We will now turn to quite a different scene
Kound St. Helena, once a bellowing crater, and the
chimney of infernal furnace-fires, the earth's crust
softens, steams with internal heat, and appears with
its comliness marred so as to expose the mysteries of
unadorned earth ; for terraqueous nature, as well as
human nature, has its unseemly side, its infirmities,
and sinks of corruption. On one side of St. Helena
are the steaming sulphuric springs and boiling mud of
Calistoga, and on the other that pit of Acheron, the
Geysers. Surely the balance of power must be pre-
served, the heaven of California must have its hell;
aye, let nature boast her abnormities, nor be outdone
by that hungry human horde which rushed in hither
and lined the streets of every mining camp with scores
of hells.
Three miles away one hears the puff and roar as of ocean steamers, and sees the ascending smoke and steam. In the approach there is no Point of Inspira- tion; but Hog's Backs, and steep, angular glades, down which Jehu drives with such headlong speed as makes the timid passenger to shiver, and prepares the tourist for the enjoyment Plutonic pleasures. To one gazing from the mountain brow upon this monstrosity of nature, God is not in all his thoughts, but Satan and his hissing emissaries ; here is no new heaven and earth, but a nether realm, with sty- gian odors that offend the nostrils.
He who first discovered the beauties of Yosemite was struck speechless as at the portal of paradise. The hunter Elliots, who in 1847 chased a bear into the valley of the Pluton, spying the Devil's canon turned and fled, and on reaching his companions ex- claimed: " Boys I I have found hell I "
Around the cool deep crystal waters of Clear Lake are numerous soda springs, sulphur banks, and borax deposits. Down the western slope of the western ridge that bounds this region, in the heart of a tangled forest once we.l stocked with game, flows the Pluton river, a
