102 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA, 



they change comfort into oppression. And Sacramento city, 

 lying near the great gap in the Coast Mountains, is cooler in 

 summer than either end of the basin ; for the upper portions 

 of both the Sacramento and San Joaqnin Valleys, nearly every 

 summer, see days when the thermometer stands at over 100 

 in the shade. The County Assessor of Fresno County stated, 

 in his annual report for 1857, that the mean temperature at 

 Millerton, during the three summer months, was 106. 



In the Sierra Nevada, the heat of the summer at mid-day 

 is about the same as in the Sacramento \ r alley ; but the win- 

 ter is cold, and the amount of rain greater in proportion to the 

 altitude above the sea. In places three thousand feet above 

 the ocean-level, ice forms five and six inches thick, and snow r 

 deep enough for sleighing, lies several weeks nearly every win- 

 ter. In towns six thousand feet above the sea, the snow falls 

 from five to ten feet deep, and covers the ground four or five 

 months in the year. 



In the Enclosed Basin, the winters are cold and the summer 

 days very hot ; but there too the nights are always cool. 



The Colorado Desert has exceedingly hot summer days and! 

 warm winters, but occasional frosts in the spring and fall, as- 

 well as in the winter. 



In the Klamath Basin, the winters are very cold, and frosts 

 occur nearly every month in the year. 



76. Rain. Nearly all the rain in California falls be- 

 tween the first of November and the first of June the period 

 called the "rainy season," as contradistinguished from the 

 " dry season," which occupies the remainder of the year. Those 

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

 signify an unchangeable set of months, but rather the term 

 during 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 sea- 

 son of 1870-71 did not begin until December; the dry season 

 of 1865 began in March ; that of 1860 not till June ; and so 



