Kings River (California)
The Kings River is a major river of south-central California. About 125 miles (201 km) long, it drains an area of the high western Sierra Nevada and the Central Valley. A large alluvial fan has formed where the river's gradient decreases in the Central Valley so the river divides into distributaries. Southern distributaries enter the endorheic basin surrounding Tulare Lake while northern distributaries join the San Joaquin River, eventually reaching San Francisco Bay via the Sacramento – San Joaquin River Delta. Tulare Lake was formerly the largest freshwater lake in western North America, but heavy agricultural and urban diversions have left it dry. The Kings River was named by the commander of a Spanish military expedition into the Central Valley in 1805.
Read more about Kings River (California): Course, History, Ecology, River Modifications
Famous quotes containing the words kings and/or river:
“High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Show’rs on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat, by merit raised
To that bad eminence; and, from despair
Thus high uplifted beyond hope, aspires
Beyond thus high, insatiate to pursue
Vain war with Heav’n, and by success untaught,
His proud imaginations”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“This ferry was as busy as a beaver dam, and all the world seemed anxious to get across the Merrimack River at this particular point, waiting to get set over,—children with their two cents done up in paper, jail-birds broke lose and constable with warrant, travelers from distant lands to distant lands, men and women to whom the Merrimack River was a bar.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)