File:Peninsular California; some account of the climate, soil productions, and present condition chiefly of the northern half of Lower California (1888) (14582022200).jpg

Identifier: peninsularcalifo00nord_0 (find matches)
Title: Peninsular California; some account of the climate, soil productions, and present condition chiefly of the northern half of Lower California
Year: 1888 (1880s)
Authors: Nordhoff, Charles, 1830-1901
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Publisher: New York, Harper
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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north to theUnited States boundary line. It covers a region almostthe whole of which possesses a totally different charac-ter from that farther south. While more mountainousthan our Upper California, or than the part of the Penin-sula to the south, and therefore containing a less propor-tion of arable lands, it has numerous valleys, mesas, andhill-slopes as rich as the best of Upper California, with,as will be found by settlers, as large an average rainfallas San Diego or San Bernardino County, and as large anumber, in proportion, of streams available for irriga-tion.* I do not believe that irrigation will be more neces-sary in these valleys than it is in San Diego, Los Angeles,and San Bernardino counties. Grain crops are grownas successfully without irrigation in the valleys of north-ern Lower California, wherever men have tried, as in thecounties I have named. This change in the character of the northern part of * Tables of temperature, rainfall, etc., will be found in an appendix.
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NATURAL WEALTH, CLIMATE, SOIL, TIMBER, ETC. 31 the Peninsula has struck every traveller. It is duemainly to the fact that the high mountain ranges in thenorth affect the climate favorably, and also gather andstore waters for the streams. In his Historical Sum-mary of Lower California, from its Discovery in 1532to 1867, Alexander S. Taylor, a well-known Californian,says on this point: As the vicinities of the bay of Viscaino are reached,and after passing the parallel of 28°, the mountain sys-tem begins to rapidly rise from four thousand feet to theelevation of perpetual snow, which it appears to attainopposite the mission of San Fernando, and which fromseveral accounts it seems to carry until near the missionof Santa Catalina. These snowy peaks (for it is only onthe highest peaks snow is seen) must be over twelvethousand feet high, as they are reported to be coveredwith snow in the spring and early summer by Kino in1702, Link in 1765, and by Patie in 1827; but these Ne-vadas have neve

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