San Mateo County CA Archives History - Books .....Chapter I Physical Features-Topograhy, Etc. 1893 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ca/cafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher cagwarchives@gmail.com January 12, 2007, 1:27 am Book Title: Memorial And Biographical History Of The Coast Counties Of Central California. CHAPTER I. PHYSICAL FEATURES-TOPOGRAPHY, ETC. This county is named after Saint Matthew and occupies nearly the entire peninsula which separates San Francisco bay from the Pacific ocean. San Mateo county is bounded on the north by the city and county of San Francisco, on the east by the San Francisco bay and Santa Clara county, on the south by Santa Cruz county and on the west by the Pacific ocean. It has an area of about 300,-000 acres. It fronts sixty-five miles on the ocean and thirty-five miles on San Francisco bay. The Sierra Morena, or northern portion of the Santa Cruz mountains, traverses this county throughout its entire length. The trend of these mountains is parallel to the sea coast, and of an average height of 1,500 feet, reaching at some points to twice that height. Their precipitous sides are in many places broken by deep canons down which water flows the year round, and from which the city of San Francisco obtains her water supply. The south half of the Sierra Morena is timbered with redwood, oak, and manzanita. Upon the sea coast, and along the shore of the San Francisco bay is a strip of level farming country, the greater portion of which is covered with rich alluvium, the soil of the entire county being exceedingly fertile. MINERALOGY. The minerals of this county, as far as investigation has shown, consist of gold, silver, petroleum, coal, quicksilver, lime and building stone. Of these petroleum and building stone are, at present, alone turned to account. Gold and Silver.-Traces of gold have been discovered in various creeks and gulches, especially near Redwood City, prospects there having been struck, which yielded several colors to the pan. Placer mining has, at intervals, been carried on at several points along the sea-shore with varied success. A bed of black sand on the beach, about one mile from Amesport landing, has been worked with only partial success. Petroleum.-Petroleum occurs at several points in the Tunitas and Purisima canons, yielding from one to three barrels for each well per day by pumping when first bored but dwindling down to one or one and a half barrels per day, soon after boring. One feature of the wells is that no "shells" are encountered before striking the oil. These "shells," as the oil men call them, are hard silicious strata, usually met with immediately above the strata containing the oil. The bituminous series of rocks crop out along the west side of San Mateo county. This asphaltum, so common in many parts of the Coast Range, is no doubt produced from the petroleum by the corporation of the lighter naphthas, and a partial oxidation of the viscous residue under the influence of air and wind. Limestone is found six miles from San Mateo on the ranch of the Spring Valley Water Company, at the headwaters of San Mateo creek, where lime was formerly burned. Building Stone.-Sandstone is quarried about a mile southwest of Redwood City. This has been used in the construction of the railroad depot at San Carlos and for other local purposes. A light-colored sandstone crops out about two and a half miles north of Half moon bay, which has been used in the library building at San Mateo; also for foundations at Halfmoon bay. It is a fair quarry of free stone, with a dip a trifle east of south, and at an angle of 50°. A quarry of metamorphosed sandstone is now open at Coleman and varies from a yellowish brown to a gray-blue color and appears to be an excellent building material, splitting readily in all directions and working smooth. A rock, much resembling the bluish variety of the Coleman sandstone, is being used by the Spring Valley Water Company of San Francisco, in the dam they are constructing about five miles west of San Mateo. This company has dammed the San Mateo Creek, in order to form a lake of the Canada. It may be of interest to state in this connection, that by the construction of a dam, the Canada Raimundo will, in the course of time, be converted into a great storage lake, having a capacity of upward of 30,000,000,000 thirty billion gallons of water. The present Water supply of San Francisco is derived chiefly from the Pilarcitos, the San Andres and upper Crystal Springs lakes, the water of which is conveyed in pipes, a distance of twelve miles to that city. It is also the intention of the Spring Valley Water Company to connect the San Francisquito Creek, with the before-mentioned large storage lake by means of a tunnel, extending therefrom to the town of Searsville, where another dam is to be built, for the purpose of making a second storage reservoir to receive all excess of water during times of heavy rain fall. The rock used in the first-mentioned dam, now under construction, is a bluish metamorphosed stone, and is quarried from the immediate vicinity. It contains shales and sandstones, between which small veins of clay and coal have been found, the latter having at times shown a width of two feet, although it has mostly appeared in a thin seam broken and mixed with clay. The dam when finished will be about 170 feet high, 172 feet wide, at its base, tapering to a width of twenty-five feet at the top, and having a water slope of one vertical to four horizontal. Additional Comments: Extracted from: Memorial and Biographical History of the Coast Counties of Central California. Illustrated. Containing a History of this Important Section of the Pacific Coast from the Earliest Period of its Discovery to the Present Time, together with Glimpses of its Auspicious Future; Illustrations and Full-Page Portraits of some of its Eminent Men, and Biographical Mention of many of its Pioneers, and Prominent Citizens of To-day. HENRY D. BARROWS, Editor of the Historical Department. LUTHER A. INGERSOLL, Editor of the Biographical Department. "A people that take no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote descendants."-Macaulay. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ca/sanmateo/history/1893/memorial/chapteri203gms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/cafiles/ File size: 6.7 Kb