Sonoma County CA Archives History - Books .....Principal Water Courses 1877
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Book Title: Historical And Descriptive Sketch Of Sonoma County, California

PRINCIPAL WATER COURSES.

   Each of the valleys fronting on San Pablo bay have an estuary leading inland,
navigable for steamers of considerable size. One, called Sonoma creek or estuary
leads into Sonoma valley; another known as Petaluma creek is navigable for
eighteen miles inland. The flourishing town of Petaluma is situated on this
slough at the head of navigation.

   Russian river, the largest stream in the county, enters it on the north, and
flows in a southeasterly direction through the county for about thirty miles,
and then turns at a sharp angle to the west, and empties into the Pacific ocean.
It is not navigable.

   Sulphur creek, on which the Geyser springs are located, rises in the
Mayac-mas mountains, and flows northerly into Russian river above the town of
Cloverdale.

   Mark West creek rises in a lofty spur of the Mayacmas range between Napa and
Sonoma valleys, flowing west across the plains into Russian river. Santa Rosa
creek rises in the same mountain, and flows across the Santa Rosa valley,
parallel with and four miles south of Mark West creek, and empties into a series
of lakes, which, in high water, overflow into Russian river. Sonoma creek rises
in the same range, and flows southerly through Sonoma valley into San Pablo bay.

   The Valhalla, awkwardly spelled Gualala, is a stream on the western border of
the county, flowing due north, and parallel with the coast, just inside a range
of hills which rise up from the shore of the ocean. After a straight north
course for almost twenty-five miles, it turns and empties into the ocean. There
was never a stream so well named; great red-wood trees shade its limpid waten,
the favorite haunt of the salmon and the trout; the hills are full of game,
deer, elk and bear—and if ever there was a place where the "bear roasted every
morning became whole at night," it was true, figuratively speaking, of our
Sonoma Valhalla,—for the camp on its margin was never without its haunch of
venison or creel of trout. May the fellow who tortured the name by trying to
Peruvianize it, never taste the joys of the real Valhalla.

   The course of these streams can be marked by referring to the map. We will
say, in passing, that the land along the water courses described, and for some
distance from them, is a rich alluvial of unsurpassed fertility.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

HISTORICAL
AND
DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH
OF
SONOMA COUNTY,
CALIFORNIA,
BY
ROBERT A. THOMPSON,
EDITOR OF "THE SONOMA DEMOCRAT."
PHILADELPHIA:
L. H. EVERTS & CO. 
1877.


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