130 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



be compared safely with the other figures kept according to 



rule. 



St. Helena is forty miles from the ocean and fifty miles 

 north of San Francisco, near the head of N"apa Valley, and 

 shut in by high mountains, which cut off the wind and fog. 

 Though the rainfall is greater than at San Rafael, yet the at- 

 mosphere is drier and more agreeable to consumptives and 

 asthmatics. The distance from San Francisco is three times 

 greater than to San Rafael, yet' the people of St. Helena can 

 come to the metropolis, spend three hours, and return the 

 same day. About two miles away are the White Sulphur 

 Springs, a fashionable summer resort ; eight miles off is Calis- 

 toga, another summer resort, and eight miles further is the 

 summit of Mt. St. Helena. The town is in the center of a 

 grape-growing district, and unimproved land ranges from $100 

 to $200 per acre in the vicinity. 



95. Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara, in latitude 34 24', 

 on the ocean shore, about f6rty miles east of Point Argiiello un- 

 der the shelter of the Santa Inez ridge, which runs east and 

 west, is more in favor at present with consumptives than any 

 other town in the State. Dr. Logan, Secretary of the Board of 

 Health, has recommended it as having the best climate in the 

 State for diseases of the respiratory organs. He says : 

 " Bounded on the north by the Coast Range Mountains, of an 

 average height of 3,000 feet, which prove an. insurmountable 

 barrier to the peculiar harsh oceanic winds, and on the south 

 by a channel formed by the Santa Cruz and other islands, some 

 twenty miles distant, which serve as well to deflect the cold 

 current that sweeps down from the Arctic seas as to afford 

 protection from the concomitant cold fogs that roll in FO unin- 

 terruptedly in other parts of the coast, this portion of California 

 stands out pre-eminently the land of promise to the weary des- 

 ponding invalid." 



Dr. Brinkerhoff, a resident of Santa Barbara, writes thus : 

 " Some ten miles from Santa Barbara, in a westerly direction, 



