1907] Climate in Relation to Health 47 



many cases conditions which have proved perfect. But there 

 is, perhaps, too great an absence of sunshine. Second: The 

 cHmate of the foothills of the Rockies, from 2,000 to 4,000 

 feet in altitude. Cold, bright, dry, elevated prairies, they 

 provide ideal conditions, only affected unfavorably in my judg- 

 ment by often disagreeable winds. But this latter is largely 

 absent in the remarkable elevated belt lying between the 

 Rockies and the Selkirks ; the East Kootenay Valley. It is a 

 bright, always dry belt, where we have in addition great forests 

 of pines in open park lands, lessening the wind and the too 

 rapid radiation, yet permitting, owing to the absence of much 

 snow, exercise on horseback or walking almost every day in 

 the year. Yet it possesses the stimulating effects of 4,000 feet 

 above the sea. Third: But there are cases for whom this high 

 altitude is excessive, viz., those with poor circulation or defec- 

 tive hearts. For them we have the lovely valley of the West 

 Kootenays and Kamloops country. There at heights not greater 

 than the hills of the Gatineau, yet where 4,000 may be reached 

 in an hour, almost daily sunshine, with light snowfall, permits 

 of a constant outdoor life under pleasant, easy conditions; 

 usually not very cold, no great daily variations, and yet more, 

 a country where the cured consumptive can very readily under- 

 take a healthy outdoor occupation in fruit growing. With 

 dryness, brightness, slight elevation and with no excessive 

 changes, this glorious climate with pleasant material prospects, 

 may well lure the patient who, under the stress of modern life 

 in our cities, has proved himself tmequal to the task, and who 

 may with good reason, expect to gradually recover health 

 through a reconstruction of tissue, where a healthy life in otir 

 more rugged eastern climate may prove to him impossible. 



