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Show 42 APPENDIX. season, is from 60° to 7 4° Fahrenheit. The rains tall in the winter months, are very severe, and of hort duration. During the remainder of the year tlte air is dry and clear, and the sky more beautiful than the imagination can conceive. ~' The ran(J'e of mountains occupying the whole iHterior of this country vary in height from one to five thousand feet above the level of the sea. They are almost bare of all verdure, mere brown piles of barrenness, sprinkled, here and there, with a cluster of briars, small shrubs, or dwarf trees. A1nong the ridges are a few spots to which the sweeping rains have spared a little soil. These, if watered by springs or streams, are beautiful and producti_ve. There are also a few places near the coast whiCh are well adapted to tillage and pasturage. "JJut the principal difficulty with t]Jis region is one common to all countries of volcanic origin-a F<carcity of water. The porousnes of the rocks allows it to pass under ground to the sea. Con~ equeptly, one finds few , 'treams and springs in Lower C~lifornia. From the Cape San Lucas to the mouth of the Colorado, six hundred miles, there are only two streams emptying into the Gulf. One of these is cu.lled San Josef del Cabo : it passes through the plantations of the Mission bearing the same name, and discharges itself into the bay of San Barnabas. The other is the Mulege, which waters the Mission of Santa Rosalia, and enters the Gulf in latitude 27° N. These are not navigable. The streams on the ocean coast, also, are few and small. Some of them are large enough to propel light machinery, or irrigate considerable tracts of land, but none of them are navigable. ltl th~ interior are several lat·ge springs, which LOWER CALIFORNIA. 343 send out abundant currents alon()' the rocky beds of their upper courses; but, wh~n they reach the loose sands and porous rocks of the lower country they sink, aud enter the sea throu~h subterranea~ channels. A great misfortune it is, too, that the lands which border those portions of these streams which run above the ground consist of barren rocks. vVhere springs, however, and arable land occur together, im1nense f8rtility is the consequence. There is some variety of climate on the coasts which it may be well to menticn On the Pacific shore, the ternperature is rendered delightfully balmy by the sea-breezes, and the humidity which they bring along with them. Fahrenheit,s thermometer ranges on this coast, during the summer, between fiftyeight and seventy-one degrees. In the winter months, while the rain~S are falling, it sinks as low as fifty degrees above zero. On the Gulf coast, there is a still greater variation. While at the Cape the mercury stands between sixty and seventy degrees, near the head of the Gulf it is down to the freezing poiut. ''These isolated facts, in regard to the great territory under consideration, will give the reader as perfect an idea of the surface and agricultural capabilities of Lower California as will be here needed. 4 ' The few fertile spots in Lower Calif~rnia '":ere oocupied at an early day, and planted w1th ma1ze, wheat, beans, peas, and all manner. of esculent roots. 44 The European vine was also Introduced ex~ensively, and yielded grapes of the finest. quahty. From these grapes wines were made, whiCh were equal in excellence to those of the Canary Islan~s. The orange, lemon, lime, citron, prune, plantam, |