This is a passage that describes the different climates of California from the hills, mountains to the deserts. This passage also describes the seasons from rains, snow storms, to the dry desert winds of California.
"They have habits to be learned, appointed paths, seasons, and warnings, and they leave you in no doubt about their performances. One who builds his house on a water scar or the rubble of a steep slope must take chances. So they did in Overtown who built in the wash of Argus water, and at Kearsarge at the foot of a steep, treeless swale. After twenty years Argus water rose in the wash against the frail houses, and the piled snows of Kearsarge slid down at a thunder peal over the cabins and the camp, but you could conceive that it was the fault of neither the water nor the snow."
This section of the passage is a short but detailed about how they had to learn the land and weather to survive and to build because if you did not know how the weather was going to be in the different seasons then you wouldn't know how it would affect you. In this section a house was build and destroyed during the winter because of the snow.
Later in the passage it describes the desert winds and the dust storms. "But being in a house is really much worse; no relief from the dust, and a great fear of the creaking timbers."
Lastly, the passage describes some of the native animals to California, such as the red snake, bobcats, trout in the steams, blackbirds, jays, crows, doves, mallards, cattle, deer, and sheep and the climates they are found and how the weather can impact them.
This was a very descriptive passage and helped me visualize the different climates and seasons of California.
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