The water problem in the Sacramento Valley, prior to it occupation by the white race, is impossible to ascertain. The Indians, however, have a tradition of a great flood sometime in the early part of the nineteenth century, which inundated the whole valley and in which a great many lives were lost and villages destroyed. It forms an era in their calendar from which they date events. Again a great flood in the winter of 1825-26 is mentioned, through an Indian named Peter. He used to say that the trapping party he was with was compelled to camp in the Buttes on account of high water, and that those hills were full of grizzlies, elk, antelope, and smaller game that had taken refuge there.