THE SIERRA NEVADA Go where you may within the bounds of California, mountains are ever in sight, charming and glorifying every landscape.

Yet so simple and massive is the topography of the State in general views, that the main central portion displays only one valley, and two chains of mountains which seem almost perfectly regular in trend and height: the Coast Range on the west side, the Sierra Nevada on the east.

These two ranges coming together in curves on the north and south inclose a magnificent basin, with a level floor more than 400 miles long, and from 35 to 60 miles wide.

This is the grand Central Valley of California, the waters of which have only one outlet to the sea through the Golden Gate.

But with this general simplicity of features there is great complexity of hidden detail.