Los Angeles herald., 1905-09-03
DROUGHT AND RAINFALL;
BEARING ONWAT TER SUPPLY
of Pertinent Interest Owens River Project Is Con-
sidered-Cycles of Plenty and Scarcity-This One
Short Seventy Inches-Water

Assures Greatness

completion of this disparity in the only
season left of the fifteen. But even
those who believe in regular recurring
cycles are not restricted to a year or
two. There may we'll be a fractional
difference between the notations of man
and the arithmetic of the weather clerk.
To make up for the difference 1 have
noted we would this year need a rain
fall of seventy inches, which we are not
going to get, but that is not saying that
the equation may not be recorded in a
year or two, or In the next lustrum.
Real Data Lacking
or course, argument for a cycle in
regularly recurring rainfalls is deprived
of nearly all value from the lack of
authoritative data during the old Mexi-
can regime. There is one argument,
however that, to my mind. establishes
the postulate that seventeen inches is
the normal standard OF rainfall for Los
Angeles county, namely, that all the
Mexicans, and even the old Californians
of distinction, say that the gringo
brought the drouth. They say 1t to me
here in Los Angeles today as they were
wont to say it thirty-three years ago
in San Diego when I edited the San
Diego World there and was collecting
all the interesting data I could get
hold of.
In view of all and sundry Of the fore
going, 1 notify the quid nuncs that we
are short nearly seventy inches of rain
fall, and 1 don't care deuce aces when
1t comes. 1t is due long before we can
hope to reach Owens river and it will
be intended for and will be notably
beneficial to the mesaS and hillsides
and to our fruit and sheltering trees,
which lie outside of water courses and
irrigating bitches.
AS the California season starts in
September, in the opening days of
which 1 am writing, 1 may be excused
for being q little diffuse. The Salton
sea for the second time, in recent men,
ory, is spreading itself over the Colo
rado desert. I do not know whether
or not it has any effect on the rainfall.
The last time it tackled the Southern
Pacific the weather in California was
exceedingly hot; this year, until the
other day, it has been exceedingly cool.
The year before and the year after the
last Salton sea the rainfall was about
five inches below the normal standard
Of the fifteen years between 1876 and
1891 for encouragement to give us
heavy rainfall. The only thing which
can assure us that is the Identification
Of my theory OF rainfall cycles. So I
earnestly pray Jupiter Pluvius that,
may it please his majesty, he may hur-
ry up the cycle; and, if for no other
reason, that during the next four or
five years will pass the period of caring
whether or not school keeps with the
weather clerk. We are rapidly reach
ing the period when we can be our own
weather clerk.
Surprises for Tenderfoot
The tenderfoot in coming to Califor-
MIA is liable to great many surprises
I passed eighteen months of my early
residence in the state in editing the San
Diego World. Col. w. jeff Gatewood,
Capt. VIM. A. Winder and several other
distinguished gentlemen had arranged
a picnic for me on the banks of that
historic stream. The picnic was all
right, but I found the river, in the
touching language of the law, non est
inVentus. A siX-ounce vial could have
contained all that had flowed in that
noble stream for the past six months.
My surprise was even greater than
when, many years later, I found that
with hop, skip and jump, could
clear the Rio Grande at FL Paso. My
deprivation as to the absence of wa
ter was recouped by an inspection of
the old mission ruin and it's splendid
olive orchard some miles above.
V, hile running the World I received
a letter from an old steamboat captain
away back In Injianny-Posey county,
probably-asking for what distance
the San Diego was navigable and for
what draft of boats. He was pretty
we'll up in years, had some capital and
thought the San Diego climate would
agree with him. 1t was hard to dis
illusionize this loyal old soul, but
was under the impulse of noblesse
oblige, or something similar
Well Worth Seeing
The second time L saw the San
Diego river, on the road through Old
Town, it certainly was a stream wor-