The Coast Range, altitude 2,000 to 8,000 feet, rather closely follows the coast line from Ore gon to Point Conception; south of which topo graphic hinge it so breaks down as to be relatively unimportant. The Sierra Nevada proximately following the east line of the State, at an average distance of 50 to 100 miles there from, is °the largest and most interesting chain of mountains in the United States" (J. D. Whitney). Really part of the gigantic spine which extends from Lower California to Alaska, this range in California is 600 miles long and 75 to 100 miles wide —its base cover ing four times' the area of Massachusetts. The snow-line averages about 30 miles wide. Its surpassing peak (Mount Whitney, highest in • the United States) is 14,522 feet (Langley). Its passes average 11,000 feet, the lowest being 9,000 feet, and the most used (Kearsarge) 12,000 feet. The western slope is gradual, aver aging about 100 feet to the mile; its eastern slope 10 times as rapid, being by far the steepest general gradient in North America. At many points the fall is 10,000 feet in 10 miles; and from the highest peak in the United States one looks down nearly 15,000 feet into Death Valley, some 200 feet below sea-level. This vast gran itic range is the most remarkable register of glacial action on the continent. Decapitated by °perhaps a vertical mile" (Muir) it is still the most Alpine cordillera in North America. It holds 1,500 glacial lakes — the lake line being at about 8,000 feet. Of small residual glaciers, Muir has counted 65 between 36° 30" and 39°. Its Yosemites (including the famous one so called, the Hetch-Hetchy, and minor ones) are noted among geologists as well as travelers well-like valleys gouged deep in the granite by glaciers, and of scenery nowhere surpassed. The highest water-fall in the world (the Pioneer, 3,270 feet) is in this region. Upon the huge moraines left by that continental incubus of ice grow the noblest coniferous forests in the world —greatest in variety of species, in density of merchantable lumber and in size, age and beauty of trees. These forests cover 44,700 square miles (a larger area than the entire States of New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Con necticut, Rhode Island, Delaware and Mary land together). California is fifth in area of forests and second in stand of lumber (200, 000,000,000 feet, exceeded only by Oregon with 225,000,000,000 feet). Eighteen national forests reserves in the State cover 19,508,000 acres. The cut of 1916 was nearly three timer that of 1890. It comprised: redwood, 490,828,000 feet; Western (white) pine, 494,973,000 feet; Douglas fir, 141,200,000 feet; sugar pine, 165, 461,000 feet; white fir, 85,918,000 feet; spruce, 10,000,000 feet; cedar, 16,587,000 feet ; hemlock, 500,000; other trees, 25,000,000 (1,430,467,000) ; shingles, ties, etc., 130,000,000 feet; a total of 1,560,467,000 feet. To this should be added 30,000 cords of tan-oak bark, valued at $600,003. Total value of product, 1916 (exclusive of fuel) $47,000,000. Fuel wood amounts to about $9,000,000. The Big Tree (Sequoia Gigantea) is the largest and oldest of growing things on earth; averaging 275 feet high and 20 feet diameter. The largest reach over 325 feet high and 38 feet diameter, with an age of 5,000 years. Muir °never saw a Big Tree that had died a natural death.° The other Sequoia (Semper virens), or California redwood, covers an area of about 2,000 square miles. It is second only to the Big Tree in size, reaching 18 feet diam eter; and like it is found nowhere else. It belongs to the Coast Range, as the Big Tree to the Sierra. It is almost exclusively used in California for sheathing. The immunity of a city like San Francisco from great fires, though windy, hill-built, and of aframe,° is largely due to the low inflammability of this redwood lum ber. The sugar pine, the noblest pine yet dis covered, reaches 245 feet high and 18 feet diameter; the yellow pine 220 feet high and 8 feet diameter; the Douglas spruce, king of spruces, 200 feet high, 6 feet diameter; the Libocedrus, or incense cedar, 150 feet high and 7 feet diameter; the white silver fir 200 feet high, 6 feet diameter; the *magnificent* silver fir 250 feet high and 5 feet diameter. The nut pine, or piilon, is a small and shabby tree, but of great economic importance in feed ing the Indians and horses; in a good year its crop of excellent nuts is enormous — estimated (Muir) equivalent to 50,000 acres of wheat in food value. These are often fed to horses instead of barley. There are many varieties of oaks (which reach great size) ; also maples, yews, birches, alders, sycamores, cottonwoods, aspens, madronos, etc. A California palm (Washingtonia) is native in mountain canons along the southerly desert, and is now largely used for street ornamentation. Specimens
planted by the Franciscans have reached a height of 80 feet. The flora of the State in cludes about 2,500 species, and is of great in terest. In the great central valley in February or March one can travel 400 miles, treading flowers at every step; and as much is true in other parts of the State.
No other State contains a moiety_ of vast number of exotic trees now in California. Fruit, ornamental and shade trees from every country in the world have been acclimated here. Nearly 11,000,000 tropical fruit trees are bearing in 1918. Millions of apepper-trees* (Mae) from Peru are used on streets, etc.; and of Australian eucalyptus (introd. 1858), there are now over 15,000,000, including about 100 varie ties, for fuel and ornament. Setting 3,000,000 acres to orchard and other trees within a gen eration has partially balanced the deforestation, though not where needed to offset the denuda tion of the watershed by lumbering and forest fires.
The most striking meteorological feature of California is perhaps the ordering of its seasons, of which it has practically but two, the wet and dry. The winter, or grainy season,* is approx imately from late October to late April, with 15 to 25 rainy days, an annual precipitation rang ing from 23.53 inches for San Francisco (and far greater in the extreme north) to 14.56 inches for Los Angeles, and 10 for San Diego. For six months after 1 May, rain is practically unknown, except showers in the high mountain regions. In 1917-18 there were 361 days with only 54 inch of rain in Los Angeles, the largest city west of Saint Louis. In the high Sierra the winter precipitation takes the form of snow, with an annual fall of 30 to 50 feet, thus sup plying the natural reservoirs which feed the streams, upon irrigation from which agriculture largely depends. But in Oregon, which bounds California on the north, we have the familiar eastern seasons; and again in Arizona and Nevada, abutting upon the east, winter snow and summer rains characterize the meteorology. Thus, climatically, California differs altogether all its neighbors and has well been called an (Island on Land.* Within its own limits, also, it has extraordinary range of climates, as it were in strata, following the topographic con tours. Thus in the vicinity of Los Angeles it is possible at times to take a sleigh-ride within 12 miles of the city on one side (and looking down upon blossoming orange groves not five miles distant), and by an hour's ride to bathe in the Pacific, which has here a winter temperature of Within a short journey from almost any given point one may find almost any variety of climate, from below sea-level to nearly 15,000 feet above it; from the extreme but arid and non-prostrating heat of the desert to eternal snow; from palms and perennial roses to the primmval coniferous forests, or to the desola tion of alkaline Saharas. Although all Califor nia shares the seasonal peculiarity of climate,* the northern and southern parts of the State — roughly dividing at Point Concep don and the Tehachepi Range—are very un like meteorologically. The upper portion is rel atively humid, with more than twice the south's average rainfall, with far larger streams and vastly richer forestation. At Crescent City, on the far coast, precipitation often reaches 80 inches per year. The trend of the coast is here northerly, and the region shares something of the extraordinary humidity of Oregon. The smallest precipitation is in the desert southeast corner, averaging only three inches annually at Yuma. The seven counties habitually termed *Southern California*— though the geographic southern half of the State would include 13 counties — have an average rainfall of but about 15 inches. This precipitation is insufficient to ensure crops, except cereals (which are not irrigated but depend on the rains). This broad difference between the two sections in rainfall has been chief factor In an extraordinary differ ence of development within the last 30 years. Compelled by aridity to resort to irrigation, compelled by the magnitude of the task to as sociative effort, the southern communities have suddenly developed a generic type of agriculture and of life quite unlike anything else in the Union. The paragraph on population shows something of the disproportionate settling-up of the southern end of the State— an entire re versal of the balance which obtained for nearly 60 years, during which the population was over whelmingly about °the Bay* and San Francisco waspractically California, socially, politically and financially.