Climate of Pacific Beach and lis Effects. 31 



habit was something that was fully controlled by climatic causes, 

 as it was found on tabulating the results, that the habit followed 

 certain isothermal lines with as much regularity as certain species 

 of the vegetable kingdom follow the isotherms or are influenced 

 by the snow line. It is an established fact that for sobriety no 

 lands excel the mild and even temperatured shores ot the Medi- 

 terranean, where in the classic language of Bell, ' the populace of 

 the cities and of the country are to be seen quaffing their lemonade 

 or simply acidulated water with a gusto at the time, and an 

 hilarity of expression afterwards that to the northern races is 

 something simply inconceivable.' In this regard the shores 

 of Southern California are justly entitled to the name of being the 

 Mediterranean shores ot the United States, this being the term 

 that suggested itself to Charles Dudley Warner, who was aston- 

 ished at the close resemblance that existed between the two sea- 

 coasts, of Italy and California, as to climate, production and 

 general tendencies. This purely climatic feature should not be 

 overlooked in choosing an educational locality for the forming 

 man, as it is the constitutional habits and needs that are formed 

 in youth, that afterwards follow man through life to stamp his 

 actions and career. In this favored climate there are no diseases 

 to ward off, nor is there any inclemency of the weather to with- 

 stand that ever suggests the use of spirits in any sense; neither is 

 the system ever enervated or the mind depressed by any at- 

 mospheric cause — so as to even insinuate a suggestion of stimu- 

 lants. I feel that in consideration of the proverbial dangers that 

 beset the young of the land in this regard, that this climatic 

 feature is one, which parents who have their children to educate, 

 cannot dwell upon too strongly; and I feel equally assured, that 

 when this feature is fully recognized, Southern California 

 will become the favored educational Elysium of the land. From 

 the above tendency to temperance in the physical requirements 

 of the system, in the matter of foods and the possibility of con- 

 stant out-of-door recreation, it follows that the blood is never 

 charged with those products of over-feeding that tend to pleth- 

 oric diseases, or are the intestines filled with undigested materials 

 — two conditions that tend to develop a beefy state of the mind 

 and of the faculties generally. The general tendency of this 

 climate on the mind is analogous to that of the climate of that 

 Grecian Archipelago, which produced the wonders of that Greek 

 mind that furnish the foundation for our present systems of medi- 

 cine, poetry, drama, arts and sciences. It was just under such 

 skies and with such climatic conditions that astronomy and 

 mathematics, medicine and philosophy first saw the light of day 

 in ancient Egypt; it was under a like condition of climate that 

 the Mosaic creed, the precursor of Christianity, was developed — 

 all tending to prove that this is the climate, wherein not only the 

 body reaches its greatest perfections, but that it is as well the 

 favored clime of the development of the mind. If the climate 

 develops the physique to its best, and the qualities of the mind 



