USA > California > California of the South: Being a Complete Guide Book to Southern California > Part 3
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The central basin of the interior valley upon the west of the Rocky Mountains is in many respects the opposite of this. It belongs rather with the great arid uplands of the world. Only Central Asia has its counterpart.
Like the uplands of Asia north of the Himalayas, its rain-winds come to it wrung almost dry of their moisture by the high mountains which they must first cross. Then, too, the elevation, with its attendant rarefaction of atmos- phere, leads to a rapid evaporation which desiccates the soil and stints vegetable life. It is the basin of that West- ern system of inland seas, twin to the five Great Lakes of the Eastern upland, but which, unlike them, dried up with some far-reaching change of climate in the ages long past ; only wave-marks upon the desolate mountain-sides and the surf-worn pebbles of old beach-lines tell of the waters which once covered the broad plains-these, and the salt, and the alkali, and worn sea-shells blown in the drifting sands, and the whitened bones of old marine monsters, and the silence, and the desolation.
The basin of this old inland sea, or seas-for no doubt it was an irregular chain rather than one body-included much of Utah and Nevada, portions of Eastern Oregon and Southern Idaho, and possibly some small portion of Northwestern Arizona. The southern rim was probably
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that uplifted plateau through which, for four hundred miles, the waters of the Colorado force their way in the depths of the Grand Canon. The northern rim might have been some of the low ranges about the head-waters of the South Fork of the Columbia.
Upon the map its southern boundary would be lined by the thirty-sixth and its northern by the forty-third parallels of latitude. It is the portion of the inland plateau corre- sponding to the central climatic belt as described upon the Pacific coast.
This basin of the interior valley has an elevation above the sea of from four to five thousand feet. A portion of its area is now drained by the head-waters of the Colorado and its tributaries, a portion by the South Fork of the Columbia, and a portion has no outlet to the sea, but the waters of its streams are lost in the sands, or form shallow salty lakes, which maintain an unequal struggle with the rapid evaporation.
The southern slope of this interior valley includes Ari- zona and that portion of Southern California lying east of the Sierra. From an elevation of five or six thousand feet in the mountains of Northern Arizona it drops gradually to two or three thousand in the upland valleys of Central Ari- zona and upon the Mojave Desert, and down to the sea- level as it approaches the Gulf of California, passing even to several hundred feet below the sea in the basin of the Colorado Desert.
The Colorado River, which for four hundred miles had flowed through the Grand Canon at a depth of from four to five thousand feet below the plateau, now emerges upon the level of the open country, while the rivers from the mountains of Eastern Arizona make well-defined streams running through fertile alluvial valleys, which at intervals widen out into broad plains.
The salt and the alkali of the central basin grow less
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noticeable under the better drainage of well-defined river systems reaching the sea.
Climate.
The central basin and the southern slope of this West- ern interior plain of the continent may be best described climatically together, noting differences when found. In temperature the winters of the central basin and of the mountains of the southern slope are much like correspond- ing latitudes and elevations east of the Rocky Mountains- cold and harsh, with snows instead of rain. The winters of the plains of the southern slope are mild and pleasant. The summer temperature is high, often reaching 100° to 110° in the heat of the day, but with an atmosphere so dry that the heat is not oppressive. Spring and autumn give the perfection of an interior upland climate, especially in the settled weather of the southern slope. The spring months of this slope with the warm yet not hot days, and the gorgeous coloring of the strange desert plants as they burst into bloom, have a charm never to be forgotten by one who has lived the life of the plains.
The annual precipitation is from twelve to sixteen inches, in the central basin, and the mountains and plains of the southern slope, diminishing to four or five inches as the level of the Gulf is reached in Southwestern Ari- zona. The division into a wet and a dry season is not so clearly marked as upon the corresponding portion of the Pacific coast. There are two seasons of precipita- tion to each year, midwinter and midsummer, with threat- enings of rain and often light showers through the in- tervening months. It seems to be climatically a kind of battle-ground between the fixed wet and dry seasons of the coast and the all-the-year rains of the country east of the Rocky Mountains. It probably feels the effect of the edge of the Gulf-currents which may readily cross
2
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the low elevations of those mountains in this part of their course.
Ethnologically, it is by natural laws, like similar regions elsewhere in the world, the home of the nomad, where man becomes migratory in character, traveling with his flocks and herds in search of fresh food as the scanty herbage of one spot becomes exhausted.
Yet this Western interior valley of the continent has in it, especially upon that southern slope which includes Ari- zona and the region about the head-waters of the Gulf of California, infinite possibilities of development, and the ca- pacity for sustaining a large population, and a settled and well-ordered civilization. The traces of old irrigating canals, leading from the rivers out over the deep-soiled plains of Central Arizona, show that the land once had such a population. With the more skillfully planned irri- gating works of modern science, and the greater capital available, it will do this again, but on a much vaster scale.
The central basin, which includes Utah and a portion of Nevada, has less possibility of such development ; the cli- mate, owing to the greater elevation, is more rigorous ; the drying up of the old inland sea, and the defective surface- drainage, have left the soil much more strongly impregnat- ed with salt and alkali ; and the water-courses are small and often deeply sunk in canons below the level of the sur- rounding country. Agriculture here must be in isolated spots, with the broad stretches of desert between.
But upon the southern slope, that portion including Ari- zona and the regions about the Gulf, all this is changed. The climate, while hot in midsummer, is but little more so than in the basin farther north, while the winters are free from harshness. While the rainfall, like that of the cen- tral basin, is insufficient to mature crops at any season un- assisted by irrigation, yet the water-supply for irrigation is abundant and unfailing, and the great river-valleys, and
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the plains bordering them, lie in the best possible shape for irrigation.
Two great valleys will be the especial centers of the future development. The Colorado River, one of the six great rivers of North America, after draining the west slope of the Rocky Mountains through Wyoming and Colo- rado, and that portion of Utah east of the Wahsatch Range, emerges from the mouth of the Grand Canon as a broad, navigable river, to flow for four hundred and fifty miles more through a rich alluvial valley, before entering the head of the Gulf of California. At its lower end this val- ley broadens out and merges into a great alluvial plain of hundreds of square miles about the head of the gulf, and extending off into the Colorado Desert.
The land in this valley system which may be irrigated and made productive, probably amounts to several thou- sand square miles, and, for sugar-cane and other semi-tropic agricultural products, has probably no equal in North America. The river which is to water this region is at its flood with the melting of the Rocky Mountain snows in midsummer, when the needs of irrigation would be great- est. At the time of the summer floods the back-water from the river flows in a broad stream, called New River, at one point down the long slope into the Colorado Desert, which is here below the level of the sea, thus giving a small sec- tion of land a wetting for a few days. In the summer of 1868 the writer crossed this stream sixty miles back from the main river, and passed through fields of a species of wild hemp ten and twelve feet in height, the growth of the one flooding.
Sixty miles above the mouth of the Colorado, at Fort Yuma, it receives from the east as tributary the Gila River. This is also a broad but not navigable river, which, drain- ing the mountains of Eastern Arizona, and a portion of New Mexico, and like the Colorado having a midsummer
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flood, flows for three hundred miles directly westward across the middle of Arizona, having also a wide alluvial valley of the most fertile soil. From both north and south it receives tributaries which traverse similar long valleys, or rather from their extent to be spoken of as plains, which are of like fertility with the valley of the Gila. It is in these plains that the most extensive traces of the irrigat- ing canals of some prehistoric race are to be found.
Already large settlements have been made in the valley of the Gila and its tributaries, and extensive systems of ir- rigation have been planned and carried out. It is only a question of time when the valleys of the Colorado and the Gila, and their tributaries, will support a population of mill- ions, and rival the valley of the Nile in productive capaci- ty. Besides sugar-cane and cotton, which would no doubt do well, these valleys are the home of the wheat, corn, the melon, the vine, and the fig.
Besides these larger valleys, the mountains of Northern and Eastern Arizona are dotted with smaller valleys where from the elevation the rainfall is sufficient to produce crops of grain, and in which, and upon the adjacent uplands, are some of the richest grazing-lands of the West. This is al- ready becoming a noted cattle-country. While upon scouts in 1867-'68, the writer passed through many of these small- er valleys where the natural growth of grass was more luxuriant than in any Ohio valley meadow. The mount- ains were covered with a growth of pine, oak, and black walnut.
This southern slope of the western interior valley lies opposite the southern climatic belt upon the coast.
In healthfulness it ranks with the desert interiors of the world. Practically free from endemic diseases, except in some low and badly-drained valleys which have a cer- tain amount of malaria, its value for tuberculous affec- tions is only beginning to be appreciated.
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The central basin, with its harsher winter climate, while markedly salubrious in many respects, shows more of a tendency to the development of inflammatory affections of the lungs and air-passages.
THE SOUTHERN BELT.
At Point Conception, in latitude 34.30°, the Pacific coast, for the first time in its long course from Alaska southward, makes a decided change. Abandoning the general east-of-south direction, which it has held for two thousand miles, it now turns and bears off almost due east. Rounding the point, all at once the helm of the southward-bound steamer is put hard a-port, and, leaving behind her a foamy wake which is almost a segment of a circle, her prow turns toward the sunrise.
The writer vividly remembers, after all these years, his first trip down the coast, when it was, as yet, all new and strange to him. As we rounded the point at the light- house, and entered the Santa Barbara Channel, almost in a ship's length we had run out of the fog and had entered into the sunshine. The cold north wind, which had been whistling through the rigging and chasing us down the coast for three hundred miles, died away. The rough sea calmed to a glassy swell. And as we sailed on, hour after hour, over a summer sea, I realized that I had entered into that Southern California of which I had heard. What seemed to me then almost like the working of a magician's spell, is now, after these years of climatic investigation, no longer magic, but only the working out of natural laws.
With the change in the direction of the coast-line come other changes.
The Sierra, which, from Alaska south, follows the gen- eral trend of the coast, turns also from its northerly and southerly course, and now, as a great transverse range, runs directly eastward, walling in the country from the north,
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and then, turning southward again with a great curve, walls it in again upon the east.
The land which in Northern California faced off west- ward to the sea, now faces southward toward the sun.
The Kuro Siwo, which, from the Aleutian Islands south along the coast of Alaska, of British Columbia, of Wash- ington, of Oregon, and of Northern California, hugged the shore-line closely, is now shot clear of the land by the prominence of the cape, and with the sharp turn of the coast eastward never approaches the shore-line closely again.
This separation of the Alaskan current from the land is still further helped by the presence of a long chain of islands which, beginning with the Island of San Miguel, just south of Point Conception, follows the coast at a vary- ing distance of from twenty-five to fifty miles as far south as the Lower California line, and incloses a sheltered and comparatively shoal channel. Within this channel, instead of the cold waters of the northern current, is a slight return- current of warmer water flowing up the coast from the south.
With the change in the direction of the coast comes a change also in the character of the interior. The type of the central belt, as already shown, was a double mountain- range, the Sierra and the Coast, including between them, and almost entirely shut in from the sea, the Sacramento- San Joaquin plain, which contained the greater portion of the agricultural land of that belt.
The same general type is continued in Southern Cali- fornia, but with a marked modification. The Sierra still continues to wall in the country from that great arid upland which makes the heart of the continent, only changing its direction ; but on the other side the Coast Range no longer continues to shut it off so completely front the sea. This Coast Range begins to break down, and at times entirely
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disappears, leaving the whole interior more open to the sea. This interior plain in Southern California is made up of the long reach which includes the San Fernando Valley, the Pa- sadena country, the valley of the San Gabriel River, the Pomona and Ontario uplands, the valley of the Santa Ana River, in which lie Colton, the San Bernardino country, and Riverside, and then the long plains of the San Jacinto River southward. Unlike the inland plain of Northern California, it is very irregular in outline, branching out in many directions, and often merging, almost insensibly, into rolling upland mesas. This plain, with its irregular wind- ings, is about two hundred miles in length, with a width varying from fifteen to thirty miles. It is smaller than the corresponding interior valley of Northern California, but the reverse is the case with regard to the coast plain. In- stead of the narrow rim which makes the ocean frontage outside of the Coast Range in the northern portion of the State, in Southern California an extensive plain faces the sea, having a length of about a hundred and fifty miles, and a depth varying from fifteen to twenty-five miles. This does not include the long valley of the Santa Clara and San Buenaventura Rivers, which fronts on the ocean for some thirty miles, with a depth of about seventy-five, nor the Santa Barbara plains. Between this coast plain and the long interior valley, the Coast Range of mountains, in- stead of the continuous chain which it presents in Northern California, is broken, and, opposite the Los Angeles plains, for a space entirely disappears. The whole country-in- terior valley system as well as coast plains-becomes thus a great open coast-land facing the south, and with the high Sierra for a background.
The area of the plains of Southern California is really largely increased over their apparent size by the rolling, hilly uplands into which, in many directions, they merge. This is especially the case in the country which lies be-
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tween the San Fernando Valley and the lower Santa Clara Valley, and also in the great upland which rises from San Jacinto toward the south in San Diego County. These up- lands have a rich, deep soil, and are well watered by numerous small streams.
The Sierra, which, north of the so-called Mojave Des- ert, makes a great curve westward around the south end of the San Joaquin plain of the central belt, turns southward again opposite Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties, and, doubling back upon its course, walls in the west end of the desert, then, turning directly eastward, separates the desert from the Los Angeles and San Bernardino plains. Turning south ward again it stands as a wall between the Colorado Desert and that portion of Southern California lying west of its base. The range varies in height from five to seven thousand feet, with peaks reaching from eight to eleven thousand feet. While maintaining this great elevation it yet develops one feature which it does not possess opposite the central belt. It breaks down at several points into low passes between the coast and the interior of the continent. The pass by which the Central Pacific, on its way eastward from San Francisco crosses the Sierra is, as before given, 7,017 feet in elevation. Yet the Soledad Pass by which the Southern Pacific crosses the Sierra in Southern California is only 2,822 feet ; the Cajon Pass by which the Atchison and Topeka enters is about the same height ; and the San Gorgonio Pass, by which the Southern Pacific crosses on the road to Galveston and New Orleans, is only 2,560 feet above the sea. There are nu- merous other comparatively low passes through the Sierra at the west end of the Mojave Desert, leading toward the sea in Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties, and also through the range south of San Gorgonio. These passes through the southern Sierra have a marked influence, not only upon the climate of the coast portions of Southern
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California, but also upon that of the deserts lying at the east base of the Sierra. Their influence upon the future trade development of the coast will be noted under a differ- ent heading.
The Mojave Desert, lying beyond those passes which open northward, has an area of several thousand square miles, with an elevation above the sea of some two thousand feet. The Colorado Desert, which lies opposite the passes leading eastward, is somewhat less in area, and has a por- tion of its surface three hundred and fifty feet below the level of the sea.
The channel islands are eight in number, stretching along the coast for a hundred and fifty miles. Six of these are of considerable size, varying from twelve to twenty-five miles in length and from five to ten miles in width.
Rainfall.
The division of the year into a wet and a dry season is found in the central Pacific belt, and applies also to the southern belt. The counter-trades of the North Pacific coast, following the sun south ward in the autumn, reach the coast of Southern California shortly after the rains have begun in the northern portion of the State.
The first rain may come anywhere from the middle of October until the middle of November. A south wind comes in from the sea ; clouds bank up along the southern horizon, and then about the mountain-tops, and broken, rainy weather, lasting for several days, follows, during which time the precipitation amounts to from two to three inches.
This first rain may also give snow in the mountains, but not always, nor to any great depth.
After three or four weeks of clear, pleasant weather, comes another rain, much like the first, and this time gen-
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erally with a decided snowfall in the mountains, as the tem- perature is now showing the winter coolness.
These rains wash the atmosphere clear of haze and dust, and it now begins to display the remarkable transparency for which the winters of Southern California are . noted. Mountains a hundred miles away seem only distant a morn- ing's ride.
With the coming of the rains the land begins to turn green after the repose of the rainless summer, and soon hills and plains are covered with the richest verdure. There is a peculiar, and, to eye of the writer, exceedingly pleasant shade to the green of the annual vegetation of the Pacific coast. Without professing to be an expert in the descrip- tion of color, he would speak of it as a mingling of yellow, producing a light yellow-green rather than the darker blue- greens of vegetation upon the Atlantic coast.
About the latter part of December may be expected one of the heavy winter storms. Setting in with a strong south wind from the sea, rain begins to fall, and for a week or ten days more or less constant cloudiness, with rain a portion of each twenty-four hours, will be the rule. The rainfall is apt to be limited to the afternoon and night, leaving the morning free. This storm may give from six to eight inches of rain. In the mountains it is precipitated in the form of heavy snow, the tall peaks and the continuous range being clad in white from the highest crest almost to the level of the open plain.
January is generally a month of clear skies. To many persons this is the pleasantest portion of the year. An atmosphere absolutely freed from all impurities, cool, and yet free from all harshness, so that it comes to the lungs like the exhilaration of the purest ether ; a warm sun flood- ing from morning to night plains that have the green of the early spring of other lands ; nights cool enough for a light frost on the lowlands ; and the mountains, as far as the eye
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can reach, a great uplifted bank of the purest white. The writer remembers yet, after twenty years, his first glimpse of the land as he lay, all one long, sunny, January morning, on the steamer at the San Pedro anchorage.
In February another storm, like that of December, may be expected ; then scattering rains, of two or three days' duration, at intervals of several weeks, through March and April, and the rainy season is over.
A mistaken impression prevails, and especially among the people of Northern California (who seem to be more ignorant of the climatology of Southern California than the people of the East), as to the amount of rainfall in Southern California, and the reason for the mistake is very apparent. The general law of the rainfall over the coast is of a stead- ily diminishing precipitation as one goes southward. Thus, the rainfall at Sitka is 110 inches per annum ; at Portland, Oregon, 53 inches ; at San Francisco, 24 inches ; at Visalia, 10.46 inches. The natural inference would be that, as Southern California lies still farther south, the rainfall would be proportionately still less.
But now comes in play the working of another law, to which allusion was made in speaking of certain valleys in Northern California which face fairly toward the south- the increased rainfall which results from a direct southern exposure with a high background. The coast of Northern California, with its direction of slightly east of south, faces at an acute angle toward the winter rain-current, and only receives a portion of its force, while its mountain-ranges, with the same general trend, receive the current at a slant. The full force of the rain-current is thus only partly re- ceived by Northern California, while the mountains act only imperfectly as condensers.
As an illustration of the working of the law may be given the valleys about the Bay of San Francisco. Thus, Sonoma Valley, facing the south, receives a rainfall nearly
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one half greater than Santa Clara Valley, only a few miles across the bay which faces toward the north. The work- ing of the same law is seen in the excessive rainfall about Shasta, at the northern end of the Sacramento Valley.
It is the working of this second law which, in Southern California, brings the rainfall up again to the average of places much farther north. The average of the rainfalls at Los Angeles, running through a series of years, varies but little from that of Sacramento, and yet they are separated by four hundred miles in the north and south line ; while Visalia, lying midway between, has, under the working of the general coast law, a rainfall of but little more than half as much.
In Southern California, owing to the sharp turn east- ward made by the coast and the mountains, the whole country faces at a right angle to the winter rain-currents from the south, while the broad coast plain upon the sea, and the breaking down of the Coast Range as before de- scribed, admit the full sweep of the storm. Then comes the high Sierra, which makes the background of the coun- try, standing like a huge wall directly across the line of the rain-current to condense and wring out of it the fullest amount of moisture before it scales the rugged heights, and passes on to the inland plateau.
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