STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 411 



fifteenth to twenty-fifth, 1885, and January fifteenth to twenty-sixth, 1886. 

 The general feature is a cyclonic disturbance on the Pacific Coast line, 

 which, apparently unable to cross over the Sierra Nevada, seems to spread 

 out over the entire length of our region, until it gradually wastes away or 

 finds escape beyond the limits of our field of observation. The occurrence 

 of this type in January last is especially worthy of careful review. On the 

 fifteenth another surge of high pressure followed the north Pacific anti- 

 cyclonic of the first ten days of January, extending from British America 

 over the Rocky Mountain region. On this coast was developed a series of 

 storms amongthe severest in the history of the country. The temperature 

 was very low in Montana, and spread its influence over portions of this 

 coast, causing frost, snow, ice, and unusual cold in portions of the Pacific 

 States. Rains were heavy and almost continuous, gales frequent and severe, 

 needing no description to those who were here at the time. The storm, as 

 represented by the barometer, was a series of most extraordinary fluctua- 

 tions; the disturbance would suddenly appear at any given station, and 

 after a few hours, be scarcely perceptible, only again to appear at this or 

 some other station. A diagram showing these fluctuations is interesting. 

 The center appeared for a time to be over the interior valleys of California, 

 and not great in depth; and it was only upon consulting ship reports that 

 it was found that the eye of the storm was far to the westward. This cen- 

 ter appeared first upon" the coast about 3 a. m., January twentieth, off Point 

 ( oncepcion, where the roughest weather was experienced. A few hours 

 later it was reported off the mouth of the Columbia River. From 5 to 8 

 a. m., about 175 miles southwest of San Francisco, the Zealandia was in a 

 southeast and southwest hurricane, with the glass at 29.23. The barome- 

 ter about the same time at San Francisco was 29.31 inches; at 8 a. m. at 

 Cape Mendocino the barometer fell to 29.15, with the wind a hundred 

 miles per hour, from the southeast. At noon it was 29.06, with the wind 

 from the southeast and blowing with hurricane violence, carrying away 

 the anemometer, after which accurate observations were interrupted for a 

 few hours. At the same time the wind was southwesterly at San Fran- 

 cisco, blowing 42 miles, but at Point Lobos, the south head of Golden 

 Gate, six miles away, it was 96 miles an hour. The cyclone was off the 

 coast of Oregon at 7 a. m., as shown by a pressure of 29.17; but by the fol- 

 lowing morning, the twenty-first, at 4 a. m., the pressure had risen, and the 

 cyclone had completely vanished from the charts; and by 12 m. the isobar 

 of 30.20 passed from Washington Territory through Oregon down to the 

 center of California, and out near San Luis Obispo. But one other isobar 

 (30.10), drawing isobars for every tenth of an inch, appeared on the chart, 

 and this inclosed northwest Washington Territory. The next morning, 

 the twenty-second, the cyclone reappeared at the mouth of the Columbia 

 River, here also carrying away the anemometer. It again subsided, and 

 burst in once more the same day at the Straits of Juan de Fuca, the glass 

 going down to 29.00. Again almost disappearing, it came in upon the 

 Washington Territory coast the twenty-sixth, the barometer falling this 

 time to 29.15. On the twenty-seventh it was not to be seen, and if it 

 passed eastward it did so far beyond the northern boundary. 



During this time severe washouts occurred in Southern California, and 

 the telegraph lines were everywhere prostrated. I find this type is not a 

 frequent one, and comes only in such intensity as described at long inter- 

 vals. The great storms of 1875 and 1879 are the only ones that can be 

 ranked with this one. See Plate IV. 



