USA > California > Tulare County > History of Tulare County, California with biographical sketches > Part 29
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Rains are common in all the mountains of southern Califor- nia during the summer months, with a moist, eloudy air in the valleys. Three seasons in eleven years I have seen heavy rains of several hours' duration, extending all over the valleys, in July and August. During these months of every year thunder-storms with often vivid lightning can be seen, some- times daily, following along the line of the mountain chains. These summer rains help in a measure to keep up the volume of water in the rivers for irrigation, while all over the valleys the moist air which the rain-current brings is instrumental in mate- rially cheeking evaporation. The summer has little of the harsh dryness of the climate in the northern part of the State. The humidity of the atmosphere is shown by the great fleecy eumuli, which float slowly across the sky like the summer clouds of the Eastern States, and by a peculiar softness of air resembling much the balmy mildness of the Mediterranean.
CLIMATE FOR CORN, VINE, AND ORANGE.
This soft, moist air admits of the raising of one product not elsewhere extensively cultivated in California. Here, as in the Mississippi States, corn is the staple erop, its broad, green
146
GREAT VARIETY OF CLIMATE IN CALIFORNIA.
leaves luxuriating in the warm air in which it delights. So the rank growth, and the rich, juiey green of the orange and the fig leaves, show the mildness and humidity of a climate which to them is home.
The drainage from the water-shed of the Sierra, which stands as a huge background to the whole system of valleys, affords an unusually abundant supply of water for the purposes of agriculture. Over much of the land a double crop is raised- small grain without irrigation in winter, corn by irrigation in summer. The eienegas are also a peculiar feature of these valleys. The under-ground flow from the Sierra here and there comes to the surface, making stretches for miles of moist land, green with grass in the driest part of the summer.
NATURAL WATER RESERVOIRS.
The broken, hilly Coast Range, lying at the verge of an up- land plain between the Sierra and the sea, affords innumera- ble natural sites for extensive reservoirs for the storage of the winter floods, thus saving the winter water for summer irriga- tion. Many small reservoirs have been built upon this upland plain and in the hills. These southern valleys are by far the best watered portion of California, while the extensive use of water for irrigation is reaeting upon the elimate, making it still more humid.
The peculiarity of the physical character of the country which has been described. the praetieal obliteration of the Coast Range, and the facing of the high Sierra directly out toward the ocean, gives rise to one type of elimate not elsewhere found in the State. It is not the climate of the Coast Range; neither is it the elimate of the Sierra. It is a climate produced by giving the daily sea-breeze of the Coast Range to the Sierra. It is a climate which can hardly be described. The peculiar eharm of it must be felt to be understood.
WARM FOOT-HILL CLIMATE.
Along the base of the Sierra back of Pasadena, on east- ward back of San Gabriel, past Cucamonga, with its noted vineyards, above Pomona and on beyond San Bernardino, growing warmer as it recedes eastward from the sea, is a belt of foot-hills above the fog line, facing out toward the noonday sun, looking down across the plains, and the hills of the Coast Range, upon the warm southern sea, and yet fanned daily by an ocean-breeze that has no harshness. The Southern Pacific · Railroad, upon its way to Arizona, skirts the foot of this belt for 100 niles.
This, however, is only one of a number of climates developed. There are local peculiarities which one would not suspeet until after actual residenee. Along certain lines lie what might be termed wind-belts. These are eaused by the breaks in the Coast Range of hills. The night fogs also are more apt to fol- low certain well-defined courses; and in the winter frost has its sections of preference, while other portions of the country eseape entirely.
ANY CLIMATE OBTAINED EASILY.
There is a varied choice of elimates within a comparatively limited area. Within a few hours by rail one may have the fresh air of the sea-side, with surf-bathing and a temperature always cool, even in the warmest days of summer ; or, passing inland, the wheat-fields of San Fernando Valley, resembling somewhat the elimate of the great interior valley of the San Joaquin; then the warmer raisin lands of Pomona and River- side; the long, fogless belt of the Sierra foot-hills; and beyond, the alfalfa lands of San Bernardino.
And still beyond, 100 miles inland, over the open valley from Los Angeles, is the San Gorgonio Pass, land-marked from the Colorado to the sea by the twin peaks, San Jacinto and San Bernardino, with snowy erests rising 10,000 and 11,500 feet above the plain. Here the Sierra breaks down, forming the only natural pass in all its long chain, the grassy plain, with- out even a dividing erest, swelling and rolling through at an ele- vation of only 2,900 feet, a natural gateway for the southern trans-continental roads upon their way to the East. Beyond, is the great mystery of the rainless desert.
SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY CLIMATE.
A traveler, on learning that the San Joaquin Valley is not in the snow zone, naturally looks about for the cause of such remarkable mildness of elimate at that latitude. He sees on the west the Coast Range, a spur of a mountain system with an altitude from 3,000 to 5,000 feet; on the east the Nevadas from 6,000 to 9,000 feet high. There is thus formed a natural barrier, shutting out much of the cold northers, and inelosing a body of measurably isolated air tending to hold an even temperature. But the great chief cause of our year-long sum- mer, is that portion of the Japan eurrent turned towards the coast, and skirting it from Vietoria to Central America.
With a temperature thus equalized, and an atmosphere thus daily refreshed, the valley of the San Joaquin possesses a elimate eminently eondueive to both the comfort and the health of man. The elimate of California has been not inappropri- ately compared to that of Italy in the equability and agreea- bleness of its temperature. No equally extensive seetion of the State possesses in so eminent a degree those desirable climatie characteristies which justify this favorable compari- son, as does the valley of the San Joaquin.
INFLUENCE OF TRADE-WINDS.
As we leave the ocean and go inland, the influence of the trade-winds deercases, and the heat of summer and the cold of winter inereases. The sea-breezes make the winters warmer, and the summers cooler. The ocean-breezes seem to lose their influence over the winter at twenty miles from the ocean, but their influence over the summer weather extends much further inland.
MOUNT WHITNEY. FROM SKETCH BY WALES.
TALIAFerro
ELLIDT + 111. 421 MONT.5
GEN. WASHINGTON 412 FEET DIAMETER. 276 FEET TO BROKEN PART.
PHOTO BY DUSY
ELLIDIT LITH. +2/MONT.ST.
147
THE CAUSE AND EFFECT OF NORTH WINDS.
EFFECT OF THE HOT VALLEYS.
Another effect of the sandy plains is to create a daily sca- breeze from the southwest return trade-winds that prevail on the coast as surface winds during the summer months. Each day, after the sun rises over these great plains, they become heated and increase the temperature of the air over their sur- facc; this air rises, and as the whole current of cool air is from the ocean on the west, it rushes in to fill the vacancy.
A gentle southwest wind may be blowing on the coast at night or in the morning ; by eleven or twelve o'clock the full force of the sun's rays is felt-the gentle breeze has increased to a brisk wind, and continues until evening. After the setting sun has withdrawn his rays and the sandy plains have radiated its heat into space, the gentle southwest wind resumes its sway until the next day, when, from the same cause, the high wind is again repeated.
CAUSE OF HOT NORTH WINDS.
The cause of those hot desiccating north winds, says Redding, which occasionally sweep over the valley in the summer- time, have not been generally understood. They are caused by the fact that the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains reach the coast of Alaska, and bend like a great arm around its western and southern shore, thus shutting off or deflecting the polar winds that otherwise would flow down over Oregon and California.
As it comes south it is heated by coming into warmer lati- tudes, its capacity to take up moisture is increased, but it finds none in its course. The Cascades, which are a continuation of the Sierra Nevada, direct it into the Sacramento Valley, where it meets still greater heat, which the more increases its capacity for moisture. It therefore possesses all the desiccating qualities for which it has become famous.
This dry air as it passes over the dry hot surface of the plains is unable to obtain moisture, as is the case when north winds blow in the rainy season. Winter north winds are, by being charged with moisture, cool enough to suit the most exacting demand.
The theory that these winds come from Arizona is not ten- able, as the mountain formation precludes such a movement without extraordinary forces in the case, a condition for which there is no known reason.
EFFECT OF NORTH WINDS.
A highly important feature in the climatology of this region is the north wind. During the spring and fall months these winds blow at intervals more or less frequent. As few as twelve days of north wind have occurred during a spring season and as many as forty. In a large number of instances a wind from the north does not cease under three days, though they sometimes last during a single day only, and much oftener extend during a week, rarely several weeks.
The north winds are remarkable for an extremely low humidity, or moisture, reaching often as low as eighteen. Duri ing their prevalence there is a general feeling of depression in the animal spirits, and plants suffer largely. Growth of vege- tation is retarded, and fruits and grain sufler in form and sub- stance, wheat just coming into the milk state being especially injured. The exceeding dryness of these winds is readily accounted for by well-known atmospheric conditions. That portion of the upper current which descends to the earth at very high latitudes has as a consequence precipitated moisture to the possible limit.
When those currents descend into the valley the tempera- ture is measurably raised and capacity for moisture largely increased. They thus come to us as unusually dry winds, so dry indeed in some instances that the land and water surfaces, animals and plants, are called upon to lose the surface moisture to an extreme degree in quantity and rapidity. To such facts are those depressed feelings experienced by most living things within their influence due. The winds are freighted to some extent with electrical properties, but not to that degree often supposed. The nervous uneasiness often felt during northers does not come from the presence of electricity, but is an affec- tion in the animal system caused by overact on in the tissues and excessive evaporation from the body.
ELECTRICAL ACTION OF THE NORTH WINDS.
At a meeting of the Academy of Sciences, there was a dis- cussion of the effects of the north wind. Dr. Harkness stated that it was his opinion that the damage to plants done by our northerly winds, was not due to actual desiccation in drying up the sap, but to some peculiar electrical condition, which arrested the cell growth. Before such northers, plants shrivel, curl and show signs of great distress, but with the return of soft, moist magnetic breezes from the equator, they soon resume their fresh and vigorous appearance. These changes are far too sudden to be due to desiccation or absorption, but are attributed to a cessation of cell rotation, induced by electri- cal disturbances, which we know take place during the con- tinuance of our northerly winds. They caused an uneasiness, which results in dog fights, runaway horses, cross dispositions, pallid faces, etc. Dry atmosphere is a perfect non-conductor, but all moist plants and animals, as well as men, then become so many miniature lightning rods. The nerves are at such times continually irritated by a constant succession of tiny blows, like telegraphic ticks, against the nerve centers. They contract and produce a congestion of the organs; the blood becomes turbid, while kidneys, liver and lungs all suffer. We were always surrounded by electricity, but did not perceive it until its equilibrium was destroyed, when it became manifest. In some parts of India, silk underclothing is necessary to com- fort, at certain altitudes, during dry north winds, and in other parts no relief is found in this clothing.
148
THE RAINY SEASON OF CALIFORNIA.
Mr. C. D. Gibbes, C. E., remarked that when surveying dur- ing our north winds, in the San Joaquin Valley, the electrical disturbance was so great as to cause the needle of his compass to fly up against the glass and become useless during the first part of the day, when in the field; but that if he took the same compass into a warm, moist room, it again acted nor- mally. Engineers in Santa Clara and Calaveras Counties report the same action and dip of the magnetic needle during the prevalence of our dry northers.
Dr. Henry Gibbons, Sr., thought this electric action more subtle than from any apparent mechanical evolution of electric- ity from friction of the passing wind over the surface of the earth. He said all persons felt cold, for it drove the circula- tion from the surface to the interior of the body has been marked. The death-rate has been claimed to increase at such times. He had a patient whose eyes always blinked and snapped during a north wind, even in a warm, moist room, entirely protected from direct contact with the wind.
RAINY SEASON OF CALIFORNIA.
The season of rain in this section may be said to commence in October and end in May, though it sometimes rains in June. It is rare that it rains longer than two or three days at a time, and the intervals between rains vary from a few days to a month or six weeks. Old Californians consider the winter the most pleasant part of the year. As soon as the rain cout- mences in October, the grass grows, and by the middle of No- vember the hills and pastures are green. So soon as the ground is in condition to plow, after the first rains, the farmers sow their grain. December is usually a stormy month, with now and then a fall of snow in the mountains, but it is rare that the snow falls in the valleys, and never lies on the ground.
The thermometer seldom goes as low as thirty-seven degrees above zero. Occasionally there is a thin coat of ice over the pools of standing water.
December is usually the month of heaviest rain-fall. In January we begin to recognize an indescribable feeling of spring in the air; the almond trees blossom, and the robins come. During this month grass and carly-sown grain grow rapidly. If the early season has not been favorable for seed- ing, grain may be sown in January, February, or March, and it will produce well. In this county it is often sown as late as the middle of April, producing a fair erop. As a rule, the bulk of the planting is done either in the fall or in January, February, and the first half of March.
February is a growing month, and is one of the most pleas- ant in the year. It is like the month of May in the Eastern States. Peach and cherry trees bloom in this month. March is a stormy month; we are liable to have either heavy south- east storms or a dry north wind.
The amount of rain-fall differs in almost every locality The rain-fall of different places will be found on another page.
No rain-fall tables have been kept for a succession of years in any valley, except at Sacramento, where records have been kept for thirty years, as well as the number of rainy days.
The following diagram shows at a glance the amount of rain-fall for any one year as compared with another :-
DIAGRAM AND RAINFALL TABLE.
Arranged for ELLIOTT & MOORE'S COUNTY HISTORY, showing the amount of rain in inches for each rainy season during thirty years, from records kept by the late Dr. T. M. Logan, and Dr. F. M. Hatch, of Sacramento. These tables are generally taken as representative of the whole State.
[SCALE ONE-NINTH OF AN INCH TO AN INCHI OF RAIN.]
Year.
Rain-fall-Inches. 36.00.
Rainy Days.
1849-50.
53
1850-51.
4.71.
46.
1851-52.
17.98.
48.
1852-53.
36.15.
70.
1853-54.
20.06.
76.
1854-55.
IS.62.
71.
1855-56.
13.77.
54.
1836-57.
10.44.
51.
1857-58.
18.99
56.
1858-59.
16.04.
58.
1859-60.
22.62.
73.
1860-61.
15.54.
70.
1861-62.
35.54.
83.
1862-63.
11.57.
52
1863-64.
8.86.
37.
1864-65.
22.51.
59.
1865-66.
17.92.
69.
1866-67.
25.30.
71.
1867-68.
32.76.
SS.
1868-69.
16.64.
58
1869-70.
13.57.
47.
1870-71.
8.47.
37.
1871-72.
24.05.
69.
1872-73.
14.20.
39.
IS73-74.
22.89.
SO.
1874-75.
23,64.
76.
1875-76.
25.67.
68.
1876-77.
9.32.
45.
1877-78.
21.24.
66.
1878-79.
16.77.
64.
1879-80.
26.65
75.
149
WHERE THE RAIN-FALL IS GREATEST.
A MONTH OF SUNSHINE AND SHOWERS.
April, as in the East, is often all smiles and tears, sunshine alternating with showers. Nature pushes her work in April, and vegetation grows astonishingly. The turning-point of the crop comes in the long, warm days of this month; the rainy season is about over, and from that time till it matures the crop is sustained by the moisture already in the soil. In June, grain matures, and by the middle of July it is ready for harvest.
In April a last shower occurs, and then begins the dry sea- son. From that time until November there is no rain ; every- thing is dry and parched; the grass cures and becomes hay as it stands in the fields, and the dumb brutes fatten and grow sleek on it. Persons camping out require no tents.
WHERE THE RAIN-FALL IS GREATEST.
The comparatively great rain-fall of the country north of the Sacramento, as contrasted with the plains upon the south in the San Joaquin and Tulare country, is to be attrib- uted to the same cause; for while the main volume of the rain current entering through the break and the adjacent depres- sions of the range west of San Francisco Bay, and then fol- lowing the water-level back to Saeramiento, keeps on with its original northeasterly sweep to the section north and east of the river, any portion of the current seeking to turn aside to the level plains upon the south must double back upon itself and struggle against the drier portion of the same southwest wind, which has, in the general sweep, after losing a large por- tion of its moisture in crossing, forced its way over the higher line of the same Coast Range south of San Francisco and passed on directly inland. Hence the rain-fall of the country north and east of Sacramento increases, while upon the south, although the land drains by the same outlet to the sea, it steadily diminishe :.
The working of the same law may be seen, although upon a more limited scale, in the smaller valleys which surround and drain into San Francisco Bay. Napa Valley, lying upon the north, with its mouth opening at an acute angle toward the incoming rain-current of the Golden Gate, hardly knows what it is to have a failure of crops through lack of moisture; while Santa Clara Valley upon the south, and opening out toward the north, rather in the direction toward which the rain-eurrent is going than toward that from which it is com- ing, has a much lighter rain-fall, and suffers from drought more frequently. The lower and moister stratum of the rain- current, entering at the Golden Gate, in order to reach the Santa Clara Valley would have to double back upon itself, and battle with the direct current from the south, which, after parting with enough of its moisture to water the Santa Cruz country, has already forced itself, a partly desiccated wind, over the mountains of the Coast Range through what is known as the Santa Cruz Gap.
INFLUENCE OF COAST RANGE.
The influence of the Coast Range upon the elimate of the interior valleys is felt in still another way: by obstrueting the inward flow of the daily sea-breeze, with its moister air, its lower temperature and the frequent night fogs, evaporation in these valleys goes on with scarcely a check the moment the rains are over, and so the water that does fall is more quickly dried up.
The direction of the two ranges, the Coast and the Sierra, also has its influence, and that far from a favorable one, upon the climate of these valleys; for, by their course from north to south, they leave the country open to the full swecp, both winter and summer, of the harsh, dry north wind, while the chill which comes with this wind in winter retards and checks vegetation during the first three months of the rainy season, and, to that extent, practically shortens what might otherwise be the season of most rapid growth.
RAIN COMES FROM SOUTHWEST.
The winter rain-current, which is a southwesterly wind blowing in from the sea, has to cross this Coast Range before it can reach and water the dry interior valleys. According to a well-known law, it parts with much of its moisture in climb- ing the elevation, giving a climate upon the occan face of the range damp and foggy-home of the redwood and fern, both of which are types of vegetation flourishing only in a compara- tively humid atmosphere. After crossing this range, the rain- current thus deprived of a large portion of its moisture, passes on to give a lighter rain-fall upon the level plains of the inte- rior, until it reaches the tall line of the Sierra, where, with the cold of a still greater elevation, the remaining moisture is wrung out of the clouds, giving precipitation largely in excess of that which fell in the valleys; and again we find forests of dense growth, yet of a type that does not, like the redwood, need the constant humidity of the ocean air, which after the winter rains have ceased, rolls in a daily fog to the seaward face of the Coast Range. How thoroughly the Sierra has accomplished the remaining work of condensation is shown in the almost hopeless aridity of the plains lying eastward from its base, and to which the now desiccated rain-wind next passes.
This winter rain-current in its sweep inland passes over the crest of the Coast Range in a more or less continuous sheet; yet, like a a vast aerial river, which it is, it avails itself of every break and depression of the range to pour through in still denser volume. And it is opposite these breaks and depres- sions of the range that we find the line of greatest rain-fall in the interior valleys, as the lower and more humid portion of the current has at these points been able to reach the interior without having its moisture wrung out in crossing the range. It is in this way that the Sacramento country, with its river-
150
CLIMATE FOR HEALTH AND PLEASURE.
valley leading out to the ocean through the break in the Coast Range which forms the entrance to San Francisco Harbor, has a greater rain-fall and a more humid climate than the plains which lie behind the range. Whoever has stood and watched the evening fog roll in at the Golden Gate, seeking, like a river flood, first the low level of the water-ways, and then the broken passes in the hills, will readily understand how the southeast currents of the winter obey the same general law.
HEALTHFULNESS AND PLEASURE.
Epidemics and virulent infections have been rare and disin- clined to spread, and the more general and mild temperature of this region tends to stay the development of pulmonary affec- tions and diseases of the respiratory system, which the chilling fogs and harsh winds of the coast are liable to provoke.
The numerous valleys and pleasure resorts of the mountains afford an unlimited field for those in search of health or pleas- ure. The whole range of mountains extending the entire eastern boundary of the county is a succession of beautiful mountain scenery. The valleys are often narrow (cañons in places), winding, and with their tributaries are densely tim- bered; whilst the mountain-sides, often to their summits, are clothed with a dense flora of trees, shrubs, and smaller plants. This verdure, much of it evergreen, gives to the slope of these mountains a dark green appearance.
To a person who has spent all his life in one place, it is diffi- cult to convey a clear idea of the differences of climate, and of the advantages of a climate like that of California. One accustomed only to the clouds and showers of Ireland, or to the hot summers and severe winters of New York, has no proper conception of the influence of the elear sky and dry atmosphere of the San Joaquin Valley, or the even temperature of San Francisco, upon the general comfort. The differences of eleva- tion and latitude give, within a comparatively short distance, all varieties of climate, from sub-tropical to polar.
VARIETY OF CLIMATE.
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