STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 281 



that during the week from the seventh to the fourteenth, the maximum 

 temperature was 54°, the minimum 32°, and there were no rainy days dur- 

 ing the week. From the fourteenth to the twenty-first there were three 

 rainy days. The highest temperature was 69°, and the lowest 32°; the pre- 

 vailing winds being from the south and southeast. The following week 

 the wind ranged from the southeast to northwest, and there were two rainy 

 days. The highest temperature was 49°, and the lowest 19°, on the morn- 

 ing of the twenty-first. During the last week the thermometer ranged from 

 56° to 28°, with two rainy days, and the prevailing winds were from the 

 north and northwest. In his remarks Dr. Logan says: 



The thermometer used for these observations is hung in still air of a northern expos- 

 ure and protected from the influence of wind or sun. The observations are made at 8 

 a. m., 3 p. m., and 10 p. m. The minimum, therefore, which generally occurs during the 

 night, has not been obtained. The degree of cold experienced during the month is unpre- 

 cedented. Sutter Lake was frozen over on the sixth and on the twenty-first, and remained 

 so all the day of the twenty-second. Ice formed in the city from the thickness of one to 

 two and a half inches. The effect of such weather upon the health manifested itself in the 

 extinguishment of intermittent fevers, which had been previously so prevalent, and an 

 increase of catarrhal and other inflammatory affections of the respiratory organs. 



ICE ON THE SLOUGHS. 



Ice formed on Lake Como, alias China Slough, during the recent cold 

 spell, to the depth of nearly an inch near the shore, and the whole surface 

 of the slough was frozen over except a space of about eighty feet square 

 near the eastern end. The mud-hens and ducks were forced into this 

 small space, and consequently appeared more than usually numerous. 

 The slough was never so nearly frozen over before; but in 1854, so says a 

 prominent citizen and capitalist, the ice was much thicker near the south- 

 ern shore, and afforded good skating for many people. The ice twenty 

 feet from shore at that time was too thin to support a person, and thus the 

 skaters were confined to a space about fifteen feet wide and nearly three 

 hundred yards long. Last week ice about half an inch thick formed on 

 the surface of the slough back of the roundhouse, and the north wind of 

 Friday and Saturday blew water over it. The water froze almost immedi- 

 ately, and in a short time ice sufficiently thick to bear the weight of a 

 heavy man was formed. Several parties who were so fortunate as to pos- 

 sess ice skates improved the occasion, and had a high old skating carni- 

 val. A short distance from the shore the ice was quite thin, but fortunately 

 no one ventured far enough from land as to endanger their lives thereby, 

 or to furnish the newspaper scribes with an interesting item. 



Saturday morning thin pieces of ice which the stiff norther had broken 

 off from the banks where the water was shallow, floated down the river, 

 and was considered a great curiosity by the people. It was one sixteenth 

 of an inch thick. 



[" Daily Evening Bee," January 18, 1888.] 



Facts About the Weather. — A Former Resident Relates his Ex- 

 periences in Sacramento. 

 Sergeant Barwick: 



Dear Sir: I noticed your report of weather statistics in Saturday's 

 " Daily Bee," particularly the extracts from Dr. Logan's report of the 

 weather for the winter of 1853 and 1854. Many times I have referred to 

 that winter in conversation with others, as the coldest I have ever expe- 

 rienced since my arrival in California, July 4, 1849, and a resident of Sac- 

 ramento from the fourteenth of the same month and year until April, 1861, 

 and in other places until the commencement of the present cold wave. 



