14 HARE'S GUIDE TO ascent commences. By going slowly, the hundred and seventy two steps can be accomplished with very little fatigue, but if it were ten times the distance, The View from the Dome would fully repay the exertion.* The hight appears to annihilate distance. It seems but a step to the extreme limits of the city, and but a stone’s throw across the valley to the mountain ranges on either side. To the north in glittering beauty lies the bay of San Francisco. As the eye of the specta tor follows the line of hills to the east, lingering; on the vei'dant slopes and the intervening plain, inter spersed here and there with the dai-k foliage of the lusty live oak and covered with rich fields of waving grain, it rests upon the burly form of Mount Hamil ton, the highest in the eastern i-ange, which rears its crest 4,448 feet above the level of the sea. On the south the Lomas Lagrimas or “ Hills of Tears,” a low range of slight elevation, appear to fence in the valley, and nxnning westward lose themselves in the rugged hights of the Santa Cruz range. To the south and west rise two peaks in lofty grandeur, Mount Chaual and Mount Baclie, the former 3,530 and the latter 3,430 feet in hight. On a lower elevation, at the foot of these mountains and immediately in the range of vis ion, are located the famous quicksilver mines of New *In order to preserve hie “ direction ” the visitor will bear in mind that First street, on which the Court House fronts, runs about 31 de grees west of north.
