California Adventures, Illustrated

J Ross Browne called himself a Californian. This Irish born American writer and artist was a world traveler who was at one point minister to China. But it was California that he called home. When he removed to California in 1849 it was the start of the Gold Rush. He followed the Silver Boom across the Sierras (which he reported on in A Peep at Washoe and Washoe Revisited). He toured Arizona and reported his adventures to the world (Apache Country: A Tour of Arizona 1864), spent several years exploring Europe (The European Reporting of J. Ross Browne.) But it was California that he called his home.
California Adventures covers his adopted home state. In A Dangerous Journey Browne Travels across California from San Francisco to Obispo through a country full of outlaws, nearly losing his life along the way. In The Coast Rangers he details the adventures of an Association of Gentlemen as they hunt, camp and take nourishment while enjoying the out of doors in mid nineteenth century California. In Exploring Lower California Browne looks at the Baja at at time when many thought the Mexican State an ideal acquisition for the United States. Browne exposes the reality of the peninsula to the American Public.