SOCIETY. 367 
shoulders, thin in the chest, the voice loud, the enunciation 
slow and clear, with little modulation. These general charac- 
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 
world 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 water 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- 
