luxuriant grapes and fruits surround the many happy homes, whose prosperity attests the value of the Sierras as a future place of permanent abode. Rich meadows of great extent are nestled in among the mountains of the Sierra range, and great quantities of natural hay are annually cut. The wide pasture-range of the Sierras serves as a most welcome retreat to the famished cattle and sheep of the dusty valleys, which in great numbers are driven up from the parched plains during the summer months.

As the heat of summer differs in different parts of the State, so the rainfall is graduated, and differs in ex tent, decreasing in regular order from north to south, only about one-half as much rain falling at San Diego as at San Francisco, and about half as much at Sa Francisco as at Humboldt. The annual rainfall at San Diego is ten and a-half inches; at Monterey, twelv inches; while at San Francisco it is twenty-one and a-half inches; Humboldt, thirty-four and a-half inches: at Astoria, Oregon, it is eighty-six and a-half inches; Steilacoom, Washington Territory, fifty-two inches; and at Sitka, ninety inches. This latter is perhaps as large an average rainfall as is found in any part of the world. There are points in the interior of California where as high as one hundred and forty inches have fallen in a single year, but of course the average is much less. The annual rainfall at Sacramento is eighteen and a-quarter inches; at Benicia, twenty-three inches; at Stockton, sixteen inches. The smallest rainfall in the State of California, if not in the United States, is at Fort Yuma, on the western bank of the Colorado, and in the extreme southeastern corner of the State: three and a-quarter inches is the average annual fall at this point.

A comparison between the rainfall of California and other parts of the world may be interesting to the reader. At Cincinnati the annual fall is eighty-six and a-quarter inches; Bordeaux, thirty-four inches; Madeira, thirty nine inches; Liverpool, thirty-four inches; Paris, twenty-two and a-half inches; Rome, thirty-one inches; Portland, Maine, forty-five and a-quarter inches; New York city, forty-three and a-half inches; St. Louis, forty-two inches; New Orleans, fifty-one inches; Portsmouth, N. H., thirty-six inches; Boston, Mass., thirty-five inches; Newport, R. I., fifty-two inches; Fort Pike, La., seventy-two inches; Vancouver, Washington Territory, forty-five inches; Fort Conrad, New Mexico, six and three-quarter inches.

It will be seen from the figures here given that the rainfall of California is less than one-half of the average fall of the Atlantic States, and one-third less than the average fall of the great wine-producing regions of Europe; about equal to that of Paris, and less than Liverpool and Rome; and Oregon, noted for its rainy winters, averages only about as much as the central portion of the Atlantic States.

The following table will show the annual rainfall at San Francisco for each year during the past twentythree years, and the fall of each rainy season:*

Within the limits of California almost every degree of temperature and climate can be found. A few hours ride from San Francisco, in winter, will bring the traveller from blooming beds of flowers into the midst of mountains of snow; so, in summer, two hours travel will lead you from the strong, cool, bracing winds and dense fogs of the coast line into the intense heat of the valleys, and a few hours later you can bathe your temples in the snows of the Sierras and the icy waters of Lake Tahoe; or, travelling south, you will reach the alkaline flats of Death valley, and the burning sands of Fort Yuma-the hottest spot on the American continent, if not the hottest in the world, where the average annual temperature is 73° in the shade, the thermometer often standing 120° in the shade for a month at a time.

The evenness of the temperature of California as a whole is unsurpassed on the globe, except in one or two instances; and the mean temperature of San Francisco shows a climate varying but two degrees on an

average of the twelve months of the year-the average of January being 49°, and of June 56°, the annual average being 54°. Fort Yuma, at the junction of the Gila and Colorado rivers, has a temperature in June of 87°, and in January of 56°, and an annual temperature of 73°; Sacramento has a temperature in June of 71°, and in January of 45°, with an annual temperature of 59°.

Steilacoom, Washington Territory, has a temperature in June of 60°, and of 38° in January, and an annual temperature of 50°; the city of Mexico has a temperature in June of 65°, and in January of 52°, and an annual temperature of 60°; New York, 67° in June, and 31° in January, and an annual temperature of 51°; New Orleans, 81° in June, and 55° in January, and an annual temperature of 69°; Honolulu, 77° in June, 71° in January, and an annual temperature of 75°; London, 58° in June, 37° in January, and an annual temperature of 49°; Naples, 70° in June, 46° in January, and an annual temperature of 60°; Funchal, 67° in June, 60° in January, and an annual temperature of 65°; Canton, 81° in June, 52° in January, and an annual temperature of 69°; Nagaski, 77° in June, 43° in January, and an annual temperature of 62°; Jerusalem, 71o in June, 47° in January, and an annual temperature of 62°.

It will be observed that the climate of California resembles closely the favored lands of the olive, the fig, and the orange; and that the climate of San Francisco approaches regularity the year round, with greater similarity than any place named except Honolulu and Funchal, and that Naples itself is surpassed by the beautiful regular climate of the great interior valleys of California, which, up to the fortieth parallel, (the southern line of Humboldt county,) has the annual average

(60°) of Asia Minor, Central Italy, Spain, and Northern Syria; while the southern limit of the State, in the vicinity of San Diego and in the direction of the Colorado and Gila, has the mean annual temperature of Cairo (70°) and the northern portion of Africa; and in portions of the San Joaquin valley, Death valley, and the sandy deserts of the southern side of San Bernardino county, adjoining Arizona Territory, we have the summer climate of the Great Desert of Sahara.

California, in the early part of May, is the loveliest spot on earth: the deep rich soil of the valleys and the sides of the hills, as far as the eye can reach, wave with luxuriant wheat, barley, and oats bursting into head; while all the untilled land-valley, hills, and even the steep mountain sides-are covered with wild oats, and variegated flowers of every tint and hue, pink and orange being the predominant colors. Hundreds of thousands of acres, bedecked in the charming robes of spring, whose golden fleece is unbroken by a single tree, rock, or other obstruction, roll in seeming undulating waves until their outlines are lost in the distance.

It was over these charming valleys-a terrestrial paradise that the eye of the pious missionary father wandered, as the tattooed aborigines lazily wended their way from their mountain homes to the foot of the cross. Here the vaquero coursed upon his fleet steed, as he circled the countless herds, ere the invading hand of agriculture turned the furrow, or the husbandman broke the primitive order of nature.

California is eminently a land of flowers, and if the invasion of civilization has broken the natural beauty of the vast valleys and rolling hills by the uniformity of wheat-fields, vineyards, orchards, and flower-gardens, it