USA > California > Mendocino County > History of Mendocino County, California : comprising its geography, geology, topography, climatography, springs and timber > Part 10
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EUREKA
HISTORY OF MENDOCINO COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
GEOGRAPHICAL SITUATION AND AREA-DERIVATION OF NAME-TOPOGRAPHY-GEOLOGY-SPRINGS -TIMBER-CLIMATOGRAPHY, ETC., ETC.
MENDOCINO COUNTY is bounded on the north by Humboldt, Trinity and Tehama counties; on the east by Tehamna, Colusa and Lake counties; on the south by Sonoma county; and on the west by the Pacific ocean. The terri- tory embraced within the above described limits is very extensive, compris- ing three thousand five hundred square miles, and two million acres of land. It has about one hundred miles of coast line, along which there are a host of bights, bays, and landings which add much to the prosperity of the section, as they afford ample opportunity for exporting all the products of that por- tion of the county. It would seem almost as if the matter had been arranged by an omniscient power, for the heaviest articles of export,-lumber, wood, ties, etc., are produced nearest the coast, while the lighter products are con- fined to the interior. These coves and inlets will be fully described in the body of the work.
DERIVATION OF NAME .- This county derives its name from Cape Mendo- cino, which lies to the northward of its northern boundary only a few leagues. The cape was given its name by the famous Spanish navigator of the 16th century, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, who discovered it in 1542, while. on a voyage of discovery along the Pacific coast, and named it in honor of the " illustrious Señor Antonio de Mendoza," the viceroy of Mexico, and the patron of the voyageur. This name once attached to the cape retained its grasp till this section of the State was divided into counties, when, naturally enough, one of the counties was named in honor of the old, old name, that .. had come down from far back of the Spanish regime in California.
TOPOGRAPHY .- Mendocino county lies upon the coast of the Pacific ocean, which bounds it on the west. Its extreme length in due north and south course is eighty-four miles, and its largest breadth is sixty miles, covering an
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area over three thousand five hundred square miles. By the United States survey it has ninety-eight townships of thirty-six square miles each, which in situation may be divided between its three great geographical sections, as follows: The Eel river country, forty-nine townships; Russian river, seventeen townships; and the coast, thirty-two townships. Eel river has its source in the center of the county, and along the line of Lake, Colusa, and Tehama counties, which bound Mendocino on the cast. This grand, wild and ever-flowing stream waters but little arable or bottom-land in this county in proportion to the immense area it drains. Hundreds of miles of its tribu- taries flow through rocky gorges or lave the base of steep, open hill-sides of rich grazing land, with miles upon miles of their length without enough valley for the foundation of a cartway. Having its sources in the summit of the Coast Range, with the snows of Sanhedrim, Mount Hood, Hull Moun- tain, Yola Bola, and the Trinity range to feed it, its waters are cold, clear and rapid, flowing freely all summer.
ROUND VALLEY is the principal valley in the Eel river section. It is situ- ated in township 23 north, 12 west of the Mount Diablo base line and meri- dian, being one hundred and forty-four miles north of San Francisco, and forty-two miles west. It is due north of Ukiah, the county seat, distant forty-two miles by compass, and sixty-five by the traveled route. The valley is surrounded by low ranges which divide it from the middle fork of Eel river which in its course flows from its eastern, around its southern and west- ern boundary, and receives the water from the valley at its south-eastern limit. Its extreme length is six and one-half miles, and its width four miles, with an arable area of about twelve thousand acres varying in soil from the rich, black clover-sod, to the gravel beds deposited on its eastern side by a large inflowing creek. Some years ago the waters of its creeks spread over the surface of the ground during the winter, they having no channels, and we recollect having seen the mowers running where the water was fetlock deep to the horses. The creek immediately adjoining the same field now has a channel twelve feet deep and fifty feet wide.
The best land of the valley is occupied by the United States as an Indian reservation, five thousand acres of valley land being fenced in at the north end of the valley and in use for cultivation and pasture. The present year the Reservation has over eight hundred acres in grain, the major part of the work being done by the Indians, of whom there are about eight hundred, old and young, now on the farm.
Owing to the lack of mill facilities, grain raising, as an industry, has remained of secondary importance to grazing, to which latter purpose the most of the valley lands are devoted. The center of an immense grazing country, were but a large flour-mill established there, the valley would become the center of supply for a region of country forty miles square.
Willenbash
Tot lawothers
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EDEN VALLEY is upon a tributary of Eel river, and lies about ten miles south of Round valley. It is principally owned by Townsend & Cary, of Sacramento, who by purchase have acquired title to ten thousand acres of grazing land, of which their Eden Valley ranch is the center. The valley is about a mile in length and half a mile wide, and is the home of two families besides the Townsend & Cary ranch.
LITTLE LAKE is the next in size of the Eel river valleys, and is about three miles square, or more nearly round, containing, but for the annual overflow from the winter rains, about five thousand acres of arable land. It is twenty-two miles north-west from Ukiah.
SHERWOOD VALLEY lies north-west from Little Lake ten miles. It is a long narrow valley, only one farm wide, with out-lying flanks in different directions, with but a few hundred acres of arable land all told.
LONG VALLEY is thirty-six miles north and eighteen miles west from Ukiah, and sixteen miles west and a little south of Round valley. Like Sherwood, it is a long narrow strip of level land in the mountains, seldom more than one farm in width, with here and there nooks running up the inflowing creeks. Cahto, the principal one of these is a fine detached valley of two hundred and fifty acres of very rich land, once a lake, until drained by artificial means.
These four constitute the valley land in the Eel river country, making in all not over one township of arable land out of forty-nine. The hills are all of good soil, of the black, rich vegetable mold, producing more feed to the acre than the grazing land of the Russian river section. The ridges are are all so high as to be covered more or less with snow in winter, some of the higher ones having six and eight feet on them last winter. The general direction of Eel river and its tributaries is north-west, draining the country to within ten miles of the coast, and flowing through Humboldt county to the bay of that name.
RUSSIAN RIVER heads in Potter and Walker valleys, and flows southerly through Mendocino to Sonoma county. Having no snow to feed it, its bed is often dry in summer in many places, yet the water is ever flowing under the gravel, next the bed-rock or clay subsoil underlying the alluvial, or made soil of all our mountain valleys. The main Coast or Mayacmas range, divides it from the waters flowing by way of Cache and Putah creeks to the Sacramento, and from Napa river. The ridge of this range runs in nearly a north and south line from Eel river to Cloverdale, with scarcely an impor- tant break in it, some fifty miles. And yet a low gap at Blue Lakes affords a fine passage for a railroad from the waters of the Sacramento to Russian river and the coast, or into Eel river, Humboldt and Oregon.
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The Russian river water-shed in Mendocino is forty-five miles long and about twelve miles wide, and covers an area of about seventeen townships. It is about two-thirds productive of grasses, grain, or valuable timber, the other third being waste land or chemissal. The principal valleys are Potter, Redwood, Walker, Ukiah, Sanel, and Knight's valley. The first is seven miles long, north-west and south-east, and contains about four thousand acres of good land, and as much more of second-rate. Ukiah valley is some nine miles long and in extreme width three miles, narrowing to one ranch at each end. The soil of all the valley is either a rich sandy river loam, or a black vegetable mold called clover land, not being adobe, either bearing heavy crops of grain, corn or hops. Fields have averaged one hundred and twenty-five bushels of oats, ninety bushels of barley, and a ton of hops to the acre is not unusual. Snow scarcely ever falls in the valleys, and then only lies a day or two. The deepest known in the Russian river valleys being six inches. The extremes of heat and cold are one hundred and four- teen degrees and thirteen degrees. The warmest summer being 1876, and the coldest winter 1879-80. The usual range is from one hundred and four degrees to twenty-two degrees.
The coast section is watered by numerous streams that rise in the ridge west of Russian river, and flow westerly until within a few miles of their mouths, when they turn nearly due west to the ocean. This is a distinguish- ing feature of the Gualala, Garcia, Alder, Elk, Greenwood, and even of the Nevarra's south fork. They all run more or less during the summer, the Garcia especially having quite a strong stream through the dry season. These streams have narrow deep gorges with but little bottom-land, and that little exceedingly fertile; the Garcia bottoms being considered the best land in the county. North of the Nevarra river, comes Salmon, Albion, Big, Caspar, Noyo, and Ten-mile rivers, whose general course is westerly, and having similar characteristics as to their steep gorges and little bottoms. The country along the sea-coast generally consists of level benches between the rivers from Garcia to the Nevarra. North of the latter and south of the former it is more or less hilly. In some places the gorges of the streams are absolutely frightful to contemplate, the Mal Paso grade being about half a mile long, and the gorge then crossed on a bridge ninety feet high and one hundred and ten feet long. The coast section is heavily tim- bered nearly to the ocean with redwood, red and white fir, oak of several varieties, and madrona. In the gorges are to be found alder and laurel, and . occasionally the nutmeg tree and yew. Along the coast are alluvial benches varying from a half mile to three miles in width, which are exceedingly fertile from the washings of the ridges, the soil being of a black, rich vegetable mold, light and friable, and in places twenty feet deep. On this ground are raised the fine potatoes which market under the name of Humboldt and Cuffeys Cove. The climate of the coast is very equable, the mercury
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usually ranging between fifty and seventy-five degrees, though the extremes of thirty and ninety degrees are sometimes touched. Immediately on the ocean banks high winds and fogs alternate, but back a few miles both are tempered by the sun or broken by the timber, and the most delightful climate of the world is found. Anywhere in the county, apples, pears and plums luxuriate, except when exposed to the direct blasts of the north-west trade-winds on the ocean bank. In the interior all other fruits do well, save apricots, which are often caught by late spring frosts. Heavy fogs mark the coast during the summer months, and heavier rains may be looked for from October to May, eighty inches having fallen in 1877-8.
The Eel river section also has much fog, and heavy rain or snow, while the Russian river section receives but little fog and less rain than the other two portions, but yet enough for crop purposes, twenty-one and thirty-four one hundredths inches having been the lightest fall, and fifty-four inches the heaviest in any one year during the last seven years. No data beyond that is at hand.
The county is thus divided into three great sections, diversified in physical characteristics, climate, and occupations. The predominating industry of the coast section is lumbering, with somewhat of agriculture and stock-raising; Russian river country predominating in agriculture, with some lumbering and stock-raising; Eel river almost entirely given to stock and wool, with a little agriculture and lumber. Were there only railroads connecting the interior with the coast, the county would develop wonderfully, and double its capital in ten years. There are in the county two hundred and twenty- four thousand six hundred and four acres enclosed, and fifty-four thousand two hundred and forty-eight acres in cultivation. Our product of wool in 1880 amounted to $500,000; stock sold, $100,000; forty million feet of lumber was produced, and one million four hundred and fifty thousand shingles. The grain and potatoes shipped cannot be stated, but must amount to thousands of tons, besides the butter, hides, cheese, furs, etc., sent out.
GEOLOGY .- There is, perhaps, no subject in the whole range of scientific research so fraught with interest, and so sure to yield a rich harvest to the investigator as the study of the earth's crust, its formations and upbuilding. In this, the careful student and close observer sees more to prove the asser- tion "that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," than can be found on any written page. Indeed, it may be well called a written page-a tablet of stone on which the finger of God has written, in letters of life and death, the history of the world from the time when the earth was " without form and void," until the present day. What a wonderful scroll is it which, to him who comprehends, unfolds the story of the ages long since buried in the deep and long forgotten past! In wonder and amazement he reads the opening chapters, which reveal to his astonished gaze, the formation
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of the igneous bed-rock or foundation crust on which, and of which, all the superstructure must be built. The formless and void matter is slowly crystallizing into that peculiarly organized tripartite mass known now as granite, than which there is no more curiously formed thing on earth, and none could be better adapted for foundation purposes than this adamantine stone. Silica, spar and mica, three independent substances, all crystallizing freely and separately, each after the manner and under the laws which govern its special formation, are so indissolubly united in one mass, that the action of the elements for centuries is scarcely perceptible, and the corrosive tooth of time makes but a print upon its polished surface during ages.
From this page we turn to the one above it, for be it known that the geological book is arranged so that its primary pages come at the bottom. Here is found incipient life, in the form of trilobites, polyps, various classes of mollusks, together with worms and crustaceans. Near the close of the page there is found the record of fish also. All through the page is found descriptions of the primal vegetable life which existed on the earth in the shape of sea-weed and algæ. The entire face of the earth was then covered with water, for this was before the decree had gone forth which said, " Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." What an era of storms and tempests that must have been! No continents nor even islands, against which the angry waves could dash in their mad fury. What tides there must have been! But all this great commotion was necessary, for enough of the great granite body had to be dissolved and eroded to form a body of matter several hundred feet in thickness in the lowest places.
Another page is turned to view, and here is to be read the fact that the sea was full to overflowing with fish. And now the dry land had appeared, " and the earth brought forth grass." Here was the beginning of vegetable life in the world, other than that which grew in the sea. Animal life has now advanced to the vertebratæ, and vegetable life has been ushered into the world. Great carthquakes now begin to occur, and moun- tain ranges are formed. Storm and tempest rage much as in the last age, and erosion is going on rapidly, and detritus is forming layer after layer of the rocks now classified as belonging to this geological period. What cycles of time, as measured by man's chronology, transpired during this age no one can tell, yet to man, if it could be told to him, it would seem to be not a time, but an eternity.
The unfolding of the next page reveals to man, the most useful as well as wonderful epoch in the upbuilding of the earth's superstructure. It is now that the great coal-fields are formed, from which man, in the due fullness of time, is permitted to draw his supplies of fuel for all purposes. How wonderfully is the munificence and wisdom of God exemplified in this one age in the world's formation! Quite large areas of land have now been
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elevated above the surface of the raging Devonian sea. The native heat of the earth radiating continuously, expanded the water into vast volumes of mist, which floated upward till it came in contact with the cooler stratas of air, when it was precipitated to the earth in grand old thunder-showers. The atmosphere was charged with heat, and burdened with moisture and carbonic acid. These were conditions most favorable for the development of a gigantic and profuse growth of vegetation, and the surface of the earth was covered with such a forest as the mind of man cannot conceive of. Centuries rolled by, and at last large masses of these trees had grown up, fallen down and formed themselves into interminable and impenetrable jungles. Then the continents began to exchange places with the seas, and water covered the great forests so lately in the full flush of their exotic pride. Then the silt and sand formed great bodies of shales and slate-stone upon the top of the forest, and the weight of the body of rock and earth pressed it till it formed into the mass we now find it, and the process of solidification occurred and stone coal was the result. In accordance with the laws of the correlation and conservation of forces, the great coal-beds are only immense reservoirs of heat in a latent state, only awaiting the proper conditions for development and application to the uses and advantages of the human family. Could a man have seen the process of coal making going on, away back in the almost twilight of the early dawn of the earth's exist- ence, he would naturally have asked, To what use can that brittle, black material ever be put ? Too fragile for building purposes, and too hard and sterile for agricultural economics, and yet evidently designed by the All- wise Creator for some beneficent purpose. But to-day the answer is written on every hand in letters of living light. The sunbeam charged with heat, comes from the bosom of that great source of light and heat, and assimilates itself with the great body of vegetation, then everywhere so rife. Ages roll on, and that sunbeam and its brothers of that day, have long since been forgotten. The fullness of time has now come, and a race of beings inhabit the earth, which existed only in the will and mind of the Infinite One at the time of the upbuilding of these great coal measures. These creatures are called men, and they are delving far down into the deep recesses of the earth. For what are they searching amid the dark chambers and along the gloomy passages which they have burrowed out in the bosom of the earth ? We follow and find them with pick and drill, dislodging a heavy black substance, and sending it in cars to the surface of the ground. We follow it as it passes from hand to hand. Do you see that happy household band gathered around the cheerful hearth, while without the storm king rages with all the fury of a demon ? Hark! do you hear the clank and whir of machinery, which comes from those buildings, affording employment for hundreds of needy men and women, keeping the wolf from the door, and even making them happy? Do you see that train of cars
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speeding over hills, through valleys, and across plains, bearing with it a host of people, hurrying to or from their avocations of life? Do you see the mighty steamer which plows the ocean's crested main from port to port, from land to land, bearing the wonderful burdens of commerce in its capacious maw? Yes, you see them all. You hear the pulse and throb of the mighty engine which drives all these wonders on to success, and which is so conducive to man's happiness and best good. But did you ever stop to think that away back, ere time was, almost, the agent which was destined to perform all these marvels, was garnered away in God's great storehouses- the coal-fields, and that to-day we are reaping the full fruition of all these centuries. How grand the theme! How the heart should echo his praise for his wonderful goodness to the generations of men !
The next page upward reveals to us the fact that reptiles, frogs and birds, came into existence, or rather that the two former developed into the full vigor of their generation, while the latter was introduced for the first time upon the scene of action. It is not our purpose here to makeany close inquiries into the origin of animal life, and shall use the word developed in relation to the introduction of a new series of animal life, as being eminently proper, but not as having any reference to the Darwinian idea of development, although the day has already dawned when the human race will accept the truths of that theory, let them be ever so contradictory to what is now taught. For our purpose one theory is as good as another. The fact is that in the carbo- niferous or coal period there are no traces of birds at all, and in the next age we find their foot-prints on the sandstone formations. Whence they came we know not nor do we care. They were of gigantic stature evidently, for their tracks often measured eighteen inches long, and their stride ranged from three to five feet! Another phase of animal life was developed in this age, and that was the mammal, which was an insect-eating marsupial.
Another page is laid open for our perusal and on it we read that the race of reptiles reached their culmination in this age, holding undisputed sway over land and se?, and in the air. They were very numerous, and their forms exceedingly varied and strange, and their size in many cases gigantic. Some kinds, like the pliosaurus, plesiosaurus, and ichthyosau- rus were sea saurians, from ten to forty feet in length; others were more like lizards and crocodiles; others like the megalosaurus and iguanodon were dinosaurs from thirty to sixty feet in length ; others like the pterodactylus, were flying saurians; and others turtles. The megalo- saurus was a land saurian and was carniverous. This is the first land animal of which there is any record, which subsisted on the flesh of other animals. The pterodactyl was one of the most wonderful animals which ever existed on the face of the earth. It had a body like a mammal, wings like a bat, and the jaws and teeth of a crocodile. It was only about one foot long.
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The next page does not reveal any very marked changes from the last. The same gigantic reptiles are in existence, but on the wane, and finally become extinct during this era. The vertebrates make a great stride for- ward towards their present condition, while all the leading order of fishes are developed just as they exist to-day. Up to this time the fish had not been of the bony kind, but now that peculiarity is developed.
We have now perused the great book of Nature until we have come up to those pages which are everywhere present on the surface of the earth. Figuratively, we may consider this page divided into three sections; the first or lower of which contains nothing in common with the present age, all life of that day having long since become extinct. The second section contains fossils, more nearly related to the present time; from ten to forty per cent being identical with the living species. In the third section the percentage of similar species runs from fifty to ninety. The continents of the world had assumed very nearly the same shape and outline which they maintain at the present time. Sharks reached the height of their glory in this age, while the reptiles assumed their true form of snakes, crocodiles and turtles. For the first time in the history of the world is there any record of snakes, and how far they preceded man will remain for the reader to deter- mine from what follows further on. Birds were the same as at the present time so far as they went. The mammals of this age are the chief objects of interest, not only on account of their great number and the extended variety of forms under which they appear, but especially because this period marks the time of the introduction of the true mammals on the earth. The sea and estuaries, though rich in animal life, no longer furnish the most prominent representatives of the animal kingdom; but in this period the mammals assume the first rank. But it must be here stated that none of these species lived beyond the close of this age. These animals inhabited the upper Missouri section in great quantities, and comprised the mouse, rhinoceros, a species similar to the horse, tapir, peccary, camel, deer, hyena, dog, panther, beaver, porcupine, musk deer, deer, mastodon, wolf and fox. How like a dream it seems that these precursors of the present races of mammals should all be swept out of existence, still when we come to know what wonderful climatic changes occurred at the close of this period we will not wonder any longer. Not only were the "fountains of the great deep broken up and the rains descended," but the continent sank deep below its present surface, and a great sea of ice from the north swept over its face, bearing death and destruction to all living creatures in its path. This was the glacial period, and its results are written on the next page.
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