SALUBRITY. 125 



91. Prevalent Diseases. We have in California less con- 

 sumption, scarlet fever, cholera infantum, and sunstroke, than 

 in the Atlantic States, and more rheumatism and neuralgia, 

 heart disease, aneurism, and diseases of the eyes, than in the 

 Atlantic States. In some districts we have far less malarious 

 disease ; in others, as much. It has been observed that ozone 

 is rare where malarious epidemics prevail, and that it is 

 abundant in the trade winds that blow throughout the summer 

 along our coast. Whenever the winds stop for a few days in 

 the middle of the Sacramento-San Joaquin basin, malarious 

 fever prevails. In the natural advantages of the coolness of 

 summer climate, all those conditions which indicate malaria, 

 the constancy and force of the breezes, and the abundance of 

 ozone, San Francisco has no equal among the great cities. 

 Sunstroke, which has in one season killed 300 persons in New 

 York city, is almost unknown here, even in the interior val- 

 leys, where the summers are much hotter than in New York. 

 The dryness of our atmosphere secures a rapidity of evapora- 

 tion which keeps down the temperature of the body. Neither 

 are any lives lost in our valleys by the intense cold, such as 

 killed seventy persons, and maimed thirty more, in Minnesota, 

 in the winter of 1872-73. 



92. Mineral Waters. California is peculiarly rich in min- 

 eral waters. Elsewhere the springs suitable for medicinal pur- 

 poses are few and far apart ; here they are found in great clus- 

 ters, and they may be numbered by the thousand. They ex- 

 tend from the borders of Oregon to Mexico, and from the 

 edge of the Pacific to the alkali plains of the Great Basin. 

 Surprise Valley, in latitude 41 40', at the eastern base of the 

 Sierra, has hundreds of hot and cold saline, chalybeate, and 

 sulphur springs ; the mud volcanoes of the Colorado Desert, 

 and the hot springs of Warner's Valley, are samples of what 

 are to be found in the extreme south ; but the most remarka- 

 ble collections are in Napa, Sonoma, and Lake Counties, about 

 a hundred miles north of San Francisco, and conveniently ac- 

 cessible by steam and stage. 



"^ B R A> ^ 



OF .THB 



UNIVERSITY 



