to be faithful and intelligent. But those who are at all in a wild and uncultivated state are most degraded objects of filth and idleness.

"It is possible that government might, by collecting them together, teach them, in some degree, the arts and habits of civilization; but, if we may judge of the future from the past, they will disappear from the face of the earth as the settlements of the whites extend over the country. A very considerable military force will be necessary, however, to protect the emigrants in the northern and southern portions of the territory."

So much for the population of California at the commencoment of the present year, (1850.) By its close, it is highly probable, the number will reach two hundred thousand, exclusive of the Indians. Such a population, composed, for the most part, of those who are impregnated with the active, progressive spirit of the American people, will undoubtedly conduct California to a brilliant position among the stars of the republic. With regard to the climate of the country, various conflicting statements have been promulgated, which arises from the visits of those who make the statements having been made to different portions of the country, and stating the climate of a portion as the climate of the whole. Mr. King's Report furnishes the most accurate account of the changes of the temperature, and the state of the atmosphere throughout the year, together with an explanation of their causes. He says

"I come now to consider the climate. The climate of California is so remarkable in its periodical changes, and for the long continuance of the wet and dry seasons, dividing, as they do, the year into about two two equal parts, which have a most peculiar influence

on the labor applied to agriculture and the products of the soil, and, in fact, connect themselves so inseparably with all the interests of the country, that I deem it proper briefly to mention the causes which produce these changes, and which, it will be seen, as this report proceeds, must exercise a controlling influence on the commercial prosperity and resources of the country.

"It is a well-established theory, that the currents of air under which the earth passes in its diurnal revolutions, follow the line of the sun's greatest attraction. These currents of air are drawn towards this line from great distances on each side of it; and, as the earth revolves from west to east, they blow from north-east and south-east, meeting, and, of course, causing a calm, on the line.

"Thus, when the sun is directly, in common parlance, over the equator, in the month of March, these currents of air blow from some distance north of the Tropic of Cancer, and south of the Tropic of Capricorn, in an oblique direction towards this line of the sun's greatest attraction, and forming what are known as the north-east and south-east trade winds.

"As the earth, in its path round the sun, gradually brings the line of attraction north, in summer, these currents of air are carried with it; so that about the middle of May the current from the north-east has extended as far as the 38th or 39th degree of north latitude, and by the twentieth of June, the period of the sun's greatest northern inclination, to the northern portions of California and the southern section of Oregon.

"These north-east winds, in their progress across the continent, towards the Pacific Ocean, pass over the snow-capped ridges of the Rocky Mountains and

the Sierra Nevada, and are, of course, deprived of all the moisture which can be extracted from them by the low temperature of those regions of eternal snow, and consequently no moisture can be precipitated from them, in the form of dew or rain, in a higher temperature than that to which they have been subjected. They, therefore, pass over the hills and plains of California, where the temperature is very high in summer, in a very dry state; and, so far from being charged with moisture, they absorb, like a sponge, all that the atmosphere and surface of the earth can yield, until both become, apparently, perfectly dry.

"This process commences, as I have said, when the line of the sun's greatest attraction comes north in summer, bringing with it these vast atmospheric movements, and, on their approach, produce the dry season in California; which, governed by these laws, continues until some time after the sun repasses the Equator in September, when, about the middle of November, the climate being relieved from these northeast currents of air, the south-west winds set in from the ocean charged with moisture-the rains commence and continue to fall, not constantly, as some persons have represented, but with sufficient frequency to designate the period of their continuance, from about the middle of November until the middle of May, in the latitude of San Francisco, as the wet season.

"It follows, as a matter of course, that the dry season commences first, and continues longest in the southern portions of the territory, and that the climate of the northern part is influenced in a much less degree, by the causes which I have mentioned, than any other section of the country. Consequently, we find that, as low down as latitude 39°, rains are suffi