CLIMATE. 33 



March, and April ; in '54-55, January, February, March, and 

 April; in '55-56, December and January; in '56-'57, De- 

 cember and February; in '57-'58, December, January, and 

 March; in '58-59, December, February, and March; in '59- 

 '60, November, March, and April; in '60-'61, December and 

 February; and in '61-62, from ISTovember to February, in- 

 clusive. 



The rain of California usually comes with gentleness, and 

 falls perpendicularly. The coast, above Humboldt Bay, re- 

 ceives a greater amount of rain than any other part of the 

 immediate shore ; and in this respect it resembles the humid 

 clime of Western Oregon. At Fort Yuma the amount of rain 

 is from one-fifth to one-seventh that at San Francisco, and it 

 all falls during the spring and summer ; for the rainy season 

 of the Colorado Desert does not come at the same time with 

 that of the remainder of the state, but is synchronous with the 

 rainy season of Northwestern Mexico. 



The rain along the middle coast of California usually comes 

 slowly, and falls gently and perpendicularly. Here it is very 

 seldom that two inches of rain fall in a day, and three inches 

 have not fallen within twenty-four hours in ten years ; while 

 in the Eastern states the former figure is reached frequently, 

 and the latter every year — where also the rain is generally 

 accompanied with violent and long-continued storms of wind. 

 The rains of the Sierra Nevada are far more abundant in quan- 

 tity, and fiercer in the manner of their coming, than those 

 about the bay of San Francisco. It is established that the 

 amount of rain, and its equivalent snow, increases on the west- 

 ern slope of the Sierra Nevada with the elevation ; but our 

 statistics are not sufficiently extensive to enable us to deter- 

 mine whether the increase is in regular ratio to the altiti»le, or 

 what the proportions are between the snow and rain at difier- 

 ent heights. It is, however, an unquestioned fiict that, in or- 

 dinary seasons, the amount of rain at Sonora, two thousand 

 five hundred feet above the sea, is from twice to thrice as great 

 as in Stockton, only seventy miles distant, at the sea-level; 



