California Area and Climate
Area of California
The area of California is about 154,118 square miles, or
08,634,240 acres, as nearly as can be calculated without an
accurate survey. Of this vast surface, nearly one-fourth, or
40,000 square miles, lies in the southeastern part of the State,
beyond the Sierra Nevada and the dividing chain which separates
the coast from the valley of the Colorado, and is to a great
extent valueless. Small sections along the Colorado, in the
desert, and in the valley of the Mohave, may be cultivated; but
still it would leave one-fourth of the area of the State as an
irreclaimable waste, although seamed with metaliferous veins
bearing gold, silver, lead and copper. Much of that, also, that
appears as drifting sand in the valleys is composed of minute
shells and would probably be a valuable article of export to
enrich other soils.
The valleys classed as fertile cover one-sixth of the State,
having an area of 26,000 square miles, or 16,640,000 acres,
three-fifths being in the basin of the Sacramento and San
Joaquin. The hills and mountains susceptible of cultivation will
aggregate an area of 10,000 square miles, or 6,400,000 acres,
making a total of 36,000 square miles, or 23,040,000 acres of
arable land. The surface covered by the Sierra Nevada is about
38,000 square miles, of which 20,000 are covered with forests,
5,000 are destitute of vegetation, and 13,000 may be classed as
fit for cultivation or grazing. The soil covering the auriferous
gravel is usually the best for cultivation, but the area of such
deposits none can venture to estimate. The other mountain ranges
of the State contain but little land that is entirely valueless,
it either being covered with forests or fit for grazing
purposes. Throughout the southern portion of California, much of
the hill land is covered with chaparral or barren rocks,
rendering it almost valueless. Estimating this, from careful
observation, at five per cent, of the remaining lands, it would
amount to about 4,000 square miles.
The surface of California may be classed as follows: Total area,
154,116 square miles; arable land, 36,000; desert, 44,000;
forests, 35,000; lakes and rivers, 1,700 square miles; grazing
37,416. These estimates are made from the most recent
examinations and reports. The Commissioner of the General Land
Office, in his report upon California, estimates that 80,000,000
acres are suited to some kinds of profitable husbandry: of
these, 40,000,000 are tit for the plow, and the remainder
present excellent facilities for stock raising, fruit-growing,
and all the other kinds of agriculture. This agricultural area
exceeds that of Great Britain and Ireland, or the whole of the
peninsula of Italy.
Climate
The climate of California has been the boast of its citizens
from the time it became known, and has been extolled by all
travelers. Comparisons with pleasant Italy and sunny France are
made, and the climate of the State is said generally to resemble
that of the countries bordering the Mediterranean. Much of its
high praise comes from the fact that the people are mostly from
the northern Atlantic States, and the contrast is so great
between the mild temperature of California and the extremes of
the East that it has caused extravagance in its description.
Meteorologists in delineating by isothermal lines the relative
climates of the United States present California in favorable
contrast with the Atlantic coast. None of the lines commencing
north of South Carolina touch the Golden State. The Florida
line, while following the thirtieth parallel west of the
Mississippi Valley, curves to the northward and strikes the
Pacific near our northern boundary. The same line indicates the
climate of all our great valleys, only the elevated regions and
those exposed to the cold ocean winds experiencing a low
temperature.
The precipitous rise of mountains from the level of the sea to
an altitude of from one to three miles in height, gives a great
range of temperature at all seasons of the year, perpetual
winter reigning on the mountain-tops, while the valleys show
only the alternations of spring, summer and autumn. The seasons
are more properly divided into Wet and Dry. The natural laws
governing the meteorology of the Pacific are such that the great
wind currents from the northwest strike upon the coast during
the summer months, and, though filled with moisture, instead of
condensing; in rain, their moisture is absorbed and lost in the
dry and warmer air of the land. In winter, the regularity is
disturbed, and southern winds, particularly those from the warm
regions of the southeast, bring abundant rains, or snow at an
altitude of from 2,500 to 3,000 feet. The climate is thus
divided into two seasons. Wet and Dry. The wet season commences
in November, the heaviest rains falling in the latter part of
December, and continuing until April or May. During the severest
winters, not more than half the days are rainy, and below the
snow-line the temperature is mild, and whon not raining, the
weather is peculiarly pleasant and lovely. This is the season of
plowing and planting, giving the farmer the long period of six
months to prepare and seed his ground, though, to insure a good
crop, it is necessary that cereals be sown previous to the fall
of the latest rains. During the winter months, whon other
sections of the Union are covered with snow and the ground
hardened by frost, the hills and valleys of California are clad
in verdure, presenting a scene of loveliness that gives peculiar
charm to the country, redeeming it from many detracting features
it may possess. The month of February is usually exempt from
excessive rains, is warm and pleasant, and is the season in the
lower valleys for the springing of buds and flowers, which in
the following month expand in beauty and fill the air with
fragrance. The last months of the rainy season close in glory.
There is no dismal winter to "linger in the lap of Spring." The
trees are crowned with the brightest green, and fields and
gardens are bedecked with tints of every hue. California is then
the "land of sun and flowers," and then is the most happy season
of the year.
The rainfall varies regularly with the locality and with
different years. The least fall is upon the Colorado Desert,
where the average does not exceed three inches per annum, and
the greatest is in the mountains of the northern coast, where a
fall of 130 inches in a year has occurred. The towering ridge of
the Sierra Nevada intercepts the cloud-bearing winds of winter,
and, however dry the season may be in the valleys and along the
coast, always receives vast deposits of snow, which, measured as
water, varying with the season, is from fifty to one hundred
inches in a year of rainfall, and droughts are unknown. The
southern portion of the State receives the least, and the
northern mountain region the most. The Colorado Desert, however,
is in a section of different seasons from those which prevail
west of the dividing line, it being between the seasons of the
California coast and those of Mexico, where the months of July
and August furnish the most rain.
At San Diego, on the southern coast, the annual rainfall is
about ten and a half inches; at San Francisco it is twenty and a
third; at Sacramento, nineteen; and at Nevada City, in the
Sierra, at an altitude of 2,350 feet, the average fall is
fifty-five inches. The least fall measured at the last locality
was in the season of 1833-4, that being seventeen and a quarter
inches, and the greatest in 1861-2, 109 inches. At greater
elevations the fall is almost entirely in the form of snow,
which attains a depth of from eight to twenty-five feet.
The Dry season is the summer and autumn of California, the
season of maturity and harvest. It extends from May to November,
a period of six months, when rain seldom falls. Showers
sometimes occur in the interior and mountains in July, and a few
light rains may occur in September and October; at other times
no fall of water need be expected. Journeys may be undertaken,
and the gathered crops of the field be exposed without fear of
interference or damage by rain. The harvest commences in May,
first in the cutting of grass for hay, and continues with the
cereals at the convenience of the farmer. The great labor of
turning, drying and sheltering grain, required of the farmer in
the East, from the frequency of summer rains, is never exacted
in California, as the long dry season gives ample time for the
harvest, and prepares the grain in a condition superior to any
possible attainment in rainy countries.
Three different climates may be found from the ocean to the
mountain summits: that of the coast, with its cold winds and
fogs; the warm valleys of the interior; and the frosty region of
the high mountains. The temperature of the elevated region is
severe in winter, though not approaching the extreme cold of the
Atlantic coast, and frosts occur during every month of the year.
Below the altitude of a thousand feet, frosts are rare, and
oranges and other semi-tropical fruits are cultivated with great
success, and without protection from the climate. It is quite
singular that the temperature of the sheltered valleys or
mountain-tops varies but little with the latitude. The peaks of
San Bernardino or San Gabriel are soon covered with snow with
the earliest storms, and at about the same elevation as along
the northern Sierras. The orange groves, which give such beauty
to the fields of Los Angeles, present as bright a foliage and as
golden fruit in the gardens of the north; and the palms and
agaves, or century plant, which give such picturesque effect to
the scenery of the south, flourish equally well in the northern
valleys. On the coast, however, a great change is observable
south of Point Conception. Thence the shore line trends to the
east, and the cold northwest winds which have swept so fiercely
along the land to this point are broken and warded off, and the
climate of the south is like the protected valleys of the north.
This refers only to that portion of the south, west of the
dividing range. East of that, the heat and aridity are
excessive, rendering the country a cheerless desert, although
much of it possesses every element of fertility in its soil.
San Diego is distinguished for the equability of its climate,
the temperature seldom varying as much as twenty-five degrees
during the year, the average being but little more than 60° of
Fahrenheit, and the extremes 50° and 75°. At Fort Yuma, the
average is about 70°, and the heats of summer often reaching to
120°. But these are exceptional localities. At Los Angeles,
frosts sometimes occur, and the temperature of summer reaches
from 90° to 100°, with an average of about 60°; but its extremes
are rarely experienced, and the locality is distinguished for
the mildness and salubrity of its climate.
The climate of San Francisco may be taken as the representative
of the northern coast, although in the extreme north the cold
winds, whose chilling dampness is felt as they strike the land,
are more severe than in the central portion. These winds give a
disagreeable character to the climate of summer, but coming from
their long circuit over the broad ocean, are uncontaminated with
any malaria, and bring with them the vigor and health which
characterize the sections exposed to their influence. There is
but little change in the temperature of the coast during the
year, the summers being colder and the winters warmer than in
the interior. This equabilty is undoubtedly caused by the even
temperature of the water of the ocean, which always stands at
about 52° or 53°. The land temperature, as measured at sunrise
and noon, during the past twenty years, at San Francisco, by Dr.
H. Gibbons, shows a mean of about 56° for the year, the warmest
month, September, being from 59° to 63°, and the coldest,
January, the lowest moan for the month being 46° in 1868, the
usual mean being above 50°.
The great Valley of California and its contiguous mountain
region has a climate of ardent warmth in summer, and few light
frosts in winter, the extremes slightly exceeding those of Los
Angeles, the moan being one or two degrees higher. Near the
entrance to the basin, the sea breeze is felt, and modifies the
heat, while in the northern and southern portions the
thermometer often shows 100°, and seldom a summer passes but
that a heat of more than 100° is experienced at Marysville; such
extremes are only reached on one or two days of a year. But
owing to the uniform dryness of the air, which promotes
evaporation from the surface of the body, and to the uniformly
cool and refreshing nights, this excessively warm weather is not
so oppressive as it would appear. With the announcement of the
"heated term" at the East, when the thermometer shows 90°, come
reports of scores of people killed by sunstroke or dying by
prostration from the heat, and of the loss of life by the
terrible hydrophobia, but such things are unknown in the pure
atmosphere of California. Neither are the storms of hail, rain
and wind, with their thunder and lightning accompaniments,
bringing destruction to property and death to people in the
East, repeated on the Pacific Coast. Sunstroke, hydrophobia and
thunder and lightning are here almost unknown. Upon the lofty
summits of the mountains and in the elevated valleys is found
another climate, where winters are quite severe, the snow
fulling and ice forming. The mountain ridges are cold at night
throughout the summer, and the valleys pleasantly cool, their
climate resembling that of the Atlantic Coast of the same
latitude.
California Gazetteer |
AHGP California
Source: Pacific Coast Business Directory for 1876-78, Compiled
by Henry G. Langley, San Francisco, 1875
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