The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1891-09-17
LETTER FROM MYRON {. BAKER
California in July.

Will NOIolOCldOlS mug IotiNA' -
this California? Here is desert.
Here is fine alkaline dust, brown
rock, volcanic tufa and scoria, cacti,
sage brush, a fierce copper colored
sun reflected from staring white
sand, silence and death. Here and
there at long intervals the possibility
of water has drawn together cluster
of houses, otherwise earth and air
are with out inhabitant. The sage
brush seems the deadest of living
things. The air is oppressive.
Mountains are blue in the distance,
or nearer barren and brown. The
San Bernardino mountains are not
entirely without verdure. Thus it is
much Of the way to Los Angeles and
from Los Angeles to Stockton.
North of the Mojave desert it is a
little better, and Bakersfield, Tulare,
Fresno and MERGED are handsome
places. The Tehachapi Loop is a
marvel of engineering, being, as the
name indicates, triple fexure re-
crossing itself to overcome grade,
Several tunnels are passed in quick
succession, and the way is now a
little more, now little less devious;
the brown mountains a little less
bald and desolate; and now yellow
wheat fields appear almost filling the
landscape The soil becomes a
darker earth, seemingly baked into a
crust, much better, however, than
the. disintegrated granite we have
seen, the apparently pure sand and
concrete, whose only wonder is not
that it will produce good wheat and
excellent fruit, but that it will grow
anything. We are now far up the
San Joaquin valley, with mountains
twenty miles from US on either side
the richest part of California
Such is a portion of California in
July. We may imagine it different
in April shortly after the rains have
ceased, when all this present naked
ness is clothed with verdure. But
that is the time of the year of which
the Californian delights to speak,
aid his story has been told a thous-
and times over
California is and will remain a
Gland of contradictions. Reputed
"the land of ali the world for fow-
ers, yet a large part of it is hopeless
desert. Comparatively rainless, yet
with suitable irrigation much of it is
wonderfully productive; land Of
vineyards, yet with but one species
of native grape. Here it is over
heated desert, yet not free from
frosts, and a few miles away at the
same height orange land While at
one season, undoubtedly, clothed in
the green of luxuriant vegetation and
veritable Eden, at another a dry,
brown, sun-burnt waste-in either
case imparting to the visitor but half
truth concerning it.
So large is California and so var
led its climate that no one will pre-
sumo to speak of it in generalities.
Nearly 800 miles from north to
south, if superposed on the Atlantic
shore, it would reach from Boston to
Savannah. Extending as it does
from the latitude of Wisconsin near
ly to that of Florida, we would ex-
pect it to have a considerable range
of climate, and, in truth, no state has
a greater. California in the noun
tains is as different from California
on the coast as California in April
must be different from California in
July. The state is mountain and
valley, and the key to the climate is
in their peculiar CONFORMATION. The
Golden Gate, the only opening in
the Coast Range, lies directly oppo-
site Mt. Diablo, which might almost
be imagined to have been cut out of
the Coast Range and moved bodily
inland. Were it not for this opening
as an outlet for the waters of the
Sacramento and San Joaquin and in
let for currents of moisture-laden
air from the ocean, the whole in
terror would be an arid desert sur
rounding an inland sea, the clouds
precipitating all moisture on the
western slope or floating over with
out the possibility of condensation
But the warm, moist southwest wind
from the ocean uniting with cooler
winds from the north and giving rise
to the famous San Francisco fog,
sweeps in through the Golden Gate
and, striking Mt. Diablo, divides. a
portion passing to the north UP the
Sacramento valley, portion south
down the San Joaquin valley. dry,
cool breezes, thus producing the
California climate, now so famous
These currents being comparatively
dry in the summer and meeting nc
colder currents in the valley, the
summer is rainless. Moreover, ow.
ing to the absence of moisture in
the atmosphere, extreme summer
heat is less oppressive than else