Eureka, often in summer time there are high fogs and boisterous winds. The fogs are frequently mistaken for clouds by visitors from the east, and it is not unusual to see "tenderfeet" with parasols and umbrellas during the summer months, which Californians know are free from rains.

Everywhere the foothills are picturesque, and at times their blue peaks seem very close to the shore, though generally some miles distant. It is common knowledge that the high Sierras are famous in romance and in song. Yosemite rivals the Alps, and the diversities of climate of the state are the most marvelous in the world. From orange groves and strawberry fields it is but a few hours ride to the snow belt of the beautiful mountains.

Far to the north is glorious old Shasta, one of the famous peaks of the world. It stands unique in its noble masonry, rising skyward 14,442 feet. Its grandeur impresses the visitor as do few spots in the wide world. Travelers from afar have said that the globe nowhere else presents a view more impressive than the silhouette of sovereign Shasta, rising sublimely into heights of everlasting snow. It lifts its hoary summit into the bluest of summer skies, and is visible from such great distances that its deep canons and expansive fields of snow, its thousands of acres of rugged pinnacles, and its broad expane of ice blend in one imposing mass, at once the despair of painters and the inspiration of poets.

The Coast Range is broken through at the entrance of the Golden Gate, and legend says that an upheaval in times so far remote that the oldest native Indians knew of the occurrence only by tradition, shook down the mountain walls and allowed the tides of old ocean to plow through the narrow channel into the Golden Gate.

The coast region has a distinct summer climate, particularly in the territory extending from Santa Cruz to the far north. High fogs and bracing winds predominate during the dry summer months, and the winds, like great sanitary fans, have doubtless saved San Francisco from plagues and fierce heat during the long days of summer.

Outings from the regions adjacent to the sea, during July and August in particular, are not to escape from the heat, but to find it. Mr. Louis Whitcomb, of the San Francisco Chronicle, discovered after long observation that eastern people find the climate a cold one during summer, and they

welcome an escape to warmer regions. Various springs and mountain resorts are popular in the summer because of their genial warmth. At no time, however, is the coast climate disease-breeding, except to invalids and weak people. The rugged enjoy it.

At times the rainy season becomes a little wearisome, but some of the loveliest days of the year are in the halcyon calms that follow the heavy southeastern winter rains, which usually find their origin in the storms, or "cyclones," as the weather observers designate them, from the far northwestern Pacific.

There is a deal of misapprehension in some quarters concerning the rainy season in California. Some people have been led to believe it is a period of disagreeable storms and almost perpetual floods; but it is more accurate to say that the rainy season is the only time of the year when there is any rain, the period when farmers rejoice and the masses are happy. By February spring is in full splendor, and often January days are as lifegiving as the budding springs of New England. The brown hills become green early in February, and soon nature is aglow. Royce well says: "A few golden weeks of absolute freedom from winds and rains, or warmth and sunshine, give place at last to the long sleep of the dry sea-as windless and dreary as the climate of Lotus Land."

The approach of winter is not heralded by fear; it is welcomed with joy. Summer wanes gradually, sometimes lingering until past the halycon days of September, or even until the soft brown tints of October tell that cool nights and rains are near. A wind springs from the southeast, rushing toward a climatic disturbance far out in the northwestern ocean, and soon a gentle shower begins-sometimes more like mist than rain. In a few hours, or possibly not until nightfall, it becomes steadier and the precipitation may increase until it seems as if the windows of the sky had been thrown open; but thunder and lightning are almost unknown. It is during these heavy rains that the farmers rejoice, though they are satisfied if the downfall continues gently for three or four days. Then the sun peeps forth from cirrus clouds, the air becomes clear, mountains loom into view through the lens of bright atmosphere, the birds sing, and often the most charming weeks of all the year follow these benign winter storms that are feared by those who have never been west of the Rockies.

CHAPTER III.

GLIMPSES OF EARLY HISTORY-CORTES AND HIS SUCCESSORS-THE GREAT INTEREST IN CALIFORNIA-XIMINES, CABRILLO, Drake-The Jesuits AND THE FRANCISCAN FATHERS-DISCOVERY OF SAN FRANCISCO BAY BY A LAND PARTY-THE FOUNDING OF SANTA CLARA-San Jose the FIRST TOWN ORGANIZED UNDER CIVIL GOVERNMENT-OTHER FACTS OF INTEREST, INCLUDING THE FIRST FOREIGN VISITORS.

Though the plan of this work deals with to-day rather than with the struggles of yesterday, there is an irresistible temptation to delve into the past sufficiently to get a clear idea of the "beginnings of things" historical. And when one looks backwards in California history he is carried to the stirring times of the old Spanish freebooters. The Genoese mariner had scarcely made his great discovery known to the world when bold adventurers began to quarrel over unknown lands and to partition the distant parts of the earth among themselves.

Winfield Davis, the able historian of the Sacramento Society of California Pioneers, has carefully traced the primary title to California to Spain, which held the first right to the country. To trace that early claim is to go back to the year 1454, when Pope Nicholas V issued a bull that gave the Portuguese wide rights of conquest. Many years later a controversy arose between Portugal and Spain, by reason of Portugal's attempt to claim the countries discovered by Columbus. The entire case was referred to Pope Alexander VI, and on May 3, 1493, he decided it by granting to Spain all countries she might discover west of an imaginary line drawn like a mark of longitude one hundred leagues west of the Azores. By the terms of the same decision Portugal was to have all territory to the eastward of that line. The Treaty of the Partition of the Pacific Ocean, concluded at Tordesillas, Spain, June 7, 1494. between the governments of Spain and Portugal, was a slight modification of the boundary settled by Pope Alexander VI, and in accordance with that convention Spain, in later years, laid claim to California.