40 P.ESOURCES OF CAJ^IFORNIA. 



killed by lightning near the Lexington House, on the Coloma 

 road, in Sacramento county. 



The weather never has that peculiar condition which isolates 

 everybody electrically, and then fills them with electricity. In 

 New York, on a dry winter evening, a man dressed in wool- 

 len and shod in w^oollen slippers, after sliding along on the 

 carpet a few steps, will accumulate so much electricity, that 

 when he thrusts his finger at another person, a visible spark 

 will fly off, and he can light gas with it ! But this amusing 

 experiment, common as it is in the Eastern states, never has 

 been successful, and probably never will be often practised, 

 here. 



§ 31. ITail. — Hail is a rarity; and instead of falling in July 

 and August, as is usual in the Eastern states and Europe, it is 

 seen in California only, between February and May. On the 

 10th of May, 1856, a storm of hail-stones, some of them weigh- 

 ing twelve pounds each, visited a small district at Butte Creek, 

 in Shasta county. It has several times happened that hail- 

 stones more than an inch in diameter have fallen in the Sacra- 

 mento valley. 



The Aurora Borealis is seldom seen in California, perhaps 

 not more than half a dozen times w^ithin the last ten years. 

 The aurora of the 28th of August, 1859, seen over a great part 

 of the world, was plainly visible in this state. 



§ 32. Earthquahes. — Earthquakes are common in some 

 parts of California, and especially at San Francisco, Los An- 

 geles, and near the Tejon Pass, at the southern junction of the 

 Sierra Nevada and Coast Mountains. They are rare at Sacra- 

 mento, Marysville, Vallejo, and Napa. As a general rule, they 

 are less frequent and less severe in the northe'-n than in the 

 southern part of the state. The vicinity ot Humboldt is more 

 often shaken than any other |)lace north of the bay of San 

 Francisco. About a dozen earthquakes are felt in a year at 

 difierent places in the state ; not so many at one place. Most 



