About San Francisco there is a steady and brisk wind movement, flowing in through the narrow gap of the Golden Gate. In southern California, while there is daily ebb and flow of air-currents (in the morning from off the sea, and at night down from the mountains), a real wind is very rare. Hurricanes and cyclones are absolutely unknown in the State. Despite the great heat of the deserts, and high mercury sometimes recorded in the valleys, the dryness of the atmosphere renders it harmless, and sun stroke is unknown. Seasonal diseases, typhoids, malarias and pernicious fevers, summer diseases of children, gastric or hepatic diseases, are rare. Mean summer temperature San Francisco ; winter mean ; greatest daily range temper ature Los Angeles 29°, as against 69 for Bos ton. The modern migration to California has been largely attracted by this unique and hos pitable climate, free from the dangerous heats of summer and the bitter winter cold of the regions east of the Rocky Mountains. In the inhabited portions of this State, extreme cold is unknown; while, owing to rapid radiation, the summer nights are always so cool as to call for blankets.
The fauna of California is peculiarly inter esting, and includes considerably over 100 spe cies of mammals, though the larger game varieties have in a half century been nearly exterminated. At the American occupation, elk were seen in droves of thousands. Great bers were killed from the deck of steamers plying to Sacramento. Occupation of the State by Indians immemorially, and by Spaniards for nearly a century, had not appreciably dimin ished the wild animals; but the same wanton spirit which in a score of years exterminated tens of millions of the American bison on the great plains has in California made the great mammals nearly extinct. The grizzly bear (the State emblem) once in great abundance in all parts of the State is now scarce; the black, cinnamon and brown bear are more common, though rare. Sea lions of a ton weight are still found along the coast, and their populous rookeries a few hundred feet from the "Cliff House° in San Francisco are an object of in terest to travelers. The California lion, moun tain lion or puma, is still not infrequent, and wildcats abound in the mountains. The coyote is common and of utility in decimating the hordes of rabbits, though an ill-judged bounty on coyote scalps has of late years much reduced the numbers of this small wolf. The beaver, once in vast numbers here, is now confined to the remotest streams ; and the valuable sea otter is almost extinct. Black-tailed and mule deer are still reasonably frequent; but the antelopes, which once roamed the northern and southern valleys in great bands, have hardly a repre sentative left. The same is true of the moun
tain sheep (Ovis Ammon), once common in all the higher ranges. Sperrnophiles, or ground squirrels, and five species of gopher, are in numerable and a great pest to the farmer as well as carriers of bubonic and other diseases. The Federal and State governments are making scientific campaigns to exterminate them. Mil lions have been poisoned. The true gray squir rel is common in the north. Jack rabbits and °cotton-tails° are abundant in all parts of the State, despite community "drives° in which sometimes tens of thousands are killed in a day. The birds of California. number above 350 species. The largest winged creature in North America is the California condor. Quail of two species are in vast abundance throughout the State.
Earthquakes.— While the Pacific Coast of North, Central and South America in general is peculiarly liable in recent geological times to seismic disturbances, California has never experienced an earthquake of the second tude, nor probably even of the fourth. The only first-degree earthquake in the United States was that of New Madrid, Mo., in 1811. The largest city in the world, if built upon its epicentre would have been irremediably wiped off the map. California has never had an quake approaching in severity that of ton, S. C., in 1886. The most serious blores° of California were in 1812 when the fall of the Mission tower of San Juan Capistrano killed 30 persons in the church, but did no special damage elsewhere in the village; and 1872 when some old adobe houses in Owens Valley collapsed and killed 19 Mexicans. The quake) of San Francisco, April 1906, was a very minor shock (geologically) — not above the 6th or 7th magnitude. It broke rusty mains in the 30 feet of sand with which lower San Francisco is "filled). It threw down a few decrepit frame buildings, on the same sand "fill,° but not a sin le respectable structure in the city. Fire caught in one of the wrecked tenements; and ha f San Francisco was con sumed because there was no water to check the fire. In Charleston, practically every building was wrecked by the earthquake.
The unremitting tension upon the crust of the entire earth has found its "safety-valves) in California. The earthquake "faults* are not only known and visible, but mapped. There is no excuse for building towns or reservoirs across one of these "faults.° For this reason, the foremost geologists agree (vid. Branner) that California is safer from earthquakes than are many States where these safety-valves have not yet been developed, and earthquakes are as yet strangers.