Riverside and Finis. 307 



to south. At intervals both may be expected, but neither is severe. The cur- 

 rent winter has been exceptional. The lowest temperature acknowledged to 

 us at any point was at Chico, where a creditable witness reported 11° F. on one 

 morning about the middle of January. In the northern part of the Sacra- 

 mento valley the register on the same day ranged from 16° to 21°. In . the 

 southern valley, even as far down as Sm Diego, there was frost everywhere, 

 and some freezing, the temperature being within the limits of 21° to 28° F. 

 I believe that so far as the present winter is concerned the places most nearly 

 ■exempt from frost, so far as the evidence of vegetation may be trusted, were 

 Riverside, Santa Barbara, Santa Ana and San Diego. . 



In the California valleys the atmosphere is everywhere light and elastic. 

 This quality is especially sensible to those who have come from beyond the 

 mountains. There is something really inspiring and invigorating in the 

 California air. I think that, on the whole, the barometer must show a 

 lower average register in California than in places of equal elevation in the 

 countries east of the Mississippi. I note that the average barometric range 

 along the coast, from San Diego to a short distance north of San Francisco, 

 is from 30.00 to 30.05. I do not know whether or not there is anything of 

 hygienic value in these natural conditions beyond the necessary increase of 

 pulmonary action on account of the lighter air; but the latter circumstance 

 is, or itself, a great advantage to all animals of small oj restricted lung 

 capacity ; and so far as man is concerned, whether he be sick or well, he 

 immediately feels the revival of his powers and activities. 



It is evident from history that the humidity of the atmosphere has had 

 much to do with the development and progress of the human race ; but the 

 value of this fact depends upon its correlations with other climatic condi- 

 tions. In a country situated as Great Britain or Iceland, or the Baliic 

 regions, the prevalence of moisture has been greatly favorable to the powers 

 and dominating force of the Teutonic family of men. Fog is not to be neg- 

 lected in the history of civilization. The prevalence of ocean mists, tossed 

 up into great masses of nimbus, and then split and poured down in copious 

 showers of rain, has been a pxrt of the constitution of some of the strongest 

 representatives of the race. In other regions the presence of occasional 

 humidity, alternating with a succession of arid conditions, has proved dis- 

 advantageous to the vigor of mankind. And still again, we find certain 

 pirts of the world of exceeding dryness that are, nevertheless, highly favor- 

 able to the development and inv'goration of the physical life of man and to 

 the q.aickening of his intellectual faculties. It is with such situations as 

 those last named that several parts of the Western United States are in 

 analogy and likeness. The climate of California is dry— very dry— but its 

 aridity seems to exercise a beneficial effect upon the people. All animal 

 life, indeed, in these valleys of the Pacific coast is of extreme vigor, quick- 

 ness of development, strong fecundity, and of full power in its maturity. I 

 do not know whether statistics have, as yet, tested the average longevity of 

 the people of the Pacific coast. I should jiidge, however, that, notwith- 



