SOCIETY. ?67 



shoulders, thin in the chest, the voice loud, the enunciation 

 slow and clear, with little modulation. These general chai'ac- 

 teristics of the nation, as compared with Europeans, are not 

 wanting in California. However, the Californians of the third 

 or fourth generation will be different from those of the present 

 day ; they will be a heavier, and healthier, and probably a taller 

 race. The tendencies in this direction are, I think, already 

 evident, in the forms and growth of the children ; and such 

 influences might be inferred from the vigorous development, 

 in this state, of the forms of animal and vegetable life generally. 

 Most parts of the state, especially those near the coast, are 

 very healthy. Indeed I do not think that in any part of the 

 w^orld is nature more favorable to long life than in California 

 from Sonoma to Santa Barbara, within thirty miles of the ocean. 

 The regularity of the temperature, and the entire absence of 

 both extreme heat and extreme cold, with a clear sky, a dry 

 atmosphere, and a constant breeze, are the conditions most 

 favorable to health, and they are nowhere more happily united 

 than here. In the low land of the Sacramento and Colorado 

 basins, where the summers are very hot, and in the high land 

 of the Sierra Nevada, where the winters are very cold, the 

 health of the inhabitants is not so good. In many of the 

 mining towns, where much vi^ater escapes from the ditches, 

 and keeps the earth constantly moist, and where new ground 

 is thrown up every day, fever and ague are common. That 

 disease prevails also in the moist lands along the Sacramento 

 and San Joaquin Rivers, and about the Four Creeks, in Tulare 

 county. Rheumatism is very common in the mines, and neu- 

 ralgia throughout the state. Whether this latter disease is 

 more common here than in the Eastern states, is a matter of 

 dispute, but certainly I never heard so much of it elsewhere as 

 I have heard in California. Diseases of the eyes are common 

 here, caused probably by the dust, the dryness of the atmos- 

 phere, the glare of the sun, and the evaporation of mercury 

 in open pans, by miners. The dense fogs which visit the coast 

 render the climate unfavorable to persons afflicted with con- 



