292 



Miscellaneous In telligence. 



form clouds and to rain, it becomes a very drying air, absorbing wate? 

 from everything that it touches. This is the very simple and plain ex- 

 planation of the dry season. 



The most wonderful phenomenon of the California climates, is the 

 marked manner in which they are cut in two by no higher chain of 

 mountains than the Coast Range. This range extends along the coast of 

 California from latitude 34-^- to 41 J, and is so low, that snow collects dur- 

 ing the winter only on a few of the highest peaks. Now, while the west- 

 ern side of this range has the cold summer above described, the valley on 

 the east side is one of the hottest portions of the earth. This valley, 

 through which flow, in opposite directions, the waters of the Sacramento 

 and the San Joaquin, extends about 400 miles from north to south, with 

 an average breadth of perhaps 60 miles, from the Coast Range on the 

 west to the Sierra Nevada on the east. It is a very flat valley, much 

 more level than the western prairies, and occupies the great portion of 

 the interior of California. It has been quite difficult to obtain exposures 

 of a thermometer which were unobjectional. In the cloth tents and 

 stores which were in use in 1849 and '50, the temperature would range 

 in the warm days from 115° to 120°. On the north side of a large tree, 

 also in a wooden cabin covered with earth, a friend of the writer ob- 

 served the mercury at 110° and 112° during many of the days of 1850. 

 On the north side of a large two-story frame house, with but one other 

 house near, and that one several rods distant, the writer has observed the 

 mercury at 109°. But Dr. Haille at Marysville, by hanging his ther- 

 mometer in a draft of air in the back part of his office, where it was 

 shaded by high buildings around, succeeded in keeping the mercury down 

 to 102° during the summer of 1852. The sun rises clear in the east, rolls 

 up over the heads of the inhabitants, drying and scorching everything in 

 sight, and sinks into the west — " One unclouded blaze of living light." 

 And this is repeated day after day, and month after month. The hottest 

 time of day is about half-past five in the afternoon. The nights are 

 cool ; you need two or three blankets to sleep comfortably even in the 

 hottest part of the summer. A plate of butter set in a common wooden 

 house, will be perfectly liquid at night, and entirely hard in the morning, 

 and these changes will occur every twenty-four hours for months in suc- 

 cession. 



The change from the cold climate of the coast to the heat of the valley 

 is marvellous. You go on board a steamboat at San Francisco at four 

 o'clock in the afternoon, and find the passengers, all dressed in winter 

 clothing, flannels and overcoats, huddled around the stove in the cabin 

 with its hot anthracite fire. The next morning at sun-rise, you find 

 yourself going up the Sacramento river, and, as your state-room is insuf- 

 erably hot, you put on the thinnest summer clothing, and go out on the 

 guards of the boat, oppressed with the heat, and the perspiration starting 

 from your pores. 



There seems to be some doubt whether the great difference between the 

 climate of the coast and that of the interior, is to be wholly attributed to 

 the Coast Range. From Benicia this range trends inland, leaving quite 

 a broad tract between it and the sea. On the east side of the bay of San 

 Francisco, between the bay and the mountains, is a tract of level land, 



