The California Birthday Book by Various
page 154 of 316 (48%)
page 154 of 316 (48%)
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Francisco Bay, in 1769, and a few years later, Crespi, in the
narrative of the expedition of 1772, called the valley the "Plain of Oaks of the Port of San Francisco." Then came Vancouver, Englishman and discoverer. Although he was the first to express a just estimate of the Bay of San Francisco, which he declared to be as fine as any port in the world, nevertheless it is his felicitous and appreciative description of the groves of oaks, the fertile soil (of which they were a sign), and the equable climate that one reads between his lines of 1792 the prophecy of California's later empire. W.L. JEPSON, in _Silva of California._ JULY 15. Huge live-oaks, silvered with a boar of lichen, stretched their boughs in fantastic frenzies. Gray fringes of moss hung from them, and tangled screens of clematis and wild grape caught the sunlight in their flickering meshes or lay over mounds of foliage like a torn green veil. * * * For nearly two miles the carriage drive wound upward through this sylvan solitude. As it approached the house a background of emerald lawns shone through the interlacing branches, and brilliant bits of flower beds were set like pieces of mosaic between gray trunks. GERALDINE BONNER, |
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