made all the more luxuriant and charming by the
warmth of tliese infernal fires ; and to complete the
picture, at sunrise a weird rainbow, refracted from
sulphuric vapor, hovers in clear prismatic hues over
the canon, and loses itself in the glistening emerald at
either end. Turn then away, happy in the thought
that nature inflicts on man few such insio-hts into her
sorceries, but rather veils in beauty the mysterious
chemical processes of her laboratory.
The great sink in the Coast Range, which lies before us near the border of the ocean, and into which the waters of the entire valley are drained, is another marvel of nature, though utilized and made common by man. But for the Golden Gate fissure or cleft, which abruptly cuts in two the continuous coast line, large areas in the interior would be perpetually under water. Were the channel throuoh this bluff-bound gateway less deep, so that the ocean's ebb and flow should not be felt within, San Francisco bay would be a lake. But better far as it is, a lake-like and well- nigh land-locked harbor, larger than Rio de Janeiro, and fairer than Naples; with all the glowing haze and delicious sweetness of the famous Neapolitan air, but without its subtle softness and enervating lano-uor.
Mount some warm misty morning to the top of Yerba Buena island, which stands midway between the cove to which it gave its name and Oakland point, and the prospect thence will scarcely fail to kindle the eye, to swell the heart, and awaken long- ings for other scenes. From this island's base spreads out a mimic ocean, shaped like an arrow-point, sixty miles in length by four or five in width, whose radiant waters flhig blick the rays of the morning sun, or ripple under the influence of wind and tide, and from whose borders, wavy hills roll up, smooth and round as the bust of Canova's Venus, or dimpled like a merry school-girl's face. These, interspersed with gen-
