30 EESOTJKCESOFCALIFOENIA. 



through Stockton and Sonora, near the Mammoth Grove of 

 Mariposa and the Yosemite valley, to the summit of the Sierra 

 Nevada, would enable the people near the line to place them* 

 selves, every summer's day, in any tolerable degree of heat 

 or cold. 



Fourteen miles west of Oakland is the ocean-beach, where 

 a chilling wind blows without ceasing. Going from the coast, 

 the traveller would gradually get into a warmer clime, until, 

 in Stockton, he would find the thermometer indicating 100°, 

 most of the summer noons ; and proceeding up the sides of the 

 Sierra, he would gradually rise into greater cold, to the eter- 

 nal frost on the summit. A branch road running south to Fort 

 Yuma would enable the traveller to enjoy almost as great a 

 variety of temperature in the winter. 



§ 27. Rain. — Nearly all the rain in California falls between 

 the first of November and the first of June — the period called 

 the " rainy season," as contradistinguished from the " dry sea- 

 son," which occupies the remainder of the year. Those names, 

 however, when applied to any special season, do not signify 

 an unchangeable number of months, but rather the term dur- 

 ing which the rain falls or the dry weather lasts. Thus, we 

 say that the rainy season of 1858-59 began in October, be- 

 cause in that month the first heavy rains fell ; the rainy season 

 of 1855-56 did not begin until December ; the dry season of 

 1857 began in March; and so forth. The rainy season is so 

 called, not because the rain falls then continuously, but because 

 it does not fiiU at any other time. There are occasional show- 

 ers in June, July, August, and September, but they are rare 

 and light. 



The following table gives the average amount of rain, in 

 inches, which falls during the four seasons of spring, summer, 

 autumn, and winter, at various places in California, as com- 

 pared with the amount which falls in other places in the 

 United States 



