CHAPTER III 

 CALIFORNIA, HERE WE ARE 



The Golden West 



California is a State of great size. It embraces 158,000 

 square miles of area, and is subdivided into 5 8 counties. In area 

 it is more than three times that of the Empire State of New 

 York. It has a population in excess of six million, two-thirds 

 of which is concentrated in five metropolitan districts on or 

 near the Pacific Coast. Two of the three great harbors on the 

 western coast of the United States are within its borders, San 

 Francisco and San Diego, the third being at Seattle. In point 

 of climate California is unique among all the states. There is 

 the greatest variety of climate, and yet not the extremes of tem- 

 perature that make life trying in many localities. Rainfall also 

 varies from the excessive downpour of 75 inches in a year to less 

 than 3 inches. In soil there is arid and barren rock and about 

 every intervening gradation to the most fertile and productive 

 river alluvium. Agriculturally a greater range of varieties and 

 kinds of food products are grown than in any state of the Union. 



High mountain peaks pierce the very sky, and near by the 

 surface is below the level of the sea. Plains that, in a state of 

 nature, are almost destitute of vegetation when treated to 

 waters from adjacent mountains become modern Gardens of 

 Eden. Trees dwarfed to liliputian size by arctic cold reproduce 

 their kind on snow-laden mountains, and the world's most 

 famous Big Trees, centuries of years old and still thriving, 

 inhabit slopes as nowhere else in the world. The State has long 

 ranked first in the production of the precious metal, gold, 

 forced from the depths of the earth during upheavals such as 

 have not occurred probably elsewhere. In the production of 



