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Sierra. If it shall be found to increase the rainfall in the valley, the 

 cause can be ascribed to the fact that the belt of snow is a store-house 

 of cold, lowering the temperature of the adjacent air, which, by 

 increase of weight, flows down into the valley, and lowers the tem- 

 perature of the air at the lowest places in the valley. Tulare, near 

 the shore of Tulare Lake, which is the lowest point of that portion 

 of the valley (the town being two hundred and eighty-two feet above 

 the sea), is at the base of the highest mountains in California. The 

 cold air flowing down from these mountains reduces its winter tem- 

 perature (December, January, February) to a mean of forty-five 

 degrees and fifty-seven one-hundredths, while Auburn, one hundred 

 and fifty-eight miles further north, and with one thousand and eighty- 

 seven feet greater elevation, situated on the long spur jutting into 

 the valley which the railroad climbs to cross the mountains, for the 

 same months has a mean temperature of forty-six degrees and 

 seventy one-hundredths, the mean of the winter at Tulare being more 

 than one degree colder than at Auburn. Chico, two hundred and 

 six miles north of Tulare, and eighty-nine feet less in elevation, has 

 a winter climate one and a quarter degrees warmer than Tulare, its 

 mean winter temperature being forty-six degrees and eighty-two one- 

 hundredths. If it were not for the cold air from the mountains flow- 

 ing to the lowest places in the valley, Tulare would be entitled to a 

 winter temperature of five and a half degrees warmer than that of 

 Auburn, two being due to decrease in latitude, and three and a half 

 to decrease in elevation. 



COAST. 



The coast counties are controlled by the same general laws that gov- 

 ern other parts of the State. There is more rain north than south ; 

 more on the hills than in the valleys; more on the south side of hills 

 than on their northern and eastern exposures. Their proximity to 

 the ocean gives them a more even temperature than in the interior, 

 making them cooler in Summer and warmer in Winter. From the 

 sea coast to the summits of the coast range of mountains they are 

 also subject to the influence of the Japan gulf stream. This stream, 

 according to Professor Davidson, in the Alaska Coast Pilot — "Start- 

 ing with a maximum temperature of eighty-eight degrees, sweeps 

 across the Pacific, and about latitude forty-five to fifty degrees, in lon- 

 gitude one hundred and forty-eight degrees, divides. The main body 

 stretches directly toward the coast of America, is deflected southward 

 and eastward, and runs clown the coast of Oregon and California. A 

 branch of this current continues direct to the Alexander Archipelago, 

 and striking the southern part of the coast, is deflected to the north- 

 ward and westward. It is the warm Alaska branch which causes the 

 high isothermal lines that exist directly on the Alaska coast." 



The temperature of this Alaska branch, as observed by him in 

 September, eighteen hundred and seventy-six, was from fifty degrees 

 and six one-hundredths to forty-seven degrees and one one-hun- 

 dredths, decreasing irregularly. The prevailing westerly winds of 

 those latitudes, warmed by this gulf stream, take from it moist- 

 ure which is condensed into fog. and precipitated in rain upon the 

 coast when they meet its glacial mountains and the cold air and 

 water flowing down from them. The influence of this current in pro- 

 ducing Summer rains extends as far south as the Columbia River ; 

 the meteorological records of the Smithsonian Institute showing that 



