CLIMATE. Ill 



In May and June all California " dries up " the rivers, the 

 brooks, the springs, the ditches, the vegetation and with 

 them many of the resources of the country. 



82. Length of Days. The shortest day in the year, the 

 20th of December, measures nine hours and four minutes be- 

 tween sunrise and sunset at Crescent City, and ten hours at 

 San Diego ; while the longest day, the 20th of June, measures 

 fifteen hours and seventeen minutes on the southern border, 

 and fourteen hours and nineteen minutes on the northern bor- 

 der of the State or, measuring from the beginning of twi- 

 light in the morning to the end of twilight at night, the day 

 measures nineteen hours and forty-seven minutes on the Siski- 

 you Mountains, and seventeen hours and forty-three minutes 

 at Fort Yurna. 



83. Thunder-Storms. Thunder-storms are very rare in 

 California. Lightning is not seen more than three or four 

 times a year at San Francisco, and then it is never near. 

 Thunder is still more rare. Indeed, many persons have been 

 here for years, without observing either. I have never seen a 

 brilliant flash of lightning, and have heard but one loud clap 

 of thunder in the State. Thunder-storms are sometimes wit- 

 nessed high up in the mountains, and in the great Basin ; very 

 rarely in any of the low land of the State. In May, 1860, a 

 house in Sonora was struck by lightning ; and in February, 

 1861, three vessels in Humboldt Bay were struck in the same 

 manner : and, though there were persons in the house and on 

 all the vessels, no serious injury was done to either person or 

 property in any case. On the 25th of May, 1860, a China- 

 man was killed by lightning near the Lexington House, on the 

 Coloma road, in Sacramento County ; and that is, I think, the 

 only death by electricity in California on record. 



The weather never has that peculiar condition which iso- 

 lates everybody electrically, and then fills them with electric- 

 ity. In New York, on a dry winter evening, a man dressed 

 in woolen and shod in woolen slippers, after sliding along on 



