The west shore., February 01, 1884, Page 45, Image 13

THE WEST SHORE.
45
MOUNT SHASTA.
" Behold the dread Mount Shasta, where it stands
Imperinl midnt the leaner height, and, like
Some mlirhtY, iniivtinr.rd miuJ, Cuu.iuiuuiuM
.And cold."
Where the summit ridges of the rocky Coast Range
and the graceful Sierra unite to hem in the Sacramento
Valley on the north, stands a giant mountain, the noblest
in America. This is essentially a region of mountains.
Great ridges and spurs reach out in nil directions, their
canyons, gorges and precipitous bluffs combining, with
the green and sloping hills, to form a picture of wonder-
disturbed not with profaning hand the natural ordor of
things about hiiu. The door, the boar and the antelope
roamed the valleys and pouetrated the i1m fnwwf fhr.t
cover the mountain Bides; the simple natives, unused to
toil, subsisted upon game, fish and the natural product
of the soil. This was the condition a generation ago,
when the magio want! of gold was waved over the moun
tain tops, and a new raco came to supplant the old, to
level forests and disembowel the earth, to uproot the soil
and deface the brow of Nature with the crown of civiliza
tion. Shasta was a familiar sight to the early settlers of
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MOUNT SHASTA. FKO.Nl BTItAWIIKKIIV VAM.KY.
ful beauty wherever the eye may rest Here it is impos
sible to withdraw from beholding the loveliness of
Nature. When intervening hills obscure from view the
hoary crown of Shasta and the grand but lesser peaks
that lift themselves into the sky on every hand, the eye
rests with pleasure upon the obstructing hills themselves.
The deeper we plunge into the rocky canyons that shut
us in from the great world without, the more we come
into sympathy and union with their rugged grandeur.
We sit in some cavernous depth or perch ourselves upon
a commanding peak, and think of the long centuries that
rolled by while the red man called this his home, and
California long Ixifore the feet of white men presswl the
green grass at it base. Standing in the Sacramento
Valley, wo can see its white top lifted proudly alwe the
surrounding hills of blue; from Monte Diablo it is dis
tinctly visible; nnd from the dome of the capitol at
Sacramento it meets the eye of many a gazer who knows
not its name nor the great distance it lies to the north.
The mariner on the ocean can see it, and emigrant on
the parched deserts of Nevada have traveled toward it
day after day, an infallible guide to lead them on to the
land of gold. When the Russians settled at Bodega in
1812, they beheld this lofty peak from the mountains of