when one of these monsters came 
 flying through the air, looking for his morning 
 
196 
 
 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 meal. Animals fought and ate each other in those 
 days just as they do now. 
 
 I am afraid we would have had a sorry time if 
 we had lived in those days. Between the great 
 monsters that swam in 
 the sea, and crept through 
 the jungles, and those 
 which flew overhead, we 
 would have had to be on 
 our guard all the time. 
 
 Later there appeared 
 on the scene other forms, 
 more like the true birds, 
 but they were still very 
 different from any 
 which we meet now. 
 One of these early 
 grandfathers of 
 our birds was 
 about the size 
 of -a crow. 
 It had large 
 jaws, filled 
 with teeth, 
 
 like the reptiles. Its tail also was different from that 
 of the present birds, being like that of a lizard, but 
 covered with feathers, as was the rest of the body. 
 
 The sea, the land, an 1 the air, were full of these 
 
SOME ANIMALS OF LONG AGO. 197 
 
 strange animals. Some were of a peaceful disposi- 
 tion, but others fought among themselves, and 
 awakened the echoes with their loud cries. 
 
 Among the smaller animals was one the size of a 
 fox, but having much the 
 appearance of the tapir, 
 which now inhabits South 
 America. Would you be- 
 lieve it possible that this 
 little animal was one of 
 
 the early grandfathers of EARLY ANCESTOR OF MODERN 
 
 .o mi n HORSE. 
 
 our horse? 1 his is really 
 
 the fact, for so many bones have been found that we 
 can trace the whole line of grandfathers down to 
 the present horse. 
 
 There were many interesting things about this 
 little horse that lived so long ago. Instead of 
 having one hoof on each foot, it had four toes on 
 the front feet and three on the hind ones. 
 
 As the years passed, the descendants of the little 
 horse slowly increased in size. At one time they 
 were as large as a sheep, later, about the size of a 
 donkey, until at last they looked like our horses. 
 Our savage forefathers caught some of these wild 
 horses which roamed over parts of Asia and 
 Europe, and tamed them for use. 
 
 The little horse used to live in America. His 
 bones ha^&e been found in Wyoming. His descend- 
 
198 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 ants grew up here, and finally all died before the 
 American Indians came. The old Mexicans had 
 never seen horses, and when the men of Cortez 
 came they thought the horse and rider formed one 
 animal. 
 
 SKELETON OF THE EARLY ANCESTOR OF THE HORSE. 
 
 As the race of horses gradually became larger 
 their toes disappeared, until now, as you all know, 
 the horse has only one hoof on each foot. Above 
 each fetlock there are, however, two little bones, or 
 splints, which are remnants of the toes upon which 
 the early grandfather walked. 
 
 While the years were passing, the great reptiles 
 which we have learned about began to disappear. 
 They seem to have been too clumsy to resist the 
 fiercer animals which came. 
 
SOME ANIMALS OF LONG AGO. 199 
 
 Some of the lizards lost the use of their feet, 
 and finally turned into the snakes which we all 
 dislike so much. The python, of India, has still 
 little remnants of legs under its skin. 
 
 The birds also changed. They lost their teeth 
 and tails, and some of them looked much as our 
 birds do. One kind grew large and heavy, and lost 
 the power of flight. The ostrich has descended from 
 such birds. It has powerful legs, and can run as 
 fast as a horseman can ride. The ostrich still has 
 wings, but there were others that entirely lost their 
 wings. Bones of gigantic birds, without wings, 
 have been found in New Zealand. They stood 
 nearly ten feet high. 
 
 The great grandfathers of the fishes have always 
 lived in the ocean, but those of the whales, seals, 
 and porpoises used to live on the land. These 
 animals, you know, are not fishes. They are mam- 
 mals, have warm blood, and suckle their young. 
 
 The whale's great-grandfather then had four 
 legs, and lived upon the land. But for some 
 reason its descendants took to the ocean. Their 
 bodies became fish-like in shape. Their hind legs 
 entirely disappeared, and the fore ones were 
 changed to flippers, to aid in swimming. Even 
 now the whale cannot stay under the water all of 
 the time, but has to come to the surface for air 
 quite frequently. 
 
200 WESTERN SERIES OF READERS. 
 
 Thus it is that the animals have changed through 
 long years that have passed since they came to 
 live upon the earth. The body of each one changes 
 to suit the demands of swimming, or walking, or 
 flying. 
 
 The story of our animal friends is full of interest. 
 When we know how they have changed, as well as 
 how the hills and valleys are made, we have learned 
 a great deal about our home. 
 
 BLACKBOARD WORDS. 
 
 Skeleton (skeTe-tun), microscope (ml'kro-skop, or mlk'- 
 ro-skop), mollusk (m61'lusk), reptile (rp'til), kangaroo 
 (kan ga-roo'), al'ligator (al'll-ga'ter), descendant (de-s6nd'- 
 ant), disappear (dls'ap-per'). 
 
 Mollusk = an animal of one of the grand divisions of the ani- 
 mal kingdom, generally with a hard shell. 
 Backbone = the column of bones in the back. 
 Fins = organs of a fish used in swimming. 
 Alligator = a large carnivorous reptile, found in America. 
 Kangaroo = a species of jumping marsupials. 
 Flippers = broad, flat limbs, used for swimming. 
 Splint = a thin piece of wood or bone. 
 
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 1-year loans may be recharged by bringing 
 books to NRLF 
 
 Renewals and recharges may be made 
 4 days prior to due date 
 
 DUE AS STAMPED BELOW 
 
 DD20 1M 3-02 
 
YB 12548