USA > California > Tulare County > History of Tulare County, California with biographical sketches > Part 23
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These wells are all cased with heavy sheet-iron tubes made about the same length as joints of stovepipe, that are slipped together in a similar manner, only it is used double. Occa- sionally the casing gets stuck, and cannot be shoved down. When such is the case a pipe an inch smaller is sent down in- side, and used the rest of the way. By this means it fre- quently happens that a well that was started with an eight- inch casing ends with a four-inch one. It usually happens that at least three successive flows are struck in boring an artesian well, each being better than the first. When one of these flows is reached the pipe may be sent on down to the next flow and perforated afterwards to let the first one in, or it may be stopped at that point and a smaller one sent down to each successive flow, just as the proprietor prefers.
COST OF ARTESIAN WELLS.
The cost of an artesian well is a thing that "no fellow can find out" until the work is done. The rites charged for the work are as follows: For the first 100 feet, $50.00; for the second 100 feet, $75.00: for the third 100 feet $100, and proportionate increase for each succeeding 100 feet. The casing costs from 35 cents to 50 cents per foot, and the owner of the well usu- ally has to board three men while the work is being done, which takes from two to five weeks, owing to the number of accidents that happen during the process. The cost of a well complete will range between $500 and $700, depending upon the depth, number of accidents, etc. Some of the first wells that were bored cost a good deal more than that, but they are getting cheaper right along. The depth of the wells varies from 325 to 700 feet, according to locality.
THE FLOW OF WATER.
The water rises after a flow is struck, and runs over the edge of the pipe, in all directions, in a continuous stream, and the flow is measured by the depth of the water over the
edge of the pipe. If the water flows over the edge of the pipe at depth of two inches, it is called a two-inch flow. The wells in this belt have flows ranging from half an inch, at the outside edge of the belt, to five inches in the best localities. A three and one-half-inch flow over a seven- inch pipe will probably discharge just about one cubit foot of water per second. Such a well would be considered a very good one, perhaps a little better than an average.
We give in one of our views an illustration of an artesian well after it is capped and sending up its pure crystal flood and covering the ground with a lake of clear water.
AMOUNT OF WATER AVAILABLE.
The Tulure Register in its able review of the resources of the county, says: "The supply of water for irrigation in Tulare County is ample, if some system be inaugurated that will utilize what we have to the best advantage.
" King's River, on the north, has a mountain water shed of 1,855 square miles, and pours into the valley from the first of January to the last o July an average of 8,715 cubic feet of water per second, or enough to irrigate more than a million acres. This water has to be divided with Fresno County, but Tulare County is entitled to enough to irrigate all of her portion of the water-shed of that stream.
"The Kaweah River, further south, has a water-shed of 608 square miles, and discharges an average of 1,824 cubic feet per second into the valley through her multitudinous channels during the same period-the period of greatest need -~ enough to irrigate 291,840 acres of land if properly husbanded.
"South of this is Tule River, capable of irrigating 63,900 acres more. Further south still are the important streams of Deer Creek and White River that will irrigate their tens of thousands of acres. In addition to this we have our great artesian belt that has been fully described. There is an abun- dance of surface water at a depth of from eight to twenty feet, and nice little orchards are now to be found that owe their existence to water pumped by windmills, horse-powers and steam pumps.
" The whole southern half of the State of California is subject to occasional droughts, and this is particularly the case with the counties in the upper San Joaquin Valley. During any period of five years we may safely count upon two years during which there will be an abundance of rain to insure a crop, two years more that will produce about half a crop, and one that will be either a flood or a famine. Notwithstanding these apparently discouraging facts, there are many thousand acres of land in the county upon which money can be made by rais- ing grain through any period of five years taken together with- out irrigation, and doubtless the same will hold true with the land upon the dry plains when a superior system of cultivation shall have been inaugurated. Subsoiling and summer fallowing will work wonders.
PHOTO OP DUSY.
ELLIOTT LITH 421 MONT. ST.
TALIAFATTO
TEHIPITEE DOME
5000 FEET
ABOVE VALLEY.
MT. BREWER.
MT. INGERSOLL
SKETCHED BY CUSTAVERILEN
OLD WOMAN ON ALPINE CAMP GROUND.
ELLIOTT LITH 4 ZI MONT.ST
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GRAND AND SUBLIME SCENERY.
Grand and Sublime Scenery of the Sierra Nevada.
OUR ALPS. Ix the Mountains of the Sier- ra Nevada and west of Mount Whitney, and eom- prised within a small belt, ean be found the grandest scenery in the world. Here at the foot of Mount Whitney, the highest mountain in the United States, are to be seen three of the grandest cañons or valleys on the continent. One of them, says Prof. Whitney, " rivals and even surpasses Yosemite in the altitude of its surrounding eliffs. The walls rise at various points from 3,500 to 6,000 feet above the base. At the head of the valley, oceupying a position similar to Half Dome in Yosemite, is a wall nearly vertical, between 6,500 and 7,000 feet high."
BEAUTIFUL SCENERY.
In these valleys are the highest water-falls, and grand and sublime seenery in greater abundance than ean be found else- where. Here are natural bridges and eaves, extinet voleanoes to be explored, and living glaciers to be examined. The " big trees " of this seetion surpass those of any other loeality, not only in size but in numbers. Nestled here and there in the mountains are lakes of clear, eold water, like settings of dia- monds in the rock-ribbed mountains. No part of the Sierras combines so great a variety of grand and instructive features as does this region with its towering peaks, its perennial snows, its ancient fossils and other exhaustless stores of study.
ADVANTAGES OF OUR ALPS.
Here in our own California we have our Alps ready made, which ean be visited in their deepest reeesses in one-twentieth of the time and at one-fiftieth of the eost involved in a trip to Europe. Our Alps of the Sierra Nevada are as high in their highest part, too, as even the mountain king of Europe, Mount Blane. Then they are immeasurably more aecessible and far more secluded. Indeed the charm of our mountains is the ease with which one ean get away 'from everybody in them. Guides and tourists do not meet you at every turn, as they do in the Alps. In one's own mountains, too, far more than in a foreign country, there is the feeling of freedom and home. Here you are continually finding new and grand seenes that have not been visited or pietured, and which constantly have a eliarın of freshness about them which it is impossible to find about those places of which much has been said or written.
JOHN MUIR ON CALIFORNIA ALPS.
How glorious a greeting the sun gives the mountains! To behold this alone is worth the pains of any exeursion a thou- sand times over. The highest peaks burned like islands in a sea of liquid shade. Then the lower peaks and spires eaught the glow, and long lanees of light, streaming through many a noteh and pass, fell thiek on the frozen meadows.
Eastward, the whole region seems a land of pure desolation covered with beautiful light. The torrid volcanie basin of Mono, with its one bare lake fourteen miles long; Owen's Val- ley and the broad lava table-land at its head, dotted with craters; and the massive Inyo Range, rivaling even the Sierra in height,-these are spread, map-like, beneath you, with countless ranges beyond, passing and overlapping one another and fading on the glowing horizon.
A SCENE OF SUPERIOR GRANDEUR.
The eye roves around the vast expanse, rejoicing in so grand a freedom, yet returning again and again to the mountain peaks. Perhaps some one of the multitude exeites special attention, some gigantie eastle with turret and battlement, or Gothic cathedral more abundantly spired than Milan's. But, gener- ally, when looking for the first time from an all-embracing stand-point like this, the inexperienced observer is oppressed by the incomprehensible grandeur of the peaks, and it is only after they have been studied one by one, long and lovingly, that their far-reaching harmonies become manifest.
GRAND MOUNTAINS AND GLACIERS.
Says John Muir of these regions: " There are giant mount- ains, valleys innumerable, glaciers and meadows, rivers and lakes, with the wide blue sky bent tenderly over them all. Lakes are seen gleaming in all sorts of places, round, or oval, or square, like very mirrors; others narrow and sinuous, drawn close around the peaks like silver zones, the highest
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GRAND AND SUBLIME SCENERY.
reflecting only rocks, snow, and the sky. But neither these nor the glaciers, nor the bits of brown meadow and moorland that occur here and there, are large enough to make any marked impression upon the mighty wilderness of Alps."
Speaking of the " Palisades," he says: "The eye is first caught by a row of exceedingly sharp and slender spires, which rise openly to a height of about a thousand feet, from a series of short, residual glaciers that lean back against their bases; their fantastic sculpture and the unrelieved sharpness with which they spring out of the ice rendering them peculiarly wild and striking. Beyond them you behold a most sublime wilderness of mountains, their snowy summits crowded to- gether in lavish abundance, peak beyond peak, swelling higher, higher as they sweep on southward until the culmi- nating point of the range is reached on Mount Whitney."
THE ALPENGLOW.
" Now came the solemn, silent evening. Long, blue, spiky- edged shadows crept out across the snow-fields, while a rosy glow, at first scarcely discernible, gradually deepened and suf- fused every mountain-top, flushing the glaciers and the harsh crags above them. This was the alpenglow, to me the most impressive of all the terrestrial manifestations of God."
Of the effect of a trip to the Sierras, Clarence King says: " As often as one camps 12,000 feet in these mountain regions, the charm of crystal pure air, those cold, sparkling, glen-like lakes, tints of rock, and Alpine lake, the fiery bronze of foli- age, the luminous though deep-toned sky combine to produce an intellectual and even a spiritual elevation."
THIS SCENERY EASILY REACHED.
A twenty-four hours' trip from San Francisco enables one to reach a region where he can see nature in her most impress- ive and gigantic forms, become a companion of solitude in its most inexcessible retreats, and witness mountain sunrise, sun- shine and sunset alpenglow in their most peaceful aspects. It can be justly claimed that there is more change and rest to a dweller by the fog-laden air of the ocean in a three days' stay in the high Sierra than in two weeks in the Coast Range. The climate there is the same, or nearly the same, as that of San Francisco; but in these Sierras the elevation is great and the air very light and dry. It is a perfect tonic in its bracing effects. The change is complete, and the more complete the change the more complete the benefit. The world of the high mountains seems an entirely different one.
HOW TO GET THERE,
You take the 9: 30 A. M., or 4 P. M. train at Market Street, and in the comfortable cars of the Central Pacific you pass along the edge of the bay and obtain glimpses of the many new manufactories just being started by the enterprising busi- ness men of Oakland. The cars keep near the shore and pass
through tunnels and around sharp points where you obtain glimpses of the opposite shore; of Mare Island and the village of Vallejo; of Benicia, which in 1853 was the capital of the State; of the great ferry-boat which transports an entire train to the opposite shore where it speeds on its way overland. You pass Martinez, where tourists take private conveyance for
VIEW OF A SIERRA NEVADA CASON.
Mount Diablo, 3,856 feet high, from whose peak can be seen the homes of at least two-thirds of the entire population of the State.
Just before you reach Lathrop, the great San Joaquin River is crossed. In early days passenger traffic was exclusively by steamer, and as seen in the engraving. At Lathrop the train
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GRAND AND SUBLIME SCENERY.
bears to the right, and enters the great San Joaquin Valley- a great level plain dotted with groves of grand oaks which relieve the solitude of the scene. Here you pass through vast grain-fields which seemingly have no end. Here may be seen the great header, pushed along by twenty-four horses,
MOUNT DIABLO AND THE SAN JOAQUIN BY MOONLIGHT,
and cutting, threshing, and sacking the grain as it proceeds. Interspersed are large, sandy plains, the home of the taran- tula, ground squirrel, and horned toad.
As you pass on through the great valley, you see looming up in the cool morning air, the blue outlines of the beautiful Sierra Nevada, calmly and serenely viewing the San Joaquin Valley with a paternal and affectionate look, and seemingly inviting its inhabitants to approach and form an acquaintance.
HOW TO. REACH THE SCENERY.
If you leave San Francisco at 4 P. M., you arrive at Fresno at midnight; Or leave the city in the morning and spend a few hours visiting the great vineyards and wine-cellars, and inspect the progress and results of irrigation in the colonies. In the morning, leave there with good horses and light wagon.
One day's travel brings you to the foot-hills, covered with oaks of mammoth size; they gently rise from the heretofore unbroken level of the valley. Hill after hill is passed, higher and higher ascend toward the snow-covered peaks above.
The trail leads through many a pleasant dell, secluded from the outer world by the neighboring hills, nearly all of which are under cultivation, and where the cabin of the rancher, who has forsaken the dusty atmosphere of the plains, to dwell here in peace and quietude, can be seen nestled at the base of some gentle slope, or beneath the wide-spreading branches of the live-oak. Here the path changes, the smooth hard-packed loam is changed to broken rocks and slate, and huge bowlders risc up on all sides. The oak is superseded by towering pine, and deep awe-inspiring cañons and gulches cross the path.
At the foot of the first high mountain is the little village of
Toll House, thirty-two miles from Fresno. Here you can find good accommodations. Toll House is located within a circle of lofty mountains. Two miles north is a cañon through which passes Dry Creek in a series of cascades of 1,000 feet.
Markwood Meadows are located in the high mountains, about fourteen miles east of the Toll House. It is a beautiful plateau, level as a floor, and at the proper season is covered with a luxuriant carpet of green grass. A wall of stately pines environs them, and adds to the charming character of the meadows. For years past they have been a favorite sum- mer resort for a number of families, who have built comfort- able homes for their use. From Toll House you begin to as- cend the steep grade leading to the saw-mills of Donahoo, and others, until you reach " Dinkey," sixty-one miles from Fresno.
HORSES AND GUIDES.
The next day Mr. Frank Dusy, the proprietor, will fur- nish guides and horses. He is perfectly familiar with the sur- rounding country and has given it a very thorough explora- tion. From this point it is five miles to the big trees, and twenty-five miles to the beautiful Tehipitee Valley by horse- back. From here you go to the grand Paradise Valley or King's River Cañon, or to Redwood Canon six miles distant, or on into the unexplored regions of the Sierra. Mount Whit- ney is about thirty-five miles distant, and also other grand mountains.
"DINKEY," THE RESIDENCE OF FRANK DUSY.
Dinkey is the place where horse-back travel begins. . We give an illustration of this stopping-place in the big tree grove. It is the summer residence of Frank Dusy, where guides and horses can be obtained for excursions in any direction. This singular name was given the place from a little dog named " Dinkey" who was torn by a bear in this neighborhood. Dinkey Valley itself is about 200 acres. Bear, deer and other game are numerous in any direction. Seventeen bears were killed there in the summer of 1882. During fourteen years of
HORNED TOAD OF THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY.
Mr. Dusy's residence there, he has killed some eighteen or twenty bears. Many grizzlies were found.
Mr. Frank Dusy, the well-known sheep man and mountain- eer, organizes parties of explorers and sight-seers to visit the headwaters of the San Joaquin, King's and Kaweah Rivers, whose sources are embraced in a circle of twenty-five miles in
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GRAND AND SUBLIME SCENERY.
diameter. The country adjacent is probably the most rugged and yet the grandest and most sublime in the State. All who can overcome the numerous obstacles of such a trip will be repaid beyond words, by the glorious vision of a wonderful and awe-inspiring panorama.
Parties, with Mr. Dusy as captain and guide, leave Dinkey Creek, visit the big trees, and camp at night on the North Fork Meadows. The second day will take them to Dyke Peak and Collins' Camp at Crown Mountain. On the third day they will reach the farthest point practicable for animals-the Alpine Camp. From that point, the adven- turous ones, carrying their blankets and provisions, will visit Mt. Goddard and the Palisades, whose elevation is upwards of 14,000 feet, t ence south to the main ridge dividing the middle and south forks of King's River, visit- ing the beautiful lakes at their source, and finally camp- ward, across the famous Tehipitee Valley, thence to Para- dise Valley, Kern Canon, and the mountains.
-
(Mr. Dusy attends to his sheep which range the hills and valleys. He keeps from 13,000 to 24,000 sheep divided into bands of about 3,000. Two herders are required for each band, and a shepherd dog. A good dog is worth more than two men in taking care of sheep).
WASHINGTON GROVE.
This grove is located six miles from "Dinkey " on a small creek that empties into Dinkey Creek. The place is very wild. Here there are upward s of 100 trees exceed ing thirty-six feet in circumference.
The largest, the General Washington, measures thirty- four feet and six inches in diameter, and has been about . one-half burned off. The next larger measures seventy- three feet and six inches in circumference. This has also been burned and detracts from its size. The third in size is fifty-seven feet; the fourth, fifty-six feet; the fifth, fifty-three feet; the sixth, sixty-seven feet; the seventh, sixty-nine feet; the eighth, sixty-one and one-half feet, etc.
One of the fallen trees is 240 feet long and seven feet in diameter; another, the Fallen Monarch, is thirty feet in diameter, but not so long. The pine forests surrounding these trees are very dense and full of huge sugar and yellow pine trees.
Mr. Dusy having great influence with the Indians resid- ing about there has prevailed upon them not to start any fires in the groves, and through this thoughtfulness of Mr. Dusy the groves are peing preserved.
Dusy and Markwood took accurate measurement of these trees. The largest tree measured 122} feet in circumference and estimated at 400 feet high.
Professor Whitney, State geologist, speaking of this grove, says :-
"The largest tree seen was 106 feet in circumference and
276 feet high. It had, however, been burned on one side and must have been originally from 125 to 110 feet. Another tree is prostrate and hollow. It is burned out so one can ride in on horseback for a distance of seventy-five feet and have room to turn around. At 120 feet from the base the tree is thirteen feet in diameter inside the bark. There is an immense number
W. W. ELLIOTT
BOWLDER FORMING NATURAL BRIDGE OVER CANON 30 FT. WIDE AND 100 DEEP.
of big trees in this vicinity from ten to fifteen feet in diameter." On the ground is one tree which has been hollowed out by fire. Three men can easily ride abreast in and through the hollow for about seventy-five feet, when they have the privilege of passing out of a knot hole. A man on horseback cannot touch the roof with his riding whip during this whole distance.
119
GRAND AND SUBLIME SCENERY.
Judge E. C. Winchell says that the largest of the pines girt thirty feet and rise one hundred yards high. Amidst this zone are studded the isolated groves of mammothi trees. Like conscious emperors, they retire into the penetralia froin the gaze of the vulgar herd. Those of Calaveras County, and of the northern edge of Fresno County, have already received the homage of the world. Those on the southern border of Fresno County are but little known, by reason of their remoteness. These trees vie with the others in size and stature and exeeed them in numbers. Many, however, are decayed at the top and thus disfigured-from what cause it does not appear. The largest is thirty-five feet in diameter, and three hundred an l fifty feet in height. Not far distant is one that has fallen and been hollowed by deeay and fire. Three mounted men, who made their noon-halt near by,-armed eap-a-pie and followed by a heavily laden Sumpter-mule, who insisted on sharing their fate, rode, in single file-sitting erect and earrying their guns with the muzzles raised three feet above their heads-into the
RIDING THROUGH THE FALLEN KING.
unbroken, blackened tube for seventy-two feet (measured with a lariat), contemplated at leisure the beauties of the situation by the light from the knot hole, size of a barn door ; without dismounting or ehanging position, wheeled their animals with perfeet ease, and rode out as they rode in.
COMPARATIVE SIZE OF TREES.
Prof. Whitney gives the measurement of the largest tree in the Mariposa Grove at ninety-three feet and six inches in eir- cumference. Of the Calaveras Grove, the "mother of the for- est, " is given at ninety feet at the base. Thus it will be seen that the Fresno trees are far ahead in size. Having examined many of these wonderful trees we continue on the trip to examine still grander scenery.
SNOW · PLANTS.
Proceeding from Washington Grove you pass through a dense forest of pine with beautiful snow plants pushing up their sear-
let heads through the moist sod. You eatch only occasional glimpses of sky and sunshine and surrounding mountains, pass- ing into beautiful meadows filled with flowers of every shade and color (September) which fill the air with their perfume.
You breathe in the morning air so pure, so cool and exhilarat- ing that it infuses new life into your being.
You eross the north fork of King's River, astream thirty feet wide, and proceed to Oso Creek, and further on another named Clarenden, which runs into the creek which flows into Helms Valley, and with several others, forms the stream which makes the falls of King's River.
From this ridge you can see nine beautiful clear lakes in various directions. On the road, you pass over a beautiful natural bridge, formed by a rock falling into a narrow ravine, and lodging. The eañon is thirty feet wide, and the waters pass under the roek over which you pass.
On reaching the top of the mountain on the west side of Tehi- pitee Valley a grand sight presents itself. East is the erest of Sierras rising up like a huge wall of rocks in serrated peaks while at the rear or towards the west and south, the immense pine forests loom up stately and grand.
North is Tehipitee Dome Rock which rises up the si le of the valley and forms a portion of its walls.
BEAUTIFUL TEHIPITEE VALLEY.
Here the seene passes from the grand to the sublime and awe- inspiring as you creep to the edge of the ehasm and peep down, down more than 6,000 feet; more than a vertical mile into that awful eanon.
The green silvered ribbon wh eh stretehes along the bottom is a river full 100 feet wide. The roar of the eataraet at your left serves to give inspiration to the seene. You do not even now realize the immense depth of the cañon, nor the precipi- tous condition of its sides.
Mr. Ferguson, of the Expositor, and Frank Dusy, descended into this valley with great difficulty, occupying some four hours in getting down and seven hours in returning.
In reaching the bottom it seems as if you had left the sur- face of the earth and entered a mere erevice in its foundations, a fissure in the great everlasting roeks. The towering peaks and overhanging crags seem marehing down upon you press- ing and crowding until it seems a struggle to breathe. The forms of the various summits are varied and majestic, and vary in height from 4,000 to 6,000 feet.
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