Crossing the treeless plains of the Sacramento and San Joaquin from the
west and reaching the Sierra foot-hills, you enter the lower fringe of
the forest, composed of small oaks and pines, growing so far apart that
not one twentieth of the surface of the ground is in shade at clear
noonday. After advancing fifteen or twenty miles, and making an ascent
of from two to three thousand feet, you reach the lower margin of the
main pine belt, composed of the gigantic Sugar Pine, Yellow Pine,
Incense Cedar, and Sequoia. Next you come to the magnificent Silver Fir
belt, and lastly to the upper pine belt, which sweeps up the rocky
acclivities of the summit peaks in a dwarfed, wavering fringe to a
height of from ten to twelve thousand feet.
[Illustration: EDGE OF THE TIMBER LINE ON MOUNT SHASTA.]
This general order of distribution, with reference to climate dependent
on elevation, is perceived at once, but there are other harmonies, as
far-reaching in this connection, that become manifest only after patient
observation and study. Perhaps the most interesting of these is the
arrangement of the forests in long, curving bands, braided together into
lace-like patterns, and outspread in charming variety.
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