Sierra Madre Occidental

“ The great mountain chain of Mexico, which is the connecting link between the Rocky Mountains of the north and the Andes of the south, is here known as the Sierra Madre, and occupies chiefly the western part of the State, where its elevations attain a vast height, and at length, descend abruptly, cut by deep barrancas or ravines, until they are lost in the plains of Sonora and Sinaloa. Mexican authorities state the highest point of the Sierra Madre, at the Peaks of Jesus Maria, to be 8,441 feet above the level of the sea. ”

“ The heads of the Sierra Madre are rounded, the contours of great dignity. The appeal it makes to the eye is of mass and line. Its charms, and it has many, of forested slope, leaping waters, and lilied meadows, do not offer themselves to the casual glance, but must be sought after with great pains. The bulk of the range is of warm, grey granite, clothed with atmospheric colour as with a garment. It borrows more from the sky than the sea, taking on at times an aerial transparency, the soul of the mountain about to pass trembling into light. ”

“ Far over in the east, and apparently no nearer than ever, rose the blue, cloud-like mountains of the Sierra Madre, now showing like a wall, which indeed they are, and one which no man has so far succeeded in scaling. ”

“ It is a matter of intense surprise to me, and almost disgust, that so few of our own people right here in sight of our beautiful Sierra Madre, have availed themselves of the opportunities which he has opened for studying their more than Alpine beauties, their inexhaustible and intensely interesting geological and botanical resources, to say nothing of the benefits to be derived from the delicious mountain air, freighted as it is with sweet odors and buoyant exhilaration. ”

“ About a day's journey from the capital, rises that mighty chain of mountains called the Sierra Madre, which, after connecting the volcanoes of Mexico with those of Puebla, takes an inland and northerly direction, hiding within its bowels, near Monte Real and Guanaxato, that boundless mineral wealth which excites so strongly the wonder of the naturalist. ”

“ One cannot take anywhere else a more exhilarating, delightful drive than about the rolling, highly cultivated, many-villaed Pasadena, and out to the foot-hills and the Sierra Madre Villa. He is constantly exclaiming at the varied loveliness of the scene—oranges, palms, formal gardens, hedges of Monterey cypress. It is very Italy-like. The Sierra Madre furnishes abundant water for all the valley, and the swift irrigating stream from Eaton Cañon waters the Sierra Madre Villa. Among the peaks above it rises Mt. ”

“ Freetown (q. v.) is the capital. The executive power is exercised by a governor and council of five.
Sierra Madre, the main cordillera system of Mexico, extending in a northerly direction to Arizona, and forming the western buttress of a fertile plateau stretching eastwards; to the W. the States of Sinaloa and Sonora slope downwards to the sea.
Sierra Morena, a mountain chain in South Spain, forming the watershed between the valleys of the Gaudiana (N.) and Guadalquivir (S.) ; has valuable deposits of lead, silver, quicksilver, and other metals. ”

“ It may be that the immense vitality of the land, its abundance, the bursting orchards, the rich variety of native growth, somehow dwarfs the earliest impression of the Sierra Madre, since few, if any, gather at first an adequate idea of the actual mass and height it represents. ”

“ On the eastern boundary of the State, the ridges of the Cordillera begin to rise, until they tower into the massive mountains which form the Sierra Madre, among the spurs of which many valuable metallic deposits have been discovered. The fine and productive vallies of Bavispe, Oposura, Sonora and Dolores are found in the neighborhood of this mountain country. ”

“ On the Western declivity of the Sierra Madre, and in nearly the same parallel of latitude as the Părrāl, are the famous mines of Bătŏpīlăs. To enter into a minute description of this extraordinary district would exceed the limits of this work. I shall, therefore, only subjoin a few remarks upon its situation and produce. Its distance from Părrāl is about eighty leagues, nearly due West, and it is situated in a very deep ravine, similar to that of Gūārĭsămĕy. The climate is warm, yet healthy. ”

“ Nearly parallel with the Pacific seaboard, and dividing the states of Sonora and Sinaloa from Chihuahua and Durango, runs the great central Cordillera; further to the eastward, passing through Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and San Luis Potosí, and following the shore line of the Mexican Gulf, the Sierra Madre continues in a southerly direction, until it unites with the first-named range at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. All of these mountains abound in mineral wealth. ”

“ The Sierra Madre Range has long been regarded as the most beautiful location in which to escape from the heat of midsummer, or to make the change of climate and scenery. Heretofore the seashore has been more largely patronized on account of its ease of access, but many hundreds of people have annually made pilgrimages to remote mountain resorts because of the pure air and healthful surroundings there to be found. ”

“ San Bernardino and San Jacinto are as far from it as the Faubourg St. Germain from an island in the sea. Sierra Madre is of the Coast [150] Range; Shasta a fire-hole, a revolutionist; the true Sierra is the midriff of a continent. From its northern extremity one sees the sun in a circle and the Northern Lights; that portion of it we know as Sierra Nevada swings into the state above Honey Lake, and ends southward in a tumble of blunt peaks below Kern River. This is quite enough, however, for Californians to make free with, and more than they can appreciate. ”

“ By handling her carefully and giving her ample oil, I hoped to "deliver the goods" and get across the remaining half of the great desert tract that borders on the Sierra Madre Range running parallel with the coast from north to south. Once across that range, everything, I told myself, would change abruptly, the roads, the scenery, and the climate.
Mile after mile of rock and sand went by with the sweating hours. Often little patches of oiled road appeared, stayed awhile, and then miraculously disappeared below the white, loose surface. ”

“ The vegetation of the Sierra Madre is incomparably stronger and more luxurious than that of the cold North. The pine-trees in higher altitudes, for instance in Norway, appear miserably puny and almost stunted when compared with the giants of the South. ”

“ I found no settlement fortified, but places of refuge are numerous in the interior of the Sierra Madre. They are very significantly called fort-hills (Cerros de Trincheras) . They are natural heights, often very steep, along the brows of which and bending to their sinuosities rude bulwarks of stone have been raised. The hill could thus be converted in the simplest way into a fortification, and where it is conical, as at Terrenate, Ymúrez, and Toni-vavi, near Nacori, the walls naturally assume a spiral form. The Indians thus adapted their constructions to the irregularities of the slopes. ”

“ The men really seemed indefatigable. One of them once took upon his head a large case of honey and carried it up the ridge on a run. Strange as it may sound, on my first journey across the Sierra Madre I did not lose one animal by such accidents.
Climbing, climbing, climbing, one massive cordon after another, at the start through dense oak thickets, and over hills flattened and eroded with countless deep, precipitous gashes seaming the rock in every direction. [36] Numerous springs oozed and trickled from the stratified conglomerate along the edges, sides, and bottoms of the ravines. ”

“ It is not the giant monoliths that establish the incomparable Valley's world supremacy; Hetch Hetchy, Tehipite, Kings, and others have their giants, too. It is not its towering, perpendicular, serrated walls; the Sierra has elsewhere, too, an overwhelming exhibit of titanic granite carvings. It is not its waterfalls, though these are the highest, by far, in the world, nor its broad, peaceful bottoms, nor its dramatic vistas, nor the cavernous depths of its tortuous tributary canyons. ”

“ There are turning-points in all men’s lives which must give them both pause and retrospect. In long Sierra journeys the mountaineer looks forward eagerly, gladly, till pass or ridge-crest is gained, and then, turning with a fonder interest, surveys the scene of his march; letting the eye wander over each crag and valley, every blue hollow of pine-land or sunlit gem of alpine meadow ”

“ The middle mountainous divide crosses from Durango to Coahuila, while the third rises in the state of Jalisco and taking an easterly and afterward northerly direction, traverses the table-land and merges into the Sierra Madre in the state of San Luis Potosí. On these broad table-lands are numerous lakes fed by the streams which have their rise in the mountains adjacent ”

“ Every day is adding to our knowledge of regions, which were formerly considered as positively inaccessible. The Sierra Madre has been traversed seven times, between Ŏăxācă and Chĭhūāhuă, by one very spirited and intelligent English traveller, Mr. ”

“ It would be lovely if we could have taken horses and a pack-mule and gone down the length of the Sierra Madres—at first alone, later traveling with the arrieros up the mule trails to the snow-line, then down on the other side through giant cañons. We should have seen only the simple folk of the country. But the revolution has made that impossible. But this we can do—go to the priest and jefe of San Carlos, who are both old friends of my father’s, to be married, then ride straight out to the mountain pasture and keep house there all by ourselves till—till we feel like coming home. ”

“ The snow on the high mountains is melting fast, and the streams are singing bank-full, swaying softly through the level meadows and bogs, quivering with sun-spangles, swirling in pot-holes, resting in deep pools, leaping, shouting in wild, exulting energy over rough boulder dams, joyful, beautiful in all their forms. No Sierra landscape that I have seen holds anything truly dead or dull, or any trace of what in manufactories is called rubbish or waste; everything is perfectly clean and pure and full of divine lessons. ”

“ By all distinction it is THE Sierra, if there be more than one Sierra in the case, a matter which we deny; for one ridge is 'the Sierra,' the other the Lomas Bajas. An attempt has been made to confound the mountain and the low hills together. The only reason ever given for saying that they are one and the same is, that they are connected together by a low ridge running transversely across the valley which divides them. ”

“ Its oak-clad hills wander out into the great, plain-like coast promontories, enclosing yellow or, in spring-time, green bays of prairie. The hill-forms are rounded, or stretch in long, longitudinal ridges, broken across by the river cañons. Above this zone of red earth, softly modelled undulations, and dull, grayish groves, with a chain of mining towns, dotted ranches and vineyards, rise the swelling middle heights of the Sierras, a broad, billowy plateau cut by sharp, sudden cañons, and sweeping up, with its dark, superb growth of coniferous forest to the feet of the summit-peaks. ”

“ They know that on the Pacific Coast below Guaymas there are millions of acres of country just as beautiful as Southern California, but which is now unreclaimed, where the sparkling streams from the Sierra Madres course uselessly through thickets of wild lemon trees on their way to the ocean. ”

“ On the north, east and west there are various minor ranges, such as the Sierras of Parapanda, Harana, Gor, Baza, Lucena, Cazorla, Estancias, Filabres, &c, which are connected with the main range, and are sometimes collectively termed the Sierra Nevada system. ”

“ The coast, extending from the base of the Western or Maritime Cordillera to the Pacific Ocean, consists of a sandy desert crossed at intervals by rivers flowing through narrow, fertile valleys. The sierra is the region of the Andes, and is about 250 m. in width. It contains stupendous chains of mountains, elevated plains and table-lands, warm and fertile valleys and ravines. The montana is the region of tropical forests within the valley of the Amazon, and skirts the eastern slopes of the Andes. ”

“ North of Bakersfield, as the valley widens, the Coast Range fades to a mere shadow mountain, the peaks of Kaweah stand out above the banded haze, angel-white like the ranked Host. As the [134] road swings in to the Sierra outposts, broad-headed oaks begin to appear; it skirts the foot of the great Sierra fault close enough for the landscape to borrow something from the dark, impending pines. But for the most part what the observer has to consider is soil and water and the miraculous product of these two. One must learn to think of the land in terms of human achievement. ”

“ It is a region of great industrial future within a narrow range, but quite without charms for the student of science. It has a certain impressive breadth when seen from some overlooking eminence, or when in early spring its brilliant carpet of flowers lies as a foreground over which the dark{15} pine-land and white crest of the Sierra loom indistinctly. ”

“ The zone adjoining the High Sierra upon its west is one of far wider range of pleasure. Subsiding rapidly in elevation, it becomes a knobbed and bouldered land which includes timber-line and the thin forests of wind-twisted pines which contend with the granite for foothold. It is crossed westward by many lesser ranges buttressing the High Sierra; from these cross ranges many loftier peaks arise, and between them roar the rivers whose thousands of contributing streams drain the snow-fields and the glaciers of the white heights. ”