The Rivers Of The Granite South Half Of The Sierra Are Outspread On The Peaks In A Shining Network Of Small Branches, That Divide Again And Again Into Small Dribbling, Purling, Oozing Threads Drawing Their Sources From The Snow And Ice Of The Surface.

They seldom sink out of sight, save here and there in the moraines or glaciers, or, early in the season, beneath the banks and bridges of snow, soon to issue again.

But in the north half, laden with rent and porous lava, small tributary streams are rare, and the rivers, flowing for a time beneath the sky of rock, at length burst forth into the light in generous volume from seams and caverns, filtered, cool, and sparkling, as if their bondage in darkness, safe from the vicissitudes of the weather in their youth, were only a blessing.

Only a very small portion of the water derived from the melting ice and snow of Shasta flows down its flanks on the surface. Probably ninety-nine per cent of it is at once absorbed and drained away beneath the porous lava-folds of the mountain to gush forth, filtered and pure, in the form of immense springs, so large, some of them, that they give birth to rivers that start on their journey beneath the sun, full-grown and perfect without any childhood. Thus the Shasta River issues from a large lake-like spring in Shasta Valley, and about two thirds of the volume of the McCloud gushes forth in a grand spring on the east side of the mountain, a few miles back from its immediate base.

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