[Gutenberg 13002] • What I Saw in California / A Description of Its Soil, Climate, Productions, and Gold Mines, with the Best Routes and Latest Information for Intending Emigrants; to Which is Annexed an Appendix Containing Official Documents and Letters Authenticating the Accounts of the Quantities of Gold Found, with Its Actual Value Ascertained by Chemical Assay; also Late Communications Containing Accounts of the Highest Interest and Importance from the Gold Districts; with a Map

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. In speaking of Upper California this strip of country is what is generally referred to.