Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 18.djvu/312



276 Fred Wilbur Powbll

low prairie land are submerged, and thus for awhile con- verted into lakes, which gradually subside as the summer advances, contributing by their stagnant pools and putrid exhalations to render those lowlands exceedingly unhealthy. Some travellers, misled by these temporary floods, have spoken of vast lakes and ponds in the interior of California, instead of which their astonished successors of the following summer have discovered only arid plains or sedgy pools and marshes.

I was told that about once in every ten years it happens that little or no rain falls during the winter season; and that, in consequence of this drought, the whole country is dried up, vegetable life is almost annihilated, and the beasts of the field perish of thirst and starvation.

Along the coast, where the seabreezes have easy and con- stant access, the climate throughout the year is salubrious and delightful, differing in temperature many degrees, during the dry season, from the prairie lands, which lie beyond the first range of hills, where the ardor of the sun is mitigated by no cooling wind. The range of hills shuts out the western breezes, and the surrounding masses of forest exclude all other winds, and render ventilation impossible on the prairies, so that, while the inhabitants of the coast are enjo3ring all the delights of a serene and benignant climate, the panting traveller upon these burning plains is suffering all the dis- comforts of the torrid zone. In crossing from the prairies in the latitude of 38 deg. 30 min., during the month of August, I found that for several successive days the mercury ranged at 110 deg. (Fahrenheit) in the shade; and sealing wax de- posited in one of my boxes was converted into an almost semi-fluid state. At the same time, and in the same parallel, on the borders of the Pacific, the thermometer seldom ex- hibited a greater temperature than 75 deg., and in the evening a fire was frequently essential to comfort.

This difference of temperature is accompanied by a corre- sponding diversity of healthfulness. The coast is always healthy; but during the heat of summer the prairies of the interior are pestilential, and diseases abound.