The streams in all this region bear gold, and miners are busy in them.

Yreka, in the Shasta Valley, is the centre of a considerable mining district, and therefore a busy place, even without the Modoc war, which gave it a temporary renown during the winter and spring.

Now that the Modoc war is closed, no doubt the famous lava beds will attract curious visitors from afar.

They can be reached in thirty-six hours from Yreka; and that place is distant thirty-six hours from San Francisco.
Aside from the public lands still open in small tracts of eighty and one hundred and sixty acres to pre-emption by actual settlers, under the homestead law, and the railroad lands, to be had in sections of six hundred and forty acres, the Sacramento Valley contains a number of considerable Spanish grants; and the following account of these, which I take from the San Francisco _Bulletin_ will give an Eastern reader some idea of the extent of such grants, their value, and how they are used: "The first large tract of land north and west of Marysville is the Neal grant, containing about seventeen thousand acres.

This grant is owned by the Durham estate and Judge C.F.Lott, though Gruelly owns a large slice of it also.