USA > California > California of the South: Being a Complete Guide Book to Southern California > Part 2
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The rains of the plains and valleys are accompanied by snows in the mountains, snow accumulating to a depth of many feet in the high Sierra, and to a less depth in the lower Coast Ranges. This snow forms the great storehouse of moisture for the summer streams, slowly melting and filling the various rivers during the rainless summer. Thun- der and lightning are almost unknown. During the sum- mer what is known as the Sonora summer rain-current oc- casionally follows up the long chain of the Sierra, giving showers, with thunder and lightning, in the mountains, and at intervals of a few years even in the valleys. This cur- rent may at times last for a week, and during its con- tinuance the weather becomes somewhat sultry, like that of the Atlantic States, but with the sea-breeze, although for the time blowing with less force, to modify and tem- per it.
The summer along the whole sea-coast is marked by night-fogs, which set in after the spring rains check, and cease before the rains of the autumn begin. These fogs lift in the early forenoon, and by their humidity and fresh- ness help to make the day cool and refreshing. The heat of the summer is not felt along the coast within reach of the sea-breeze-a midday temperature of from 65° to 80° being the rule, varying with localities. Back from the coast, in the interior valleys, where the fog does not pene- trate, the midday temperature may, in exceptional cases,
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CLIMATOLOGY.
during a hot spell, reach 90° or 100°, or even 105°, but it is a dry heat, without the discomfort or the danger attending a like temperature in the Atlantic or Mississippi States. These hot spells, as they are called, may occur several times during the course of the summer, generally lasting for three days, when the mercury drops, and the normal coolness returns. Even during these hot spells, however, the night is generally marked by a rapid fall in tempera- ture, so that sleep is restful and refreshing.
While the summer is marked by the regularity of the daily sea and land breezes, the cyclones and great wind- storms of the Atlantic and Mississippi regions are here unknown.
Another and very marked feature of the Pacific slope, as contrasted with the Atlantic, is the great variety of cli- mates found within comparatively limited areas. This va- riety arises largely from the difference in the mountain de- velopment upon the two sides of the continent. Upon the Atlantic slope, as already described, the one system follows parallel with the coast, but at a distance of several hundred miles inland, and is of moderate elevation, ranging only from two to three thousand feet, while no spur-ranges reach out to the coast, and no coast-range rises between the broad coast-plain and the sea. Upon the Pacific slope the main chain of the high Sierra also follows parallel with the coast, at a distance somewhat less, however, ranging from sixty to two hundred miles from it. But instead of an elevation of only two or three thousand feet, it rises to from eight to fourteen thousand feet above the sea. Again, instead of the open coast-plain, as upon the Atlantic side, comes a second line of mountains, the Coast Range, parallel with the coast, and close to it. These two ranges, also, at several points in their long line coalesce, and merge into great, broken, upland mountain-plateaus and Alpine regions. The resulting difference in the cli-
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mate of the two coasts is very marked. While upon the Atlantic side the sufferer from the summer heat, or the invalid, must undertake a journey of many hundred miles to find even a moderately cool mountain air, upon the Pa- cific coast, if a resident of the warmer interior valleys, and not desiring to seek the sea-side, within his sight are mount- ains where he may find any temperature ranging from re- freshing coolness to night-frosts or perpetual snows. So, too, in the Coast Range, are varieties of climates such as one would seek in vain upon the Atlantic slope. While upon the ocean-side of the range are great forests where the giant redwood is bathed nightly in the dense, cool fog which seems to be essential to its growth, just across the summit are warm mountain-slopes facing off toward the morning sun, their rolling hills green to the very crest with the olive and the vine ; and yet from their sheltered warmth one may pass on for a few miles to some pass or gap in the range that is swept during all the summer months by the great, cool ocean-wind as it rushes through to the heated interior.
Thus, there is scarcely a point in California where one within a few hours by rail has not his choice of a climate, varying from the heat of the Atlantic or Mississippi mid- summer to the coolness of the White Mountains, or the perpetual snows of the higher Alps ; his choice from a hot, dry air, as of the highlands of Arabia, to fogs and coolness, as of the west coast of Scotland ; his choice from a stillness, as of the calm of the "hollow lotus-land," where no harsh winds blow, to other points swept by ocean-winds which for months pour inland with the rush and the roar of a great aerial river. It is this infinite variety, lying back of the typical equability, which gives to the Pacific slope cli- mate its strongest charm, and which makes it suit so in- finite a variety of constitutions and diseases.
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CLIMATOLOGY.
Topographical and Climatic Features in which the Different Portions of the Pacific Coast are unlike.
A stranger might infer, from the foregoing, that one common climate, with little variation, existed over the whole Pacific coast. This is not the case, however. Upon the coast-line three distinct types exist, while a fourth is found back of the Sierra on the great inland plain. And these climatic differences are sufficient to make radical differences in agriculture, in commercial laws, in civil divisions, in health and disease, and in race development.
These climatic belts may be classified into-
1. The northern, which includes the upper coast from the great transverse coalescing of mountains near the upper line of California northward. In this division lie Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and the immediate coast- rim of Alaska, and the long chain of islands which lines the coast.
2. The central, which includes California as far south as the eastward turn of the coast at Point Conception. Near this point transverse chains of high mountains sepa- rate the State into two distinct topographical and climatic divisions.
3. The southern, which embraces what is distinctively known as Southern California, and includes that portion of the State lying south of the transverse chains of mountains just mentioned.
4. The great inland plateau, lying between the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky ranges, and reaching from the Gulf of California on the south to the Polar Sea on the north as a continuous open plain, unbroken by any transverse chain of mountains.
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THE NORTHERN BELT.
The first of these belts, that from Oregon northward, has three physical features, which are the key to the cli-
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mate, viz .: the disappearance of the Coast Range which is found farther south, and the drawing near to the coast of the northern extension of the Sierra Nevada, which as a continuous, but here somewhat broken, and rather low range, follows near to the coast, and separates it from the inland plateau ; a shore-line closely hugged by the south- ward flow of the return-current of the Kuro Siwo-an all- the-year on-shore wind-current of the moist counter-trades.
The result is a climate which, while showing somewhat of the extremes of the high latitude, is yet tempered win- ter and summer by the constant inflow of the counter- trades, an air-current rendered equable by the mild ocean- waters over which it passes before reaching the land ; yet, because of the lower and broken character of the range back, this coast climate receives through contiguity, and through irregular wind-currents from the land, somewhat of the harshness of the inland plateau which is in its north- ern part a frozen polar plain.
This portion of the Pacific coast resembles in a marked degree, physically and climatically, yet in a more temperate type, the west coast of Northern Europe, from and includ- ing the British Islands, and north through Sweden and Norway. This belt is marked also by an excess of moist- ure. Thus the annual precipitation at Sitka is one hundred and ten inches ; at Portland, Oregon, fifty-three inches.
The all-the-year on-shore current of the counter-trades is, winter and summer, a rain-current. While precipitation is heavier in certain months of the year, still no month is without its regular rains, its fogs and clouds. In the ex- treme north, or in the mountains farther south, this precipi- tation is of course during the winter months, more or less, in the form of snow. While the portion of this belt north of Oregon is not marked by a deep soil, the abundance of moisture, and the always moderate temperature, stimulate a vigorous life of the hardier classes of vegetation, and hills
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CLIMATOLOGY.
and valleys are covered by a dense growth of forest, made up chiefly of fir and pine.
This is especially the timber-belt of the Pacific coast, and is the great source of supply for lumber, which is shipped by sea to the various points of demand. South- ward, the timber-belt tends to retreat from the valleys into the higher mountains to secure the requisite coolness and moisture, except what is known as the redwood belt, which extends along the immediate shore-line as far south as mid- way on the California coast.
This northern belt is the one also rich in coal and iron, both of which grow scant in quantity, and the coal poor in quality, farther south. The abundance of timber, coal, and iron marks this belt as the future manufacturing portion of the coast.
Its low mountain-passes, easy grades across the conti- nent, and abundance of good harbors, mark it also as one of the natural routes for transcontinental traffic. Already Puget Sound and the mouth of the Columbia are becoming terminal points for such trade.
Agriculturally, it is the belt of grasses, of rye, of oats, and of northern grains and fruits, and in its southern por- tion of the wheat-plant, the potato, and the apple. The an- nual temperature is too low for corn.
Its seas, like those of the west coast of Northern Europe, abound in fish of the most valuable kinds for food, such as the cod, the mackerel, and the salmon. Its fisheries are already of vast commercial value.
For healthfulness it ranks with the west coast of Europe ; free from malaria, having the rheumatisms, the pneumonias, and the catarrhs of the north-a climate healthful for moderately robust constitutions ; because of its continued dampness, and its low but not excessively cold temperature, not to be selected as the resort of deli- cate persons, of invalids, of consumptives ; the future home
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of a hardy, prosperous, sea-faring, fisher, agricultural, and manufacturing folk, having the substantial elements for the building up of a strong, vigorous civilization.
THE CENTRAL BELT.
This belt, as before stated, includes California as far south as a line drawn from that prominent headland of the coast known as Point Conception, in a northeasterly direction to the mountains at the south end of the San Joaquin plain, thence following the curve of the Sierra as it turns northward, and on to Mount Shasta and the Oregon line.
This belt presents, as its topographical characteristics, an extensive interior valley-the Sacramento-San Joaquin -in elevation but little above the sea-level, having its length from north to south, and shut in upon all sides by mountain-chains except one narrow outlet to the sea. Upon the eastern side of this valley a lofty and continuous range, the high Sierra, shuts it off, and isolates it from the interior of the continent. Upon the west a lower chain of mount- ains, the Coast Range, walls it in from the ocean-this range splitting into two in the mid-California region, and inclosing between them San Francisco Bay and a series of smaller inner coast valleys. Upon the north and the south this Coast Range coalesces with the Sierra, thus shutting in the great interior valley of the Sacramento-San Joaquin from the northern and the southern belts.
Upon the ocean-side of the Coast Range are numerous small coast valleys, each generally drained by a short water- course having a rapid fall to the sea.
The mountain development makes the central belt the most isolated and difficult of access of the three Pacific coast divisions. Upon the north are the heavy grades and the rugged mountains about Shasta. Upon the south the crests of the Tehachapi, crossed by the Southern Pacific at an ele-
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CLIMATOLOGY.
vation of 4,025 feet ; while east of it and between it and the great interior of the continent runs the full length of the highest portion of the snow-clad Sierra with but few passes. The Central Pacific crosses this range on its way eastward at an elevation of 6,749 feet.
The Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley, which forms the greater mass of the agricultural land of this belt, is some four hundred and fifty miles in length by from seventy-five to one hundred miles in width. It is a level, untimbered plain, except in the foot-hills, with an elevation but little above the sea. The flat character of the plain, and the narrow outlet to the sea, make the river portions of the val- ley subject to severe floods in the winter.
Shut in from the sea-breeze by the Coast Range, the extremes of both heat and cold are much more marked than upon other portions of the California slope of the Sierra.
Thus, the mean average temperature of Sacramento for January is 46.6°; for July, 71.2°: at Visalia, January, 48.1°; July, 80.8°: at Los Angeles, January, 53-9º; July 70.2°: at San Diego, January, 55°; July, 68.4°.
The winter rain-currents, being from the south, have to cross the Coast Range of mountains to reach the San Joaquin portion of the valley, and in crossing are robbed of much of their moisture, giving at Visalia an annual rainfall of . only 10-46 inches. The central and northern portions of the valley receiving the current which enters from the sea by · the lower gaps about San Francisco Bay, have a much larger rainfall ; thus, Sacramento reaches an annual aver- age of 18, while the northern portions range much higher, Red Bluff having 36.39 inches.
As a result, while the rainfall in the north is sufficient to insure constancy to agricultural returns, in the San Joa- quin plain, and especially in its southern portion, the re- turns are much less certain. It is only a question of time, however, when this whole valley will be made to support
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a dense population. The high Sierra back of it, with its peaks ranging from ten to fourteen thousand feet in eleva- tion, its heavy winter snows, and its great water-shed, fur- nishes a summer flow of water which, when once fully util- ized, will probably be sufficient to irrigate the whole plain. It is in this future development of irrigation, rather than in mines or commerce, that the true wealth of the central belt lies. Already extensive irrigation-works are in operation, but the need is for a comprehensive system under some general plan and with proper supervision.
Between this valley of the Sacramento-San Joaquin and the ocean lies the broken and irregular Coast Range of mountains, with its rolling hills, and its many smaller val- leys, notably the valley of the San Francisco Bay and its branches. These valleys are, as compared with the great interior Sacramento-San Joaquin basin, small in area yet marked by a high degree of fertility. They possess a more equable climate and a more reliable rainfall, which in the valleys facing south is sufficient, in the driest years, to ma- ture grain-in the valleys facing the north, less certain. The low elevation of the Coast Range, and the absence of accumulated snow, make the streams of these valleys small and unreliable, so that extensive irrigation is not possible. In many of them artesian wells help to supply the lack, and are utilized for watering orchards and gardens.
The central belt, as a whole, is marked by certain char- acteristics peculiar to itself, as contrasted with the north- ern or the southern. Lying south of the line of the moist, on-shore, summer counter-trades, it has an upper and con- trolling summer current, the continuous off-shore north- east trade-wind, blowing down from the arid plateaus of the interior of the continent. It is this current which gives to the central belt the rainless summer, and the dry, clear atmosphere for which it is noted. The excessive dryness makes the air seem, to one unaccustomed to it, even harsh.
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CLIMATOLOGY.
In this respect it is unlike either the northern or the south- ern belt.
The shore-line, which keeps the general east-of-south trend of the northern belt, is still closely hugged by the return-current of the Kuro Siwo. This current, still retain- ing the coolness of the Alaskan seas, is now in summer of a lower temperature than the land. The heating of the in- terior valleys gives rise, during the after part of each sum- mer day, to a strong, surface-current sea-breeze which, as the temperature of the land drops toward night, bears in a. heavy fog that envelops the shore-line and the valleys ad- jacent to the sea. This wind, with its attendant fog, is especially marked wherever a gap is found in the Coast Range, giving easier access to the heated interior. It is the coolness, and the nightly moisture of these summer fogs, which draw the forest-line well down the coast in Northern California. To persons of delicate constitution, those who do not make blood and bodily heat rapidly, these keen sea-breezes and the chill fog are very trying.
From the long plains of the Sacramento-San Joaquin come at times, more especially during the late summer and the autumn, hot, dry winds which are not found in either the northern or the southern belt. In the same way during the winter, cold, dry winds sweep from the now chilled sur- face of these plains, giving to the central belt the norther.
Climatically, then, the central belt shows less moisture than the northern, an absence of summer rains, a dry, stimu- lating summer air, often marked by excessive heat-with, however, a cool, foggy coast.
Agriculturally, it is the home of the wheat, the barley, but not, except in certain warmer portions, of the corn ; it grows the apple, the pear, the plum, the peach, the cherry, the currant, and with these the fig of Southern Europe.
In a few sheltered spots in the foot-hills the orange and lemon have been grown for many years, but not in sufficient
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SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.
quantities to become an article of much sale in the markets. The vine finds a congenial home in all the interior, and through the coast counties, except in some of the more ex- posed localities. All the vegetables of the temperate zone are found. Herbage is annual, having its season of growth during the winter, drying up in the summer. It is a rich, fertile land, comparing with Central and Western France, but with less severe cold during the winter. It will be made to support a dense population, rather by agriculture than by manufactures or commerce.
Commercially, the central belt is less fortunately located than either the northern or the southern. It has back of it the longest lines of land-carriage across the continent, the distance from San Francisco to New York being in-the direct line twenty-five hundred miles, while from Puget Sound to ship navigation on the lakes is only fifteen hundred miles, and from Los Angeles or San Diego to tide-water on the Gulf of Mexico is only thirteen hundred miles. It has also back of it the highest grades and the heaviest snows of all the various transcontinental lines, for both the Sierra and the Rocky Mountains are highest in their central part. The Northern Pacific crosses the Cascade Range at an elevation of 3,980 feet, the Rocky Mountains at 5,873 feet. The Central and Union Pacific line from San Fran- cisco crosses the Sierra at an elevation of 7,017 feet, and the Rocky Mountains at some 8,242 feet. Yet the Southern Pacific line from Los Angeles to the Gulf crosses the Sierra at an elevation of only 2,560 feet, and the Rocky Mountain chain at 4,614 feet, and is practically south of the snow- line.
The commercial supremacy which San Francisco, as the metropolis of the central belt, secured in the early days through the first rush of population to the mines of that region, is already passing away, the northern and notably the southern belts having developed trade-centers of their
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CLIMATOLOGY.
own, and having now the commercial advantages which come of shorter lines, lower grades, and lighter snows, and also of productive interior routes across the continent, the central belt having behind it the most arid and barren por- tion of the great inland plateau.
In healthfulness, this central belt ranks, as in climate, with Central France, but having many advantages arising from the milder winter and the dry summer. It will be the home of a healthy, vigorous race ; yet to the invalid its coast winds have a harshness which is keenly felt.
For certain seasons, there are localities in the foot-hills of both the Coast Range and the Sierra which could hardly be bettered. The interior valleys show some malaria, cer- tain portions decidedly so. Shut off as they are from the force of the ocean-winds, the effect of the extensive irriga- tion, which is becoming a necessity, upon the development of malaria, is an open question. The coast and the coast valleys are almost entirely free from it. Apart from these sections which develop malaria, there can scarcely be said to be endemic diseases. The keen winds of the coast bring with them somewhat of neuralgias, subacute rheumatism, catarrhs, and some pneumonia, pleurisy, and bronchitis. The interior is quite free from them.
THE INTERIOR BELT OR PLATEAU.
Geographically and climatically, the Rocky Mountain range is ordinarily spoken of as the dividing line or ridge of the continent. There are reasons why it should be so considered. Under the name of the Andes in South Amer- ica, the Sierra Madre in Mexico, and the Rocky Mountains in North America, it is the one continuous range which reaches from extremity to extremity of the continent in a practically unbroken chain.
East of it, all drainage is into the Atlantic and its con- necting waters ; west of it, into the Pacific and its connect-
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ing waters. At its east and west bases lie two great inte- rior valleys.
They present some striking analogies. Each is sepa- rated from the ocean by a double coast system of mountains -the Eastern by the Alleghanies and the Blue Ridge, the Western by the Sierra and the Coast Range.
Each extends upon the north and the south to the wa- ters of the sea, with no well-marked transverse range of mountains to break the long sweep of the ocean-winds. Each also subdivides its water-shed into three distinct por- tions, an upland central basin and two sloping plains facing respectively northward and southward to the sea. Each drains its southern plain by a great southward-flowing river, and each of these enters the ocean, not directly, but through a connecting gulf-the Mississippi by the Gulf of Mexico, the Colorado by the Gulf of California. Each has, or has had, in its central basin a great system of inland seas, and each drains its central basin by a large transverse river entering the ocean directly-the Eastern by the St. Lawrence, the Western by the Columbia. Each has upon the extreme north another great river draining its northern slope-the Eastern valley having the Mackenzie, the West- ern the Yukon ; and here also, despite an apparent break in the analogy, it still in reality holds true, for while the Mackenzie empties into the Atlantic indirectly by the line of the Polar Sea, and the Yukon apparently directly into the Pacific in that portion called the Behring Sea, yet in reality this sea, from its walling off by the long chain of the Aleutians, and by the Arctic change which comes to its shores north of these islands, belongs climatically with the polar rather than with the Pacific waters.
Both northern slopes are much alike. Each lies open to the cold polar winds. Each has a harsh, inhospitable cli- mate. Each has a moderate rainfall. And each is but little known.
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CLIMATOLOGY.
These are the analogies. They are largely geographical and topographical. Now begin the divergencies. They are largely climatic. The central basin and the southern slope of the interior valley lying at the east base of the Rocky Mountains belong with the great, well-watered, fer- tile river-valley systems of the world. Of such is the val- ley of the Amazon, of the Rio de la Plata, of the Congo, of the Ganges, of the Yang-tse-Kiang. They are, by the mere working of climatic laws, the natural home of a non- migrating population, and the seat of a fixed and settled civilization.
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