With a Map.
1849
"All which I saw, and part of which I was."
--_Dryden_.
CHAPTER I.
Geographical sketch of California
Its political and social institutions
Colorado River
Valley and river of San Joaquin
Former government
Presidios
Missions
Ports and commerce.
For the general information of the reader, it will be proper to give a
brief geographical sketch of California, and some account of its
political and social institutions, as they have heretofore existed.
The district of country known geographically as Upper California is
bounded on the north by Oregon, the forty-second degree of north
latitude being the boundary line between the two territories; on the
east by the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra de los Mimbres, a
continuation of the same range; on the south by Sonora and Old or Lower
California, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean. Its extent from north
to south is about 700 miles, and from east to west from 600 to 800
miles, with an area of about 400,000 square miles. A small portion only
of this extensive territory is fertile or inhabitable by civilized man,
and this portion consists chiefly in the strip of country along the
Pacific Ocean, about 700 miles in length, and from 100 to 150 in
breadth, bounded on the east by the Sierra Nevada, and on the west by
the Pacific.
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