Miscellaneous Intelligence. 291 



wild, and of course going to waste except what the cattle and horses 

 eat. The farms in this country embrace from ten or less to fifty or one 

 hundred square miles; of course the farm houses are many miles 

 apart. The principal source of income to the owners is from the cat- 

 tle kept on them — many herds numbering thousands of heads. Beef is 

 very abundant, and is the Californiatrs life. The climate inland — e. g 

 in this valley where I now am, is the most delightful imaginable. Du- 

 ring the six or eight months of the summer season there is scarcely a 



•» 



drop of rain or a cloud in the sky, but a pure bracing air with cool 

 nights resembling our finest September weather in New England. 

 iou sleep under a blanket the year round — have no showers to look 

 out for — and can take a journey of weeks or months without an um- 

 brella. The great want here is of water, yet in agriculture it is little 

 felt, since much of the land has sufficient natural moisture. On this farm, 



tor example, there are thousands of acres of green grass all the year 



around ; melons, corn, potatoes and all kinds of vegetables grow green 

 and rank without irrigation.* 



On the coast the climate is widely different. At San Francisco one 

 dresses in woolens throughout, even in midsummer — as much so as for 

 the coldest New England winter. There is a great deal of chilly fog, 

 and the thermometer since I landed, July 3d, has ranged between 50° 

 and 68° — ihe latter being the highest 1 have yet seen it in the shade, 

 even at 2 P. M. of a bright cloudless day. You may think it almost 

 an incredible story — and it is indeed the most wonderful climate I ever 

 heard or conceived of. — (From a letter, dated San Francisco, August 

 30,1847.) 



During the six months I have been here there has been but little more 

 than a week's rain, and that fell chiefly ft fortnight since. The weather 

 for two weeks and a half past and almost entirely up to that rainy 

 week, had been mild and delightful, a cloudless sky with fine bracing 

 ** ,r > like the clear weather of the latter part of September with us. 

 Most of the mornings since the first of December have been frosty, 

 and at morning and'evening a fire is essential to comfort. I am now 

 writing in a room without tire or fire-place, and with doors and win- 

 dows open on two sides, and all my mapping and plotting this winter, I 

 »ave done in a chamber without a fire. Snow and ice never trouble us. 

 This is very different from your weather only Jour degrees north of us. 



[From a letter dated South of San Jose, January 30, 1848.) 

 , The immense gold deposit in the Sierra Nevada has been the prom- 

 Went object of thought in California the last six months, and it will be 

 s o for years. I have visited several different parts of it. * * It is ev- 

 er y where extremely rich. Its length along the Sierra has already been 

 •*plored some four hundred miles, and rich diggings have been actively 

 worked. At a moderate estimate, probably four or five millions of dol- 

 •ars at $ 16 per ounce troy, have already been taken out since the 

 Workings were first commenced about nine months ago, most of it with- 



t the Coast 



* The region here described li KJtttfc of San Jose, between ranges 

 fountains. It is west of the great valley of San Joachim and Sacramento, 

 where the climate is wanner and drier.— J. d. d. 



