frequently ranges from 110° to 115° in the shade, during three or four hours of the day, from eleven until three o'clock. In the evening, as the sun declines, the radiation of heat ceases. The cool, dry atmosphere from the mountains spreads over the whole country, and renders the nights fresh and invigorating. * * * * * * * * * * *
"These variations in the climate of California account for the different conflicting opinions and statements respecting it. A stranger arriving at San Francisco in summer, is annoyed by the cold winds and fogs, and pronounces the climate intolerable. A few months will modify if not banish his dislike, and he will not fail to appreciate the beneficial effects of a cool, bracing atmosphere. Those who approach California overland, through the passes of the mountains, find the heat of summer, in the middle of the day, greater than they have been accustomed to, and therefore many complain of it.
"Those who take up their residence in the valleys which are situated between the great plain of the Sacramento and San Joaquin and the coast range of hills, find the climate, especially in the dry season, as healthful and pleasant as it is possible for any climate to be which possesses sufficient heat to mature the cereal grains and edible roots of the temperate zone."2
We have thus obtained from reliable sources, a fair account of the soil, situation and climate of California, with the exception of that portion of the new State lying to the southward and eastward of the Sierra Nevada and the Coast Range, and between those mountains and the Colorado. This district is believed by experienced Californians to be mostly desert; at least, so much of it as lies upon the usual emigrant trail from the Colorado to San Diego, and that which is further north, in the neighborhood of Frémont's explorations, is known to be of such a character. Elsewhere, however, in the large valley between the two great ranges of the coast and the Sierra Nevada, and in the small lateral valleys