by dwarfed and stunted groves which may be used as fuel. California is covered, however, with various kinds of grasses and with wild oats, which grow luxuriantly in the valleys for many miles from the coast, but, ripening early in the season, they soon cease to protect the soil from the sun's scorching rays. As summer advances, the moisture in the atmosphere, and to a considerable depth in the earth, is completely exhausted, and the radiation of heat from the parched plains and naked hill sides becomes insufferable. North of the Bay of San Francisco, between the Sacramento and Joaquin valley and the coast, the country is cut up by mountain ridges and rolling hills, with many fertile, watered valleys. Immediately along the coast, lie open prairies, belted or broken by occasional forests, and interspersed with extensive fields of wild grain. Around the southern arm of the bay, a low, alluvial bottom land, sometimes overgrown by oaks, borders the western foot of the Coast Range, terminating, on a breadth of thirty miles, in the valley of San José. In this neighborhood, too, is the lovely valley of San Juan, which is probably the garden of the new State. These two valleys form a continuous plain of fifty-five miles in length, and from one to twenty miles in breadth, opening with smaller valleys among the hills. The balmy region, enclosed between the coast range and the lower hills upon the ocean, is blessed with a soil of singular fertility, a fine, dry atmosphere, and a soft, delicious climate. It is wooded with majestic trees, covered with rich grasses, brilliant with an endless variety of flowers, and produces profusely the fruits of the temperate and tropical zones.
South of Point Concepcion the climate and general appearance of the country are changed. From that point the coast bends almost directly east; the face of the country obtains a more southern exposure, and is sheltered by ranges of low mountains or hills from the bleak violence of north-west storms. The climate accordingly is more genial, and fosters a richer variety of productions than is found on the northern coasts.