ALIFOKNIA op THL - v^<% |r\v V. :fr C A LIFORN I A OF THE SOUTH ITS PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY, CLIMATE, MINERAL SPRINGS, RESOURCES, ROUTES OF TRAVEL, AND HEALTH-RESORTS, BEING A COMPLETE GUIDE-BOOK TO SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA BY WALTER LINULEY, M. D. AND J. P. WIDNEY, A.M., M. L)., LL. D. IVITH MAPS AND NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS THIRD EDITION REWRITTEN AND PRINTED FROM NEW PLATES NEW YORK D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1896 F LIS Copyright, 1888, 1896, Bv D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. THE Gzrry center PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION. Nearly eiglit years have passed since the first edition of this work was published. Nine months later a second edition was issued containing an appendix, but no change was made in the main body of the work. The remark- able growth of Southern California during the past seven years, and the exceptional favor with which this book has been received by the public, have induced the author to prepare this thoroughly revised edition, in which all facts relating to Southern California are brought down to the latest date. In the closing months of 1887, when the first edition of "California of the South" was prepared, the remark- able real-estate boom which swept over Los Angeles and Southern California during the years 1886 and 1887 had just culminated. We did not see it then, but can see it clearly now, that the fall of 1887 marked the beginning of the end of that wild era of speculation which did much good as well as evil in pushing forward Los Angeles and the surrounding country within three or four years to an extent which they could not have otherwise reached in three times that period. It was prophesied by many that after the subsidence of the real-estate excitement this section would relapse into a moribund condition. It might have been so in any other section of the United States, but the marvelous iv CALIFORNIA OF THE SOUTH. resources of Southern California— the charms of its unique climate and the valuable products of its fertile acres — were sufficient not only to tide this section over the natural reaction from a period of crazy inflation, but to establish it on a path of still more remarkable and per- manent progress. After the real estate excitement was over a period of planting and building and general improvement set in, which has continued until the present time, growing in force from year to year. The census of 1890 gave the city of Los Angeles a population of fifty thousand. The population to-day is not less that eighty thousand. Three great systems of electric street railroads have been con- structed, an ocean outfall and internal sewer system built, one hundred miles of streets graded and paved, buildings to the value of over twenty million dollars erected, and a good commencement made in establishing a manufactur- ing industry, to which the discovery of petroleum within the city limits has lent much assistance. In the country the progress has been no less remark- able. On every hand orchards of citrus and deciduous trees have been planted by thousands upon thousands of acres. A beet-sugar factory which utilizes the product of live thousand acres of land is in successful operation. Boom cities which were laid out merely on a real-estate basis — such as Monrovia, Whittier, Fullerton, and others — have grown to be flourishing, productive centers of population. Towns which had scarcely had an existence when the first edition of this book was published — such as Pasadena and Redlands — are now cities with brick- blocks, banks, and other appurtenances of modern busi- ness life. The wonderful growth of Southern California during the ten years between 1880 and 1890 is told in a graphic manner by the figures of the United States census for those two years. Between 1880 and 1890 the counties of PREFA CE. V California showed an average increase of population of 39.72 per cent. Of the fifty-three counties in existence at the latter date, twelve showed a decrease in population, while the highest percentage of increase shown by any county outside of Southern California was 64.90 per cent, San Francisco showing an increase of only 27.80 per cent. Now, as against those figures, take the following re- markable record of the six southern counties (Riverside County not having then been formed). These six coun- ties showed the following percentage of increase in popu- lation for the ten years: Per cent increase. San Diego 305 • 98 Los Angeles and Orange 244.63 Fresno 237.90 San Bernardino 227 . 47 Ventura 98.52 Santa Barbara 65 . 60 It should be noted that most of this remarkable ad- vance was made during the closing half of the decade, from the middle of 1885 to the middle of 1890, when the census was taken. It is evident to the most superficial observer that the progress of the past ten years in Southern California is but an index of that which is in store for this favored sec- tion. In no period of its history has the outlook for Los Angeles and Southern California been brighter than it is to-day. On every hand one sees activity, enterprise, progress. The eyes of many thousands in the East are turned to this promised land, and the immigration to this section of health, pleasure, and home seekers promises to be greater than it has been in any previous year since 1886, with the difference that those who come now do not come for the purpose of gambling in town lots, but of making for themselves productive homes, or, in the vi CALIFORNIA OF THE SOUTH. case of those who have a sufficiency of this world's goods, of passing the closing years of their lives in a balmy cli- mate where every day in the year a man may " sit under his vine and fig tree, with none to make him afraid." It was for the purpose of giving authentic informa- tion regarding this much-talked-of section of the coun- try to those who are thinking of coming this way, either for a visit or to reside, that California of the South was written. From the warm reception which it has re- ceived, the author believes that it has fulfilled its mission, and that the present revised edition will be welcomed by thousands who desire to learn the truth about South- ern California as it is. In the work of revising the book for the third edition I have been materially assisted by Harry Ellington Brook, of the editorial stafT of the Los Angeles Times, author of the Land of Sunshine and other works on Southern Cali- fornia, which have had a wide circulation. Walter Lindley. CONTENTS PART 1. CLIMATOLOGY OF THE PACIFIC COAST. By J. P. WIDNEY, A. M., M. D., LL. D. PAGE Two Californias ........... i The Pacific Coast of America as contrasted with the Atlantic Coast . 2 Seasons ............ 8 Topographical and Climatic Features in which the Different Por- tions of the Pacific Coast are unlike ...... 13 Rainfall -33 Fogs 37 Atmospheric Humidity ......... 37 Sunshine -38 Winds 38 Temperature 43 Agriculture 46 Commercial Development -51 Transcontinental Roads -53 Harbors • 56 Type of Civic and Country Life 58 Education 61 Diseases 62 vii viii CONTENTS. PART II. LOS ANGELES. ORANGE, SAN DIEGO, SAN BERNAR- DINO, VENTURA, SANTA BARBARA, AND RIVERSIDE COUNTIES. By WALTER LINDLEY, M. D. PAGE The Overland Trip — How to enjoy it ...... 69 The Arrival in Southern California ....... 72 A Century in Lcs Angeles ......... 73 The Los Angeles of To day ........ 83 What to see in Los Angeles . . . . . . . .85 The Los Angeles Crematory ........ 103 Los Angeles a Cosmopolitan City ....... 104 Religious and Educational 107 Parks 113 Manufactures in Los Angeles ........ 117 Trade and Commerce of Los Angeles ...... 121 Climate of Los Angeles ......... 124 Los Angeles County, Soledad Township ...... 128 San Fernando Township ......... 132 La Ballona Township, Santa Monica 136 Los Angeles Township ......... 140 Wilmington Township, San Pedro ....... 141 San Antonio Township ......... 144 Los Nietos Township, Long Beach, and Santa Fe Springs . . 144 San Gabriel Township ......... 148 El Monte, Azusa, and San Jos^ Townships . . . . .158 San Antonio Caiion .......... 168 Orange County ........... 172 Anaheim Township — Westminster, Santa Ana, and San Juan Town- ships ..... 172 Orange, Santa Ana, and Tustin ........ 178 San Juan ............ 181 Mineral Springs in Los Angeles and Orange Counties . . . 183 Helen Hunt Jackson and the Mission Indians ..... 188 San Diego County .......... 208 City of San Diego .......... 215 From San Diego East and North ....... 2ig cox TEXTS. IX I'ACiE Climate of San Diego County 224 Mineral Springs of San Diego and Riverside Counties . . . 225 San Bernardino County ......... 230 City of San Bernardino . ........ 232 East San Bernardino Valley ........ 239 Mineral Springs of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties . . 245 Riverside County .......... 252 Riverside .... 261 Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties 270 The Riviera of the Pacifie 270 Nordhoff — The Ojai Valley 275 Santa Barbara — America's Mcnlone 278 Along the Coast 2gi The Islands of Southern California ....... 294 Mineral Springs of Santa Barbara and \entura Counties . . . 301 APPENDIX. Land and Products . Horticulture .... Live Stock, Dairy, and Poultry Prices of Land .... Irrigation ..... An Unbiased Opinion Petroleum in Southern California Railway Tables .... Rales to California Hotels of Southern California . 305 306 313 313 314 315 317 321 526 326 MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Township Map of Los Angkles and Orange Counties Face 69 Map ok California At end of volume Frontispiece 82 Cactus loaded with Fruit .... A Veranda in Los Angeles Kinneyloa Ranch, thirteen miles east of Los Angeles A Los Angeles Residence .... Residence, Adams Street, Los Angeles Dragoon Palm ...... San Pedro Street, Los Angeles . A Country Home near Los Angeles . Monte Vista, twenty miles northwest of Los Angeles Hotel Arcadia, Santa Monica Eucalyptus Avenue, Inglewood, Los Angeles County Hotel, Long Beach ...... View of Sierra Madre Mountains and Pasadena, from A Sierra Madre Residence .... Farmhouse in Vernon ..... Santa Anita Ranch A Monrovia Residence ..... Ruins of Mission, San Juan Capistrano A Mission Garden ...... Hon. Antonio F. Coronel ..... Ramona's Home, Camulos Ranch Hotel del Coronado, Coronado Beach, with a glimpse of San Diego Bay xi Raymond Hotel 87 96 99 100 102 115 135 137 139 145 156 159 162 165 169 189 191 192 200 213 xii //-/. 6' 5 TKA TIONS. PAGE The Call to Sunrise Mass, Pala Mission ...... 223 Residence at Old San Bernardino ... .... 240 Arrowhead Hot Springs Hotel, San Bernardino County . . . 247 Arlesian Wells, South Riverside ....... 263 Santa Barbara (j rape-vine ......... 284 Irrigating an Orange Orchard ....... 287 Solitude Canon, Catalina Island 296 General Nelson Miles, U. S. A 316 PART I. CLIMATOLOGY OF THE PACIFIC COAST. By J. P. WIDNEY, A. M, M. D., LL. D. Two Californias. The American east of the Rocky Mountains has been accustomed to look upon the map and speak of the State of California as he would speak of the State of Ohio or New York. He is only beginning to find out, what the old Spaniard discovered long ago, that where he had spoken of one, there are two, a California of the North and a California of the South, and that these two, while possessing many features in common, are in many others totally unlike. And with the settling up of the country, and the knowledge which comes of time and climatic investiga- tion, these difTerences are found to be even more marked than at first supposed. So unlike are the California of the North and the Cali- fornia of the South that already two distinct peoples are growing up, and the time is rapidly drawing near when the separation which the working of natural laws is mak- ing in the people must become a separation of civil laws as well, and two Californias stand side by side as distinct and separate States. 2 CALIFORNIA OF THE SOUTH. To a clear understanding of the differences which exist between the Cahfornias and the eastern portion of the United States, and again of the differences between the two Cahfornias when contrasted the one with the other, it is necessary to examine into the geographical, topographical, and climatic features which they possess in common as contrasted with the eastern shores of the continent, and again the features wherein they differ the one from the other. The Pacific Coast of America as contrasted with the Atlantic Coast. The Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States alike have a general trend, diverging as they go north- ward, from the axis of the continent. This is caused by the widening out of the land as it passes northward from the Isthmus. This trend gives to each coast a general southerly exposure to the sea, the one facing toward the southeast, the other toward the southwest. North of the boundary line of the United States this similarity ceases. Upon the Atlantic side the shore line retreats toward the west, north of Newfoundland, which projects like a great headland out into the ocean. In consequence of this re- cession of the land, the shore has here a northeasterly instead of a southeasterTy exposure. Along the line of this shore the broad, deep channel of Davis Strait opens a great, unobstructed way from the waters of the Atlan- tic to the Arctic Seas. Upon the Pacific side, instead of the falling back of the shore line, the divergence from the central axis in- creases until, at Alaska, the land faces boldly ofT toward the south. Instead, also, of a clear channel into the polar seas, that body of cold water is practically shut off, the narrow and sliallow passage of Behring Strait admitting of only a slight communication, while another barrier in CLIMATOLOGY. 3 the shape of the long transverse hne of the Aleutian Pen- insula and its continuing islands makes a wall between the colder waters of the north and the warmer waters of the ocean south. In the mountain chains, also, a similarity and again a difference may be noted. Upon each coast in the south- ern portion a system of mountain chains follows the shore line at a greater or less distance inland. Upon the Atlantic side this system, the Appalachian, begins in northern Georgia, and extends continuously through the Carolinas, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, finally disappear- ing in northern Maine. It runs parallel to the coast, and at a distance of from two to three hundred miles inland. South of this line the land ceases, and the great heated body of the Gulf waters extends across the southern bor- der of the continent, sending its modifying influence, borne by the Gulf winds, far inland along the open valley- way of the Mississippi. North of central New York the chain begins to break down, leaving the country open upon the north and west to the cold winds which sweep down from the polar seas, and from the great frozen plains which extend to the mouth of the Mackenzie. The northwesterly winds gather an increased harshness from the winter-chilled waters of the Great Lakes, across which they pass. This Appalachian system is made up of mountains of limited altitude, ranging only from two to three thou- sand feet in height, and broken by numerous passes and low reaches. Between these mountains and the sea lies a coast plain, broad, continuous, fertile, watered by many rivers, and broken by no transverse range of mountains. Upon the Pacific coast, likewise, is a system of mount- ains running parallel witli the coast, but much closer to it than the Appalachian upon the east. This Pacific coast system is made up of the Sierra Nevada, which in 4 CALIFORNIA OF TIIF SOUTH. different portions of its length is known by various local names, and the Coast Range. This system, unlike its analogue upon the Atlantic coast, is not shortened upon either the north or the south. Beginning at the southern point of the Peninsula of Lower California, in the latitude of Cuba, it follows the coast as a double range, the outer keeping near the shore, the inner at a distance of from one to three hundred miles; sometimes the Coast Range disappearing, again reappearing — the Sierra, however, always continuing as a practically unbroken chain; some- times the tw'o ranges coalescing, sometimes separating and inclosing between their two walls long, compara- tively narrow valleys, which drain to the sea by breaks in the outer range; sometimes the outer range disappear- ing entirely for a space, leaving these valleys open to the sea as great coast plains. The Coast Range has generally a narrow rim of plain at its base, cut transversely by numerous small streams and rivers which quickly reach the sea. This system of mountains extends as a continuous line from the penin- sula of Lower California through California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska, finally turn- ing directly westward out the long Aleutian Peninsula. Pouring out of the Arctic Ocean through Baffin's Bay is a great polar current of cold water, with a tempera- ture but little above the freezing point, chilling, by its contiguity, the open plains of Labrador, and thus lov/er- ing the mean annual temperature of the northern Atlantic States and of Canada, which lie open to the winds sweep- ing southward from these colder regions. No range of mountains intervenes to break the force of these air cur- rents, or to give shelter, the whole Atlantic slope north to the polar seas being practically one continuous open plain. South of Labrador the polar current is shot off to the mid-Atlantic by the prominent headland of New- foundland, excepting, however, such smaller portion of CLIMA TO LOG Y. 5 it as may pass within that island by the Strait of Relic Isle and down by the Nova Scotian coast. The south end of the Atlantic plain has, on the con- trary, its shore line constantly bathed in a current of warm water having a temperature of 86°, which comes from the heated tropic seas, and then circling through the Carribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, emerges by the Strait of Florida and is deflected northward along the coast of the United States by the reefs and islands of the Bahamas. From these heated waters flow inland the warm, moist air currents which give to the South Atlantic coast its sultry heat. Yet this ocean stream, also, after a while, leaves the vicinity of the land, and passes seaward to the mid- Atlantic and on to the North European coast, in part carried by the line of its escape from the Gulf, in part deflected by the curve of the Florida coast, and by the projecting capes of the Carolinas. Between these two deflected currents, the Gulf and the polar, is a triangle, having for its base the shore line from Cape Hatteras, in the Carolinas, to Cape Race, on the extremity of Newfoundland, and extending far sea- ward, the temperature of whose waters, controlled by no great ocean current, varies with the seasons — colder in winter, warmer in summer — and so serving less efficient- ly as an equalizer of temperature on the adjacent land.* Neither is there found upon tlie Atlantic coast the strong sea breeze or the on-shore trade-wind currents of the Pacific coast. As a result of these geographical * The following table shows the winter and summer variations of sea temperature upon the Atlantic coast as compare-.l with the Pacific: New York Savannah . January. July. 33-3° 49-9° 72.4° 84.5' ?an Francisco. I.ong Beach. . . January. 52.1 60.0° July. 590 68 5° 6 CALIFORNIA OF THE SOUTH. features, tlic climate of the Atlantic coast presents great and well-marked variations, the North showing extremes of cold in winter, the South extremes of heat in summer, and this, too, with an atmosphere heavily charged with moisture — not simply within reach of the coast fog, but extending inland to the valley of the Mississippi. The points of resemblance between the two coasts now begin to cease, for, while the Pacific shore has also its ocean current, it is one, rather than two, and it flows along the full length of the coast, with a temperature varying but little from the one even and moderate de- gree, whether winter or summer, or whether north or south. The Kuro Siwo, as it is termed — the great Japan current — flows from the tropics northward along the Asiatic; coast, bathing the Japan Islands in its warm waters, and giving to them their mild and equable cli- mate. Passing on northward, it is deflected toward the east in latitude 50° by the long chain of the Aleutian Islands, and then, striking the Alaskan coast, turns south, and so follows down the west shore of North America as a current, cooled yet not cold, for, instead of entering the Polar Sea, it is still, at the most northerly point of its flow, within the temperate zone. Neither does any cold polar current set out through the narrow and shoal Behring Strait to join it and reduce its temperature be- low the refreshing coolness which it gains in latitude 50° north. It is this current, together with the all-the-year on-shore winds of the counter-trades on the coast as far south as Oregon, and the strong daily sea breeze of the summer and the on-shore counter-trades of the winter, south of (Iregon, which give the clew to the equable cli- mate of the Pacific coast of North America. Passing inland beyond the range of the sea breeze, this cool summer temperature is no longer found. On the contrary, the mercury will often show a heat in the day of 100° to 1 10". Yet here another climatic lav/ comc3 CLIMATOLOGY. 7 in play to rob this high temperature of its danger, and, indeed, of much of its cHscomfort. The hygrometer shows an atmosphere in these inland regions almost devoid of moisture, and, by the conse- quent rapid surface evaporation from the skin, bodily temperature is reduced and sunstroke almost unknown. Of the power of this evaporation to keep down bodily temperature, the writer has a vivid recollection during some weeks spent in Tucson, Arizona, some years ago. Just before the setting in of the summer rains, with the mercury daily at 100" and the atmosphere devoid of mois- ture, the surface of the body was dry, and the heat not in the least oppressive. Inmiediately upon the coming on of the rains, the daily temperature fell to an average of from 85° to 90°, but with an atmosphere laden w^ith moisture, and the surface of the body was constantly bathed in the unevaporating perspiration, and the heat became almost unendurable. It is this absence of atmos- pheric moisture and its effects which make one of the great points of difference between the summer climates of the Atlantic and the Pacific slopes. The explanation of this atmospheric dryness back of the inmicdiate California coast line, and on to the in- terior during the summer, lies in the fact that south of Oregon the prevailing summer wind, except within the limited shore line reached by the sea breeze, is not from the sea, but is the regular off-shore trade-wind, coming from the great arid desert plateaus of the heart of the continent, and w^hich, as it nears the coast, rises above the lower surface current of the daily ocean breeze, and flows continuously out to sea, until broken in the au- tumn, and beaten back l)y the shifting southward of the counter-trades. Another important factor in the dissipation of exces- sive heat during the summer is the rapid radiation of the night which the atmospheric dryness admits of, and 8 CALIFORNIA OF THE SOUTH. which, in the more elevated rep^ions whence the night wind comes, is increased by the lightness and rarefaction of an atmosphere witli less superincumbent weight upon it. Under the workings of this law, upon these desert plateaus the day, with a temperature of ioo° to iio°, is followed by night with a temperature so low as to require blankets for comfort and health. The influence of the mountains in a comparison of the climate of the two coasts is an important item. Dwellers along the slopes or near the base of high moun- tain peaks know the cool night breezes which blow down their sides. The writer well remembers the rush of the great cold mountain wind which swept down the canons of the Arizona mountains in many a lone night camp under the trees, the wind roaring through the long night hours in the pines overhead like the roar of some long- lost desert sea. The Atlantic coast, as already shown, has its mountain system back several hundred miles from the sea; but the mountains are of low elevation, ranging only from two to three thousand feet in height. The Pa- cific coast, however, is lined with ranges and spur-ranges whose peaks lift to elevations of from two to ten thou- sand feet, and snow-clad until the summer is well gone by. From these cold, snowy summits at night comes to the heated valleys below a continuous current, partly the natural mountain wind, partly the dropping down of the high trade-wind already mentioned, cooled by its passage over these great elevations, and hence the cool, refresh- ing nights which characterize the Pacific coast summers, as contrasted with the continuous day and night heat of the Atlantic slope. Seasons. The old division of the year into winter and summer, with which the Anglo-Teuton race has been familiar during the thousands of years of its migrations, becomes CLIMATOLOGY. 9 upon tlie Pacific coast a misnomer, or the words must be taken in a new signification. The snows and the ice of its older homes l)ecome here the rains and the occa- sional light frosts of a climate in which winter and sum- mer are supplanted by a wet and dry season. As already shown, the northeast trade-wind, which is the prevailing wind for the summer half of the year upon the whole coast south of Oregon, is an ofT-shore dry wind, coming from the high, arid plateaus of the heart of the continent. With it comes no rain. But as the sun retires south- ward in the autumn, this dry wind follows it, and the northwest counter-trade of the upper coast, which is an on-shore rain wind, and which, as the prevailing wind all the year round on the (Oregon and Alaskan coast, gives to it the monthly rains, also follows the sun, and now takes the place of the dry trades upon the coast as far south as the peninsula of Lower California, bringing with it the rains which, from October to May, make of the winter of other lands the true summer or season of growth in this. Then, when the rains are over, come the summer months of other lands, but which here are the season when vegetation sleeps, and the land, where not irrigated, looks dry and bare. A mistaken idea prevails often with persons who have formed their conceptions of a rainy season from the de- scriptions given by travelers in equatorial regions of the tropic rains, with their daily downpour and their appall- ing tliunder and lightning. The winter rainfall of the Pa- cific coast, while in its northern portion in excess, and in the extreme south less tlian that in corresponding lati- tudes upon the eastern side of the continent, averages throughout Oregon and California nuicli as in the Atlan- tic and ]\lississipi)i States. Neither are the rainy months marked by violent and heavy rainfalls. From the middle of October to the mid- dle of November the first rain of the season generally lO CALIFORXIA OF THE SOUTH. falls, giving in the course of two or three clays from one to three inches. Then, after several weeks of clear weather, comes rain again in the same manner. In the latter part of December what is called one of the heavy winter storms sets in, when, during a week or ten days of south winds and broken, rainy weather, a fall of from five to eight inches may be expected. January is gen- erally marked by clear weather, w'ith possibly occasional slight rains. In February or March another of the heavy storms may again be expected. Then the rains gradually grow less, until by May they have almost ceased. The rains of the plains and valleys are accompanied by snows in the mountains, snow accumulating to a depth of many feet in the high Sierra, and to a less depth in the lower Coast Ranges. This snow forms the great storehouse of moisture for the summer streams, slowly melting and filling the various rivers during the rainless summer. Thunder and lightning are almost unknown. During the summer what is known as the Sonora sum- mer rain current occasionally follows up the long chain of the Sierra, giving showers, with thunder and lightning, in the mountains, and at intervals of a few years even in the valleys. This current may at times last for a week, and during its continuance the weather becomes some- what sultry, like that of the Atlantic States, but with the sea breeze, although for the lime blowing with less force, to modify and temper it. The summer along the whole sea coast is marked by night fogs, which set in after the spring rains check, and cease before the rains of the autumn begin. These fogs lift in the early forenoon, and by their humidity and freshness help to make the day cool and refreshing. The heat of the summer is not felt along the coast within reach of the sea breeze — a midday temperature of from 65° to 80° being the rule, varying with localities. Back CLIMATOLOGY. I I from the coast, in the interior valleys, where the fog does not penetrate, the midday temperature may, in ex- ceptional cases, during- a hot spell, reach 90° or 100°, or even 105°, but it is a dry heat, without the discomfort or the danger attending a like temperature in the Atlantic or Mississippi States. These hot spells, as they are called, may occur several times during the course of the summer, generally lasting for three days, when the mer- cury drops, and the normal coolness returns. Even during these hot spells, however, the night is generally marked by a rapid fall in temperature, so that sleep is restful and refreshing. While the summer is marked by the regularity of the daily sea and land breezes, the cyclones and great wind storms of the Atlantic and Mississippi regions are here unknown. Another and very marked feature of the Pacific slope, as contrasted with the Atlantic, is the great variety of climates found within comparatively limited areas. This variety arises largely from the difference in the moun- tain development upon the two sides of the continent. L'pon the Atlantic slope, as already described, the one system follows parallel with the coast, but at a distance of several hundred miles inland, and is of moderate ele- vation, ranging only from two to three thousand feet, while no spur ranges reach out to the coast, and no coast range rises between the broad coast plain and the sea. Upon the Pacific slope the main chain of the high Sierra also follows parallel with the coast, at a distance some- what less, however, ranging from sixty to two hundred miles from it. But instead of an elevation of only two or three thousand feet, it rises to from eight to fourteen thousand feet above the sea. Again, instead of the open coast plain, as upon the Atlantic side, comes a second line of mountains, the Coast Range, parallel with the coast and close to it. These two ranges, also, at several 12 CALIFORNIA OF TIIF SOUTH. points in their long line coalesce, and merge into great broken, upland mountain plateaus and Alpine regions. The resulting difference in the climate of the two coasts is very marked. While upon the Atlantic side the suffer- er from the summer heat, or the invalid, must undertake a journey of many hundred miles to find even a moderately cool mountain air, upon the Pacific coast, if a resident of the warmer interior valleys, and not desiring to seek the seaside, within his sight are mountains where he may find any temperature ranging from refreshing coolness to night frosts or perpetual snows. So, too, in the Coast Range, are varieties of climates such as one would seek in vain upon the Atlantic slope. While upon the ocean side of the range are great forests where the giant red- wood is bathed nightly in the dense, cool fog which seems to be essential to its growth, just across the summit are warm mountain slopes facing off toward the morning sun, their rolling hills green to the very crest with the olive and the vine; and yet from their sheltered warmth one may pass on for a few miles to some pass or gap in the range that is swept during all the summer months by the great, cool ocean wind as it rushes through to the heated interior. Thus, there is scarcely a point in California where one within a few hours by rail has not his choice of a climate, varying from the heat of the Atlantic or Mississippi mid- summer to the coolness of the White Mountains, or the perpetual snows of the higher Alps; his choice from a hot, dry air, as of the highlands of Arabia, to fogs and coolness, as of the west coast of Scotland ; his choice from a stillness, as of the calm of the " hollow lotus-land," where no harsh winds blow, to other points swept by ocean winds which for months pour inland with the rush and the roar of a great aerial river. It is this infinite variety, lying back of the typical equability, which gives to the Pacific-slope climate its strongest charm, and CLJMA TO LOG Y. 13 which makes it suit so infinite a variety of constitutions and diseases. Topographical and Climatic Features in which the Different Portions of the Pacific Coast are unlike. A stranp:er might infer, from the foregoing, that one common cHmate, with Httle variation, existed over the whole Pacific coast. This is not the case, however. Upon the coast hne three distinct types exist, while a fourth is found back of the Sierra on the great inland plain. And these climatic differences are sufficient to make radical differences in agriculture, in commercial laws, in civil divisions, in health and disease, and in race development. These climatic belts may be classified into — 1. The northern, which includes the upper coast from the great transverse coalescing of mountains near the upper line of California northward. In this division lie Oregon, Washington, F^ritish Columbia, and the imme- diate coast-rim of Alaska, and the long chain of islands which lines the coast. 2. The central, which includes California as far south as the eastward turn of the coast at Point Conception. Near this point transverse chains of high mountains sepa- rate the State into two distinct topographical and cli- matic divisions. 3. The southern, which embraces what is distinctively known as Southern California, and includes that portion of the State lying south of the transverse chains of moun- tains just mentionetl. 4. The great inland plateau, lying between the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky ranges, and reaching from the Gulf of California on the south to the Polar Sea on the north as a continuous open plain, unbroken by any trans- verse chain of mountains. H CALIFORNIA OF THE SOUTH. THE NORTHERN BELT The first of these beUs, that from Oregon northward, has three physical features, which are the key to the ch- mate, viz.: the disappearance of the Coast Range which is found farther south, and the drawing near to the coast of the northern extension of the Sierra Nevada, which as a continuous, but here somewhat broken, and ratlier low range, follows near to the coast, and separates it from the inland plateau; a shore line closely hugged by the south- ward flow of the return current of the Kuro Si wo — an all- the-year on-shore wind current of the moist counter- trades. The result is a climate which, while showing some- what of the extremes of the high latitude, is yet tempered winter and summer by the constant inflow of the counter- trades, an air current rendered equable by the mild ocean waters over which it passes before reaching the land ; yet, because of the lower and broken character of the range back, this coast climate receives through contiguity, and through irregular wind currents from the land, somewhat of the harshness of the inland plateau which is in its north- ern part a frozen polar plain. This portion of the Pacific coast resembles in a marked degree, physically and climatically, yet in a more temperate type, the west coast of northern Europe, from and including the British Islands, and north through Sweden and Norway. This belt is marked also by an excess of moisture. Thus the annual precipitation at Sitka is one hundred and ten inches; at Portland, Oregon, fifty-three inclies. The all-the-year on-shore current of the counter- trades is, winter and summer, a rain current. While pre- cipitation is heavier in certain months of the year, still no month is without its regular rains, its fogs and clouds. In the extreme north, or in the mountains farther south, CLIMATOLOGY. 1 5 this precipitation is of course during' the winter months, more or less, in the form of snow. While the portion of this belt north of Oregon is not marked by a deep soil, the abundance of moisture, and the always moderate temperature, stimulate a vigorous life of the hardier class- es of vegetation, and hills and \ alleys are covered by a dense growth of forest, made up chiefly of fir and pine. This is especially the timber belt of the Pacific coast, and is the great source of supply for lumber, which is shipped by sea to the various points of demand. South- ward, the timber belt tends to retreat from the valleys into the higher mountains to secure the requisite cool- ness and moisture, except what is known as the redwood belt, which extends along the immediate shore line as far south as midway on the California coast. This northern belt is the one also rich in coal and iron, both of which grow scant in quantity, and the coal poor in quality, farther south. The abimdance of timber, coal, and iron marks this belt as the future manfacturing por- tion of the coast. Its low mountain passes, easy grades across the conti- nent, and abundance of good harbors, mark it also as one of the natural routes for transcontinental trafific. Al- ready Puget Sound and the mouth of tiie Columbia are becoming terminal points for such trade. Agriculturally, it is the belt of grasses, of rye, of oats, and of northern grains and fruits, and in its southern por- tion of the wheat plant, the potato, and the apple. The annual temperature is too low for corn. Its seas, like those of the west coast of northern Eu- rope, abound in fish of the most valuable kinds for food, such as the cod, the mackerel, and the salmon. Its fish- eries are already of vast commercial value. For healthfulness it ranks with the west coast of Europe; free from malaria, having the rheumatisms, the pneumonias, and the catarrhs of the north — a climate 1 6 CALIFORNIA OF TIIF SOUTH. healthful for moderately robust constitutions; because of its continued dampness, and its low but not excessively cold temperature, not to be selected as the resort of deli- cate persons, of invalids, of consumptives; the future home of a hardy, prosperous, seafarinj:^, fisher, agricul- tural, and manufacturing folk, having the substantial ele- ments for the building up of a strong, vigorous civili- zation. THE CENTRAL BELT. This belt, as before stated, includes California as far south as a line drawn from that prominent headland of the coast known as Point Conception, in a northeasterly direction to the mountains at the south end of the San Joaquin plain, thence following the curve of the Sierra as it turns northward, and on to Mount Shasta and the Oregon line. This belt presents, as its topographical characteris- tics, an extensive interior valley — the Sacramento-San Joaquin — in elevation but little above the sea level, hav- ing its length from north to south, and shut in upon all sides by mountain chains except one narrow outlet to the sea. Upon the eastern side of this valley a lofty and con- tinuous range, the high Sierra, shuts it off, and isolates it from the interior of the continent. Upon the west a lower chain of mountains, the Coast Range, walls it in from the ocean — this range splitting into two in the mid- California region, and inclosing between them San Fran- cisco Bay and a series of smaller inner coast valleys. Up- on the north and the south this Coast Range coalesces with the Sierra, thus shutting in the great interior valley of the Sacramento-San Joaquin from the northern and the southern belts. Upon the ocean side of the Coast Range are numer- ous small coast valleys, each generally drained by a short water-course having a rapid fall to the sea. CLIMATOLOGY. 1 7 The mountain development makes the central belt the most isolated and difficult of access of the three Pacific coast divisions. Upon the north are the heavy grades and the rugged mountains about Shasta. Upon the south the crests of the Tehachapi, crossed by the South- ern Pacific at an elevation of 4,025 feet; while east of it and between it and the great interior of the continent runs the full length of the highest portion of the snow- clad Sierra with but few passes. The Central Pacific crosses this range on its way eastward at an elvation of 6,749 feet. The Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley, which forms the greater mass of the agricultural land of this belt, is some four hundred and fifty miles in length by from sev- enty-five to one Inmdred miles in widtli. It is a level, un- timbered plain, except in the foothills, with an eleva- tion but little above the sea. The flat character of the plain, and the narrow outlet to the sea, make the river portions of the valley subject to severe floods in the winter. Shut in from the sea breeze by the Coast Range, the extremes of both heat and cold are much more marked than upon other portions of the California slope of the Sierra. Thus, the mean, average temperature of Sacramento for January is 46.6°; for July, 71.2°; at Visalia, January, 48.1°; July, 80.8°: at Los Angeles, January, 53.9°; July 70.2°: at San Diego, January, 55°; July. 68.4°. The winter rain currents, being from the south, have to cross the Coast Range of mountains to reach the San Joaquin portion of the valley, and in crossing are robbed of much of their moisture, giving at Visalia an annual rain- fall of only 10.46 inches. The central and northern por- tions of the valley receiving the current which enters fiom the sea by the lower gaps about San Francisco Bay, have a much larger rainfall; thus, Sacramento reaches an 3 1 8 CALIFORNIA OF THE SOUTH. animal average of i8, while the northern portions range much higher, Red IMuff having 36.39 inches. As a result, while the rainfall in the north is sufBcient to insure constancy to agricultural returns, in the San Joaquin plain, and especially in its southern portion, the returns are much less certain. It is only a question of time, however, when this whole valley will be made to support a dense population. The high Sierra back of it, with its peaks ranging from ten to fourteen thousand feet in elevation, its heavy winter snows, and its great water- shed, furnishes a summer flow of water which, when once fully utilized, will probably be sufficient to irrigate the whole plain. It is in this future development of irriga-^ tion, rather than in mines or conunerce, that the true wealth of the central belt lies. Already extensive irriga- tion works are in operation, but the need is for a compre- hensive system under some general plan and with proper supervision. Between this valley of the Sacramento-San Joaquin and the ocean lies the broken and irregular Coast Range of mountains, with its rolling hills, and its many smaller valleys, notably the valley of the San Francisco Bay and its branches. These valleys are, as compared with the great interior Sacramento-San Joaquin basin, small in area yet marked by a high' degree of fertility. They possess a more equable climate and a more reliable rain- fall, which in the valleys facing south is sufficient, in the driest years, to mature grain — in the valleys facing the north, less certain. The low elevation of the Coast Range, and the absence of accumulated snow, make the streams of these valleys small and unreliable, so that extensive irrigation is not possible. In many of them artesian wells help to supply the lack, and are utilized for watering orchards and gardens. The central belt, as a whole, is marked by certain char- acteristics peculiar to itself, as contrasted with the north- CLIMA TOLOG V. 19 ern or the southern. Lying south of the Hue of the moist, on-shore, sunnner counter-trades, it has an upper and controlling summer current, the continuous ofif-shore northeast trade-wind, blowing down from the arid pla- teaus of the interior of the continent. It is this current which gives to the central belt the rainless summer, and the dry, clear atmosphere for which it is noted. The ex- cessive dryness makes the air seem, to one unaccustomed to it, even harsh. In this respect it is unlike either the northern or the southern belt. The shore line, which keeps the general east-of-south trend of the northern belt, is still closely hugged by the return current of the Kuro Siwo. This current, still re- taining the coolness of the Alaskan seas, is now in sum- mer of a lower temperature than the land. The heating of the interior valleys gives rise, during the after part of each summer day, to a strong, surface-current sea breeze which, as the temperature of the land drops toward night, bears in a heavy fog, that envelops the shore line and the valleys adjacent to the sea. This wind, with its attendant fog, is especially marked wherever a gap is found in the Coast Range, giving easier access to the heated interior. It is the coolness, and the nightly moisture of these sum- mer fogs, which draw the forest line well down the coast in northern California. To persons of delicate constitu- tion — those who do not make blood and bodily heat rap- idly — these keen sea breezes and the chill fog are very trying. From the long plains of the Sacramento-San Joaciuin come at times, more especially during the late summer and the autumn, hot, dry winds which are not found in either the northern or the southern belt. In the same way during the winter, cold, dry winds sweep from the now chilled surface of these plains, giving to the central belt the norther. Climatically, then, the central belt shows less moisture 20 CAIJF0KXL4 OF THE SOUTH. than tlie northern, an absence of summer rains, a dry, stimulating summer air, often marked by excessive heat — with, however, a cool, foggy coast. Agriculturally, it is the home of the wheat, the barley, but not, except in certain warmer portions, of the corn; it grows the apple, the pear, the plum, the peach, the cherry, the currant, and with these the fig of southern Europe. In a few sheltered spots in the foothills the orange and lemon have been grown for many years, but not in sufficient quantities to become an article of much sale in the markets. The vine finds a congenial home in all the interior, and through the coast counties, except in some of the more exposed localities. All the vegetables of the temperate zone are found. Herbage is annual, having its season of growtli during the winter, drying up in the summer. It is a rich, fertile land, comparing with central and western France, but with less severe cold during the winter. It will be made to support a dense population, rather by agriculture than by manufactures or commerce. Connnercially, the central belt is less fortunately lo- cated than either the northern or the southern. It has back of it the longest lines of land carriage across the con- tinent, the distance from San Francisco to New York be- ing in tlic direct line twenty-five hundred miles, while from Puget Sound to shi]) navigation on the lakes is only fif- teen hundred miles, and from Los Angeles or San Diego to tide-water on the Gulf of Mexico is only thirteen hundred miles. It has also back of it the highest grades and the heaviest snows of all the various transcontinental lines, for both the Sierra and the Rocky Mountains are highest in their central part. The Northern Pacific crosses the Cascade Range at an elevation of 3,980 feet, the Rocky Mountains at 5,873 feet. The Central and L'nion Pacific line from San Francisco crosses the Sierra CJ.IMATOLOGY. 21 at an elevation of 7,017 feet, and the Rocky Mountains at some 8,242 feet. Yet the Southern Pacific Hue from Los Angeles to the Gulf crosses the Sierra at an elevation of only 2,560 feet, and the Rocky Mountain chain at 4,614 feet, and is practically south of the snow line. The commercial supremacy which San Francisco, as the metropolis of the central belt, secured in the early days through the first rush of population to the mines of that region, is already passing away, the northern and notably the southern belts having developed trade cen- ters of their own, and having now the commercial advan- tages which come of shorter lines, lower grades, and lighter snows, and also of productive interior routes across the continent, the central belt having behind it the most arid and barren portion of the great inland plateau. In healthfulness, this central belt ranks, as in climate, with central France, but having many advantages arising from the milder winter and the dry sunnner. It will be the home of a healthy, vigorous race; yet to the invalid its coast winds have a harshness which is keenly felt. For certain seasons, there are localities in the foothills of both the Coast Range and the Sierra which could hardly be bettered. The interior valleys show some ma- laria, certain portions decidedly so. Shut off as they are from the force of the ocean winds, the effect of the exten- sive irrigation, which is becoming a necessity, upon the development of malaria, is an open question. The coast and the coast valleys are almost entirely free from it. Apart from these sections which dcveloj) malaria, there can scarcely be said to be endemic diseases. The keen winds of the coast bring with them somewhat of neu- ralgias, subacute rheumatism, catarrhs, and some pneu- monia, pleurisy, and bronchitis. The interior is quite free from them. 22 CALIFORNIA OF THE SOUTH. THE INTERIOR BELT OR PLATEAU. Geographically and climatically, the Rocky Mountain range is ordinarily spoken of as the -dividing line or ridge of the continent. There are reasons why it should be so considered. Under the name of the Andes in South America, the Sierra JMadre in Mexico, and the Rocky Mountains in North America, it is the one continuous range which reaches from extremity to extremity of the continent in a practically unbroken chain. East of it, all drainage is into the Atlantic and its con- necting waters ; west of it, into the Pacific and its connect- ing waters. At its east and west bases lie two great in- terior valleys. They present some striking analogies. Each is sepa- rated from the ocean by a double coast system of moun- tains — the eastern by the AUeghanies and the Blue Ridge, the western by the Sierra and the Coast Range. Each extends upon the north and the south to the waters of the sea, with no well-marked transverse range of mountains to break the long sweep of the ocean winds. Each also subdivides its watershed into three distinct por- tions, an upland central basin and two sloping plains fac- ing respectively northward and southward to the sea. Each drains its southern plain by a great southward- flowing river, and each of these enters the ocean, not directly, but through a connecting gulf — the Mississippi by the Gulf of Mexico, the (Colorado by the (lulf of Cali- fornia. I'^ach has, or has had, in its central basin a great system of inland seas, and each drains its central basin by a large transverse river entering the ocean directly — the eastern by the St. Lawrence, the western l)y the Colum- bia. Each has vipon the extreme north another great river draining its northern slope — the eastern valley hav- ing the Mackenzie, the western the Yukon; and here also, despite an apparent l)reak in the analogy, it still in reality CLIMATOLOGY. 23 holds true, for while the Mackenzie empties into the At- lantic indirectly by the line of the Polar Sea, and the Yukon apparently directly into the Pacific in that portion called the Behring Sea, yet in reality this sea, from its walling ofT by the long chain of the Aleutians, and by the Arctic change which comes to its shores north of these islands, belongs climatically with the polar rather than with the Pacific waters. Both northern slopes arc much alike. Each lies open to the cold polar winds; each has a harsh, inhospitable climate; each has a moderate rainfall; and each is but little known. These are the analogies. They are largely geographic- al and topographical. Now begin the divergencies. They are largely climatic. The central basin and the southern slope of the interior valley lying at the east base of the Rocky Mountains belong with the great, well-wa- tered, fertile river-valley systems of the world. Of such is the valley of the Amazon, of the Rio de la Plata, of the Congo, of the Ganges, of the Yang-tse-Kiang. They are, by the mere working of climatic laws, the natural home of a non-migrating population, and the seat of a fixed and settled civilization. The central basin of the interior valley upon the west of the Rocky Mountains is in many respects the opposite of this. It belongs rather with the great arid u inlands of the world. Only central Asia has its counterpart. Like the uplands of Asia north of the Himalayas, its rain winds come to it wrung almost dry of their moisture by the high mountains which they must first cross. Then, too, the elevation, with its attendant rarefaction of at- mosphere, leads to a rapid evaporation which desiccates the soil and stints vegetable life. It is the basin of that western system of inland seas, twin to the five Great Lakes of the eastern upland, but which, unlike them, dried up with some far-reaching change of climate in the ages long 24 CALIFORNIA OF THE SOUTH. past; only wave marks upon the desolate mountain sides and the surf-worn pebbles of old beach lines tell of the waters which once covered the broad plains — these, and the salt, and the alkali, and worn sea shells blown in the drifting sands, and the whitened bones of old marine monsters, and the silence, and the desolation. The basin of this old inland sea, or seas — for no doubt it was an irregular chain rather than one body — included nuich of Utah and Nevada, portions of eastern Oreg'on and southern Idaho, and possibly some small portion of northwestern Arizona. The southern rim was probably that uplifted plateau through which, for four hundred miles, the waters of the Colorado force their way in the depths of the Grand Caiion. The northern rim might have been some of the low ranges about the headwaters of the South Fork of the Columbia. Upon the map its southern boundary would be lined by the thirty-sixth and its northern by the forty-third parallels of latitude. It is the portion of the inland pla- teau corresponding to the central climatic belt as de- scribed upon the Pacific coast. This basin of the interior valley has an elevation above the sea of from four to five thousand feet. A portion of its area is now drained by the head waters of the Colo- rado and its tributaries, a portion by the South Fork of the Columbia, and a jiortion has no outlet to the sea, but tlie waters of its streams are lost in the sands, or form shallow salty lakes, which maintain an unequal struggle with the rapid evaporation. The southern slope of this interior valley includes Arizona and that portion of Southern California lying east of the Sierra. From an elevation of five or six thou- sand feet in the mountains of northern Arizona it drops gradually to two or three thousand in the upland valley? of central Arizona and upon the Mojave Desert, and down to the sea level as it approaches the Gulf of Cali- CLIMATOLOGY. 25 fornia, passinj^ even to several Inindred feet below the sea in the basin of the Colorado Desert. The Colorado River, which for four hundred miles had flowed through the Grand Canon at a depth of from four to five thousand feet below the plateau, now emerges upon the level of the open country, while the rivers from the mountains of eastern Arizona make well-defined streams running through fertile alluvial valleys, which at intervals wideji out into broad plains. The salt and the alkali of the central basin grow less noticeable under the better drainage of well-defined river S}stenis reaching the sea. Climate. The central basin and the southern slope of this west- ern interior plain of the continent may be best described climatically together, noting differences when found. In temperature the winters of the central basin and of the mountains of the southern slope are much like corre- sponding latitudes and elevations east of the Rocky Mountains — cold and harsh, with snows instead of rain. The winters of the plains of the southern slope are mild and pleasant. The summer temperature is high, often reaching 100° to 110° in the heat of the day, but with an atmosphere so dry that the heat is not oppressive. Spring and autumn give the perfection of an interior upland climate, especially in the settled weather of the southern slope. The spring months of this slope with the warm yet not hot days, and the gorgeous coloring of the strange desert plants as they burst into bloom, have a charm never to be forgotten by one who has lived the life of the plains. The annual j")recipitation is from twelve to sixteen inches, in the central basin, and the mountains and plains of the southern slope, diminishing to four or five inches 26 CALIFORNIA OF THE SOUTH. as the level of tlie Gulf is reached in southwestern Ari- zona. The division into a wet and a dry season is not so clearly marked as upon the corresponding portion of the Pacific coast. There are two seasons of precipitation to each year, midwinter and midsummer, with threatcnings of rain and often light showers through the intervening months. It seems to be climatically a kind of battle ground between the fixed wet and dry seasons of the coast and the all-thc-year rains of the country east of the Rocky Mountains. It probably feels the eft'ect of the edge of the Gulf currents which may readily cross the low elevations of those mountains in this part of their course. Ethnologically, it is by natural laws, like similar regions elsewhere in the world, the home of the nomad, where man becomes migratory in character, traveling with his flocks and herds in search of fresh food as the scanty herbage of one spot becomes exhausted. Yet this western interior valley of the continent has in it, especially upon that southern slope which includes Arizona and the region about the headwaters of the Gulf of California, infinite possibilities of development, and the capacity for sustaining a large population and a set- tled and well-ordered civilization. The traces of old irri- gating canals, leading from the rivers out over the deep- soiled plains of central Arizona, show that the land once had such a population. With the more skillfully planned irrigating works of modern science, and the greater capi- tal available, it will do this again, but on a much vaster scale. The central basin, which includes Utah and a portion of Nevada, has less possibility of such development; the climate, owing to the greater elevation, is more rigorous; the drying up of the old inland sea, and the defective surface drainage, have left the soil much more strongly impregnated with salt and alkali; and the water courses are small and often deeply sunk in canons below the CLIMATOLOGY. V level of the surroiindin.ji^ country. Agriculture here must be in isolated spots, with the broad stretches of desert between. P>ut upon the southern slope, that portion including Arizona and the regions about the Gulf, all this is changed. The climate, while hot in midsummer, is but little more so than in the basin farther north, while the winters are free from harshness. While the rainfall, like that of the central basin, is insufihcient to mature crops at any season unassisted by irrigation, yet the water-sup- ply for irrigation is abundant and unfailing, and the great river valleys, and the plains bordering tlicm, lie in the best possible shape for irrigation. Two great valleys will be the especial centers of the future development. The Colorado River, one of the six great rivers of North America, after draining the west slope of the Rocky Mountains through Wyoming and Colorado, and that portion of Utah east of the Wah- satch Range, emerges from the mouth of the Grand Caiion as a broad, navigable river, to flow for four hun- dred and fifty miles more through a rich alluvial valley, before entering the head of the Gulf of California. At its lower end this valley broadens out and merges into a great alluvial plain of hundreds of square miles about the head of the gulf, and extending ofif into the Colorado Desert. The land in this valley system which may be irrigated and made productive probably amounts to several thou- sand square miles, and, for sugar cane and other semi- tropic agricultural products, has probably no equal in Nc:)rth America. The river which is to water this region is at its flood with the melting of the Rocky Mountain snows in midsummer, when the needs of irrigation would be greatest. At the time of the summer floods the back- water from the river flows in a broad stream, called New River, at one point down the long slope into the Colorado 28 CALIFORXIA OF THE SOUTH. Desert, which is here below the level of the sea, thus giv- ing a small section of land a wetting for a few days. In the summer of 1868 the writer crossed this stream sixty miles back from the main river, and ]:)assed through fields of a species of wild hemp ten and twelve feet in height, tiie growth of the one Hooding. Sixty miles above the mouth of the Colorado, at Yuma, it receives from the east as tributary the Ciila River. This is also a broad, but not navigable river, which — draining the mountains of eastern Arizona and a portion of New Mexico, and, like the Colorado, having a midsummer flood — flows for three hundred miles di- rectly westward across the middle of Arizona, having also a wide alluvial valley of the most fertile soil. l-Vom both north and south it receives tributaries which trav- erse similar long valleys, or rather from their extent to be spoken of as plains, which are of like fertility with the valley of the Gila. It is in these plains that the most ex- tensive traces of the irrigating canals of some prehistoric race are to be found. Already large settlements have been made in the val- ley of the Salt, the Gila, and their tributaries, and exten- sive systems of irrigation have been planned and carried out. It is only a question of time when the valleys of the Colorado, the Salt, and the Gila, and their tributaries, will support a population of millions, and rival the valley of the Nile in productive ca])acity. Besides sugar cane and cot- ton, which would no doubt do well, these valleys are the home of the wheat, corn, the melon, the vine, and the fig. Pjcsides these larger valleys, the mountains of north- ern and eastern Arizona are dotted with smaller valleys where from the elevation the rainfall is sufficient to pro- duce crops of grain, and in which, and upon the adjacent uplands, are some of the richest grazing lands of the West. This is already becoming a noted cattle country. While upon scouts in i867-'68, the writer passed through CI.IMA TOLOG Y. 29 many of these smaller valleys where the natural growth of grass was more luxuriant than in any Ohio valley meadow. The .mountains were covered with a growth of pine, oak, and black walnut. This southern slope of the western interior valley lies opposite the southern climatic belt upon the coast. In healthfulness it ranks with the desert interiors of the world. Practically free from endemic diseases, ex- cept in some low and badly-drained valleys which have a certain amount of malaria, its value for tuberculous af- fections is only beginning to be appreciated. The central basin, with its harsher winter climate, while markedly salubrious in many respects, shows more of a tendency to the development of inflammatory affec- tions of the lungs and air passages. THE SOUTHERN BELT. At Point Conception, in latitude 34.30°, the Pacific coast, for the first time in its long course from Alaska southward, makes a decided change. Abandoning the general east-of-south direction, which it has held for two thousand miles, it now turns and bears off almost due east. Rounding the point, all at once the helm of the southward-bound steamer is put hard a-port, and, leav- ing behind her a foamy wake which is almost a segment of a circle, her prow turns toward the sunrise. The writer vividly remembers, after all these years, his first trip down the coast, when it was, as yet, all new and strange to him. As w^e rounded the point at the lighthouse, and entered the Santa, liarbara Channel, al- most in a ship's length we had run out of the fog and had entered into the sunshine. The cold north wind, which had been whistling through the rigging and chasing us down the coast for three hundred nn'les, died away. The rough sea calmed to a glassy swell. And as we sailed on, 30 CALIFORXIA OF THE SOUTH. hour after hour, over a summer sea, I reahzed that I had entered into that Southern CaHfornia of which I had heard. What seemed to me then ahnost Hke the work- ing of a magician's spell, is now, after these years of cH- matic investigation, no longer magic, but only the w^ork- ing out of natural laws. With the change in the direction of the coast line come other changes. The Sierra, which, from Alaska south, follows the gen- eral trend of the coast, turns also from its northerly and southerly course, and now, as a great transverse range, runs directly eastward, walling in the country from the north, and then, turning southward again with a great curve, walls it in again upon the east. The land which in northern California faced ofif west- ward to the sea, now faces southward toward the sun. The Kuro Siw^o, which, from the Aleutian Islands south along the coast of Alaska, of British Columbia, of Washington, of Oregon, and of northern California, hugged the shore line closely, is now shot clear of the land by the prominence of the cape, and with the sh^rp turn of the coast eastward never approaches the shore line closely again. This separation of the Alaskan current from the land is still further helped by the presence of a long chain of islands which, beginning with the Island of San Miguel, just south of Point Conception, follows the coast a1 a varying distance of from twenty-five to fifty miles as far south as the Lower California line, and incloses a slel- tered and comparatively shoal channel. Within tliis channel, instead of the cold waters of the northern cir- rent, is a slight return current of warmer water fiowng up the coast from the south. W^ith the change in the direction of the coast comes a change also in the character of the interior. The typt of the central belt, as already shown, was a double mountiin CLIMATOLOGY. 31 ranjT^e, the Sierra and the Coast, including between them, and ahnost entirely shut in from the sea, the Sacramen- to-San Joacjuin plain, which contained the greater por- tion of the agricultural land of that belt. The same general type is continued in Southern Cali- fornia, but with a marked modification. The Sierra still continues to w all in the country from that great arid up- land which makes the heart of the continent, only chang- ing its direction ; but on the other side the Coast Range no longer continues to shut it ofif so completely from the sea. This Coast Range begins to break down, and at times entirely disappears, leaving the whole interior more open to the sea. This interior plain in Southern Cali- fornia is made up of the long reach which includes the San Fernando Valley, the Pasadena country, the valley of the San Gabriel River, the Whittier foothills, the Po- mona and Ontario uplands, the valley of the Santa Ana River, in which lie Colton, the San Bernardino country, and Riverside, and then the long ])lains of the San Jacin- to River southward. Unlike the inland plain of northern California, it is very irregular in outline, branching out in many directions, and often merging, almost insensibly, into rolling upland mesas. This plain, with its irregular windings, is about two hundred miles in length, w'ith a width varying from fifteen to thirty miles. It is smaller than the corresponding interior valley of northern Cali- fornia, but the reverse is the case with regard to the coast plain. Instead of the narrow rim which makes the ocean frontage outside of the Coast Range in the northern por- tion of the State, in Southern California an extensive plain faces the sea, having a length of about a hundred and fifty miles, and a depth varying from fifteen to twenty- five miles. This does not include the long valley of the Santa Clara and San Buenaventura Rivers, which fronts on the ocean for some thirty miles, with a depth of about seventy-five, nor the Santa l>arbara plains. Between this 32 CALIFORX/A OF THE SOUTH. coast plain and the long interior valley, the Coast Range of mountains, instead of the continuous chain which it presents in northern California, is broken, and, opposite the Los Angeles plains, for a space entirely disappears. The whole country — interior valley system as well as coast plains — becomes thus a great open coast land fac- ing the south, and with the high Sierra for a background. The area of the plains of Southern California is really largely increased over their apparent size by the rolling, hilly uplands into which, in many directions, they merge. This is especially the case in the country which lies be- tween the San Fernando \'alley and the lower Santa Clara Valley, and also in the great upland which rises from San Jacinto toward the south in San Diego County. These uplands have a rich, deep soil, and are well watered by numerous small streams. The Sierra, which, north of the so-called IMojave Des- ert, makes a great curve westward around the south end of the San Joaquin plain of the central belt, turns south- ward again opposite Santa Barbara and \'entura Coun- ties, and, doubling back upon its course, walls in the west end of the desert, then, turning directly eastward, sepa- rates the desert from the Los Angeles and San Bernardi- no plains. Turning southward again, it stands as a wall between the Colorado Desert and that portion of South- ern California lying west of its base. The range varies in height from five to seven thousand feet, with peaks reaching from eight to eleven thousand feet. While maintaining this great elevation it yet develops one fea- ture which it does not possess opposite the central belt. It breaks down at several points into low passes between the coast and the interior of the continent. The pass by which the Central Pacific, on its way eastward from San Francisco, crosses the Sierra is, as before given, 7,017 feet in elevation. Yet the Soledad Pass by which the Southern Pacific crosses the Sierra in Southern Cali- CLIMATOLOGY. 33 fornia is only 2,822 feet; the Cajon Pass by which the Atchison and Topeka enters is about the same height; and the San Gorgonio Pass, by which the Southern Pa- cific crosses on the road to Galveston and New Orleans, is only 2,560 feet above the sea. There are numerous other comparatively low passes through the Sierra at the west end of the Mojave Desert, leading toward the sea in Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties, and also through the range south of Santa Gorgonio. These passes through the southern Sierra have a marked influence, not only upon the climate of the coast portions of South- ern California, but also upon that of the deserts lying at the east base of the Sierra. Their influence upon the fu- ture trade development of the coast will be noted under a different heading. The Mojave Desert, lying beyond those passes which open northward, has an area of several thousand square miles, with an elevation above the sea of some two thou- sand feet. The Colorado Desert, which lies opposite the passes leading eastward, is somewhat less in area, and has a portion of its surface three hundred and fifty feet below the level of the sea. The channel islands are eight in number, stretching along the coast for a hundred and fifty miles. Six of these are of considerable size, varying from twelve to twenty-five miles in length and from five to ten miles in width. Rainfall. The division of the year into a wet and a dry season is found in the central Pacific belt, and applies also to the southern belt. Tiie counter-trades of tlie North Pacific coast, following the sun southward in the autumn, reach the coast of Southern California shortly after the rains have begun in the northern portion of the State. The first rain may come anywhere from the middle 4 34 CALIFORNIA OF THE SOUTH. of October until the middle of November. A south wind comes in from the sea; clouds bank up along the south- ern horizon, and then about the mountain tops, and broken, rainy weather, lasting for several days, follows, during which time the precipitation amounts to from two to three inches. The first rain may also give snow in the mountains, but not always, nor to any great depth. After three or four weeks of clear, pleasant weather, comes another rain, much like the first, and this time gen- erally with a decided snowfall in the mountains, as the temperature is now showing the winter coolness. These rains wash the atmosphere clear of haze and dust, and it now begins to display the remarkable trans- parency for which the winters of Southern California are noted. Mountains a hundred miles away seem only dis- tant a morning's ride. With the coming of the rains the land begins to turn green after the repose of the rainless summer, and soon hills and plains are covered with the richest verdure. There is a peculiar and, to the eye of the writer, exceed- ingly pleasant shade to the green of the annual vegetation of the Pacific coast. Without professing to be an expert in the description of color, he would speak of it as a min- gling of yellow, producing a light yellow-green rather than the darker blue-greens of vegetation upon the At- lantic coast. About the latter part of December may be expected one of the heavy winter storms. Setting in with a strong south wind from the sea, rain begins to fall, and for a week or ten days more or less constant cloudiness, with rain a portion of each twenty-four hours, will be the rule. The rainfall is apt to be limited to the afternoon and night, leaving the morning free. This storm may give from six to eight inches of rain. In the mountains it is precipi- tated in the form of heavy snow, the tall peaks and the CLIMATOLOGY. 35 continuous range being: clad in white from the highest crest almost to the level of the open plain. January is generally a month of clear skies. To many persons this is the pleasantcst portion of tlie year. An atmosphere absolutely freed from all impurities, cool, and yet free from all harshness, so that it comes to the lungs like the exhilaration of the purest ether; a warm sun flood- ing from morning to night plains that have the green of the early spring of other lands; nights cool enough for a light frost on the lowlands; and the mountains, as far as the eye can reach, a great uplifted bank of the purest white. The wriier remembers yet, after twenty years, his first glimpse of the land as he lay, all one long, sunny, January morning, on the steamer at the San Pedro an- chorage. In February another storm, like that of December, may be expected; then scattering rains, of two or three days' duration, at intervals of several weeks, through March and April, and the rainy season is over. A mistaken impression prevails, even among people on the northern Pacific coast, who are sometimes most ignorant as to the amount of rainfall in Southern Cali- fornia, and the reason for the mistake is very apparent. The general law of the rainfall over the coast is of a stead- ily diminishing precipitation as one goes southward. Thus, the rainfall at Sitka is 1 10 inches per annum; at Portland, Oregon, 53 inches; at San h>ancisco, 24 inches; at Visalia, 10.46 inches. The natural inference w'ould be that, as Southern California lies still farther south, the rainfall would be proportionately still less. But now comes in j)lay the working of another law, to which allusion was made in speaking of certain val- leys in northern California which face fairly toward the south — the increased rainfall which results from a direct southern exposure with a high background. The coast of northern California, with its direction of slightly east 36 CALIFORNIA OF THE SOUTH. of south, faces at an acute angle toward the winter rain current, and only receives a portion of its force, while its mountain ranges, with the same general trend, receive the current at a slant. The full force of the rain current is thus only partly received by northern California, while the mountains act only imperfectly as condensers. As an illustration of the working of the law may be given the valleys about the Bay of San Francisco. Thus, Sonoma Valley, facing the south, receives a rainfall nearly one half greater than Santa Clara Valley, only a few miles across the bay which faces toward the north. The work- ing of the same law is seen in the excessive rainfall about Shasta, at the northern end of the Sacramento Valley. It is the working of this second law which, in South- ern California, brings the rainfall up again to the average of places much fartiier north. The average of the rain- falls at Los Angeles, running through a series of years, varies but little from that of Sacramento, and yet they are separated by four hundred miles in the north and south line, while X'isalia, lying midway between, has, under the working of the general coast law, a rainfall of but little more than half as much. In Southern California, owing to the sharp turn east- ward made by the coast and the mountains, the whole country faces at a right angle to the winter rain currents from the south, while the broad coast plain upon the sea, and the breaking down of the Coast Range as before de- scribed, admit the full sweep of the storm. Then comes the high Sierra, which makes the background of the coun- try, standing like a huge wall directly across the line of the rain current to condense and wring out of it the full- est amount of moisture before it scales the rugged heights, and passes on to the inland plateau. The annual average rainfall at Los Angeles is eight- een inches along the base of the mountains, back of the plains, it is from thirty to forty inches. No record CLIMATOLOGY. 37 has been kept farther up in the mountains, so that the precipitation of rain and snow is not known. Fogs. In common with the whole Pacific coast the shore line of Southern California has, from May to September, the night fog. This fog comes rolling in from the sea aljout sunset, or two or three hours later, and disappears shortly after sunrise. It is free from the chill and harsh- ness of the fog on the colder upper coast, and is a re- freshing feature to the climate, while its effect upon vege- tation is very marked. It is a virtual atmospheric pro- longation of the rainy season for the immediate coast. It only extends a few miles inland, so that persons who dislike the moist air live farther from the sea. Atmospheric Humidity. The question of the amount of invisible moisture in the air, apart from the visible moisture which comes in the shape of rain or fog, what is technically known as at- mospheric humidity, is an important one for the transient invalid tourist as well as for certain types of constitution among more permanent residents in a country. The va- riations in humidity at a few points in the United States may be shown by reference to the Reports of the United States Signal Service. At New York it is 72 per cent; at Salt Lake, 44; at San Francisco, 76. On a more south- ern line, it is in Florida an average of 75 ; at New Orleans, 79; at Yuma, 43; at Los Angeles, 68; at San Diego, 71. In portions of Southern California farther away from the sea, as in the foothills, in the San Fernando Valley, or any portion of what was described as the interior coast valley of Southern California, the per cent would probably drop to 60; while upon the Mojave upland or in tb.e Colo- rado Desert it would average about as at Yuma, or even 38 CALIFORNIA OF THE SOUTH. drier. At no other point in tlic United States is so great a range in humidity to be found within a comparatively limited area as in Southern California, as all of these va- riations are to be reached by rail within three hours' ride. This fact has proved of exceeding importance in the man- agement of the various shades of invalidism, as one has at his command, without the fatigue of a long journey, his choice of the cool, damp air of the sea, or the warm, dry air of the interior, a choice only to be found elsewhere by traveling thousands of miles. Sunshine. Following the same lines across the continent for com- parison, the average number of cloudy days per year is found to be at New York, 119; at Salt Lake, 88; at San Francisco, 79. On the more southern line, average for Florida, 51; at New Orleans, 97; at Yuma, 14; at Los Angeles, 51 ; at San Diego, 85. The average through the inner valleys of Southern California, away from the imme- diate vicinity of the sea, would probably be about 40, while upon the Alojave or in the Colorado Desert it would rate with Yuma. Winds. The feature which most impresses the observer upon the Pacific coast in his study of the winds is their regular- ity. He feels that while the wind may blow "where it listeth," yet there is a law to the listing. ' He soon learns that "fickle as the winds" is a saying which here loses its force. He knows that at certain seasons there will be a prevalence of wind from a certain quarter, and that at a certain time of each day the wind will rise. He knows that a persistence of the wind from a certain quarter will bring a very moist atmosplicre and rain, while the cur- rent from another quarter as surely means clear, cool CLIMATOLOGY. 3q weather, with a moderately humid atmosphere; and from yet another quarter means an exceedingly dry atmos- phere, cold in winter, hot in summer. Probably in no other portion of the world does cli- matology approach more nearly to the standing of an exact science than upon the Pacific coast. One gets, as it were, behind the scenes, and sees how Nature man- ages her wheels and pulleys in the ever-shifting pano- rama of the seasons. While the whole Pacific coast has much less really calm w-eather than the Atlantic coast, yet the records of the Signal Service show that the total wind movement is less; in other words, in a given length of time there are more hours of wind, but of less velocity. It is a region of more continuous wind currents, but of a milder char- acter. The brisk sea breeze is diurnal; the gale rare; the hurricane and the cyclone unknown. The winds may be classified into the trades and the counter-trades, which regulate the seasons; The land and sea breeze, which regulate the daily temperature; and The norther, which may come either winter or sum- mer, and which is rather a law unto itself. The working of the trades and the counter-trades has already been explained in this article, but it may not be amiss to repeat somewhat. The counter-trade is an on-shore rain wind from the Pacific, which persists winter and sunmier upon the coast from Oregon northward, growing heavier with the ad- vance northward, imtil its maximum force and rainfall are found in southern Alaska. Farther northward it seems to lose its force, and the rainfall diminishes again. The northeast trade-wind is an ofT-shore, dry current, fovmd in the daytime more in the upper regions of the at- mosphere, pa.ssing out to sea above the lower stratum of on-shore sea breeze, dropping down at night in all proba- 40 CALIFORNIA OF THE SOUTH. bility nearer the earth, and adding force to the ofT-shore night land breeze. If proof were needed in addition to the well-known law of the trade-winds, of its persistence in the daytime, it is shown by the columns of smoke which often, during mountain fires, ascend some thousands of feet with a sharp slant from the ocean, and then turn and float horizontally out to sea. The same fact is shown by the showers of ashes and cinders which will at times drop down by the seaside, falling through the on-shore sea breeze when the fires which must have produced them are far inland in the mountains. This dry, ofT-shore trade-wind is during most of the year the prevailing wind of the southern portion of the peninsula of Lower California, hence the almost rainless character of that climate. Along that portion of the coast lying between the all- the-year rainy, on-shore, counter-trades of the North Pa- cific, and the almost all-the-year off-shore and rainless northeast trades of the peninsula, the winds follow the sun in its annual changes, the dry trade advancing north- ward, and the rainy counter-trade retreating before it in summer; then with the return of the sun southward in winter the rainless, ofT-shore trade-wind retreating south- ward, and the rainy counter-trade following it down the coast. Hence, the regular semi-annual alternation of these two great wind currents, and hence, also, the regular al- ternation to this portion of the coast, as before shown, of a wet and a dry season. The daily sea breeze, which is characteristic more especially of the California portion of the Pacific coast, and which is caused, as before shown, by the heating up of the land in the interior plains, and the consequent rare- faction and rising of the air, with the rushing in of the cooler and heavier current from the sea to replace the ascending column — this sea breeze as found in Southern California has some marked differences when contrasted CLIMATOLOGY. 41 with the breeze as found in northern California. It is less violent, and it is free from the harshness which char- acterizes it farther north; it also reaches more generally throughout the interior. The lessened violence is ac- counted for by two facts, the more open character of the country, and the greater proportionate area of the sea plains as compared with the interior valleys. In north- ern California the shore line is closely followed by the Coast Range of mountains. This range averages several thousand feet in height, with only here and there a break or a pass to the interior. The current of cool ocean air, rushing in from the sea to that heated interior, finds its way through these breaks, and like the current of a river — for this is only an aerial river, and observes the same laws — carries the violence of its narrowed current far in- land before the contracted volume dissipates itself in a gentler flow. Hence the violent winds of many points upon the coast of northern California, the Golden Gate at San bVancisco being a well-known instance. The lack of a coast plain exterior to this Coast Range of mountains also has its effect, as the in-rushing current is not thus tempered and robbed of a portion of its violence before reaching the breaks in the range. In Southern California, on the contrary, a broad ocean plain first receives the ocean wind and tempers it as it comes from the sea; then instead of having to make its way through a few narrow passes in the Coast Range to reach the interior, it finds that range broken down, and at times, as for a number of miles eastward from the city of Los Angeles, disappearing entirely. This change in the character of the Coast Range allows of a broad, free en- trance for the wind to the interior, and the broader cur- rent, like the broader channel to a river, means a gentler current. This same fact of the broader inlet for the sea breeze through the Coast Range in Southern California explains 42 CALIFORXIA OF THE SOUTH. its better distribution throughout the interior than in the northern portion of the State. Instead of the violent in- rushing- current sweeping by those portions not lying" di- rectly in its path, and leaving upon either side, and behind tlie adjacent mountains and hills, a hot, stagnant air, the gentler, broader inflow eddies around each projecting point, and into each connecting' valley, cooling all with its freshness. The lessened harshness of the Southern California sea breeze, apart from the influence of the broad coast plain, is to be accounted for also by the deflection of the down-coast cold current of the Kuro Siwo seaward at Point Conception, and the warmer inshore waters of the long Santa IJarliara Channel over which this wind passes before reaching the shore. The sea breeze is thus, even before reaching the shore, robbed of much of the ocean harshness.* This sea breeze sets in for the season as the cool spring months pass by, and through the whole summer, and late into the autumn, by ten o'clock of each day its re- freshing influence is felt, a gentle wind blowing constantly until evening. Then by midnight the wind changes, and through the latter portion of the night and the early morning the land l)reeze blows down from the mountains, bringing the cool air of their high summits. This is a cool, dry, bracing air, unlike the wind that comes in from the sea. It has to it the scent of the sage lands of the desert. The norther is, owing to the topographical configura- tion of the country, less felt in Southern California than in the northern portion of the State. The valleys, Avhich there run north and south, and so He open their whole * The temperature of the sea at San Francisco is, for Januarj', 52.1° ; for July, 50°. At Long Beach, near Los Angeles, it is, for January, 60° ; for July. 68 5". CLIMATOLOGY. 43 length to the sweep of the wind, owing to the change in the trend of the coast, run east and west in Southern Cahfornia, presenting their narrow diameter to its sweep, while a like change in tlie direction of the mountain chains places these great uplifted walls directly across the path- way of the wind instead of parallel to its course, as in northern California. While the great area of the coun- try is thus sheltered on the north, there are local excep- tions. The low passes, which have been mentioned as leading through the Sierra, admit here and there a stray sweep of the north wind, which at such points cuts across the plains with a channel almost as well defined as the banks of a river. Such wind belts, while not common, are yet locally well known, and are an interesting feature in the climatology of the country. The north wind, whether felt in the winter or the summer, has a dry harsh- ness peculiarly its own; and yet, apart from this harshness, it is not an unhealthful wind — rather, indeed, the con- trary. The sanitary value of these constant wind movements along the whole California coast can hardly be overesti- mated. The stagnant, lifeless air of the heated spells of the Atlantic slope or the Mississippi Valley is here an impossibility. Temperature. A table of temperatures must be studied very carefully in a comparison of different countries, or an entirely mis- taken impression may be received as to the climatic con- trasts. Thus, take the annual means alone as a basis of comparison. Two points may lie upon the same isother- mal line, each with a mean annual temperature of 60°. We may suppose the one to have a winter temperature of 20°, and a summer tcmjjerature of 80°. Its mean for the year woidd be the sum of these divided bv two, or 50° for the year. The otiier might have a winter temperature of 45°, 44 CALIFORNIA OF TIIF SOUTH. a summer of 55°; its annual mean would also be 50°. Yet in the former locality only the hardy trees and shrubs of the north would survive the cold of the winter, and the land would be buried in ice and snow; while in summer the mortality tables would show frequent deaths by sun- stroke. In the latter, fuchias and geraniums would bloom in the door-yards the year round, and sunstroke would be unknown. The one is an equable climate, the other a climate of extremes, and yet the average is the same. In actual practice the mean of each month is taken, and the sum divided by twelve to give the annual aver- age; but, to show the fallacy which may underlie the re- sult, the illustration as given above is not amiss. In a table of comparisons, to avoid the tedious com- parison month by month, a result sufficiently accurate may be obtained by giving, in addition to the mean an- nual average, the means of a typical winter and a typical summer month, as January and July. If, in addition to these, the daily range of temperature, derived from a comparison of the night and the day obser- vations, be given for the same months, a comparison suffi- ciently accurate for ordinary purposes will be attained. This daily range is important, as one climate — such, for instance, as that of the Mississippi Valley — may during the summer maintain a continuously high temperature night and day, allowing of no refreshing sleep to the in- valid; while another, as at many points upon the Pacific coast, although showing a nominally high daily average, may yet have comparatively cool nights. The climate which is most conducive to health in the well, and which will prove best adapted to the restoration of health in the invalid, is that which, while affording the sunshine and the warmth of the day, and thus tempting]; to life in the open air, \\\\\ yet be marked hy a fall of temperature at night sufficiently great to admit of tliat CLIMATOLOGY. 45 refreshing sleep which comes where the protection of a blanket is necessary to comfort. The following- table gives, from the Signal Service re- ports, the temperature statistics of a number of well- known points upon both sides of the continent. The Florida record is an average from the four stations which the Service maintains in that State: New York. . . , Salt Lake SacrameiUo. . . San Francisco Florida New Orleans.. Yuma Los Angeles . , San Diego. . . Annual mean. Average. Average. Daily range. January. July. January. 51-3° 30.0' 72.6 13.2' 511 27.9 74-4 15-2 61.3 47.6 73-4 18.0 55-7 49-3 58.8 8.1 72.7 60.7 £3-3 15-5 69.4 55-9 83.0 18.3 72.0 52.8 91.4 29.1 60.5 52.0 68.2 21-5 60.5 52.8 66.9 19.0 Daily range. July. 15.6" 25.6 25.2 12.7 14.0 12.8 29.4 28.3 14.6 While the table shows an average of temperature for the coast line in Southern California, taking San Diego as a fair average among such points as Long Beach, San Pedro, Santa Monica, Ventura, and Santa Barbara, and for the line midway between the coast and the interior plains as represented by Los Angeles, yet there are many and well-marked variations from these averages. The coast points differ among themselves: some a little milder than the average, as San Pedro, which, while standing upon the seashore, is yet peculiarly sheltered from the ocean wind; others, through exposure to a stronger wind current, averaging a little colder. So, too, farther inland will be found low, cold soils, with frost sufificiently severe almost every w'inter to in- terfere with the culture of semi-tro})ic fruits; other belts where frost is never known, and where the tomato ripens its fruit every month of the year, and the banana flourish- 46 C A 1. 1 FOR. VIA OF 77/ F SOUTH. es. Back in the sheltered foothills and in small interior valleys, again, are found localities where the mercury in the middle of a hot summer day will range up to or above 100°; while across the Sierra, on the Mojave and Colo- rado Deserts, is found the dry, intense heat of the inland plateau. In the winter, among the mountains and upon the higher plains of the Mojave, may be found the ice and snows of the north-lands. This varied range of temperatures, within a compara- tively narrow territory, offers a wide choice to the invalid in his selection of a home. Agriculture. In the early days of Southern California the thougiit that it could ever become an agricultural country seems hardly to have entered into the minds of its scattered popu- lation of rancher OS. The land was looked upon as only fit for grazing. The writer well remembers hearing the old residents of those days gravely argue that agriculture could not be made to pay; and they were proving the sincerity of their belief by importing from abroad the vegetables which they had upon their tables, the flour for their bread — everything, in fact, but the meat from their flocks and herds. Potatoes came by the sack, cab- bages packed in crates, apples and other fruits by the box. And yet this was only twenty-five years ago; and now great train loads of these products, raised from the soil which was pronounced only lit for a cattle range, leave daily on all the lines of railroads for export, while the waters of the harbors are dotted with sea-going ships which fill up with cargoes of wheat, barley, wine, raisins, and all kinds of dried and canned fruits, for every part of the world. The climate, the land, and their possibilities, were simply not understood. Cr. I MA '1-0 LOGY. 47 The averajT^e American, the man whose ideas of farm- ing were formed amid the summer rains and the corn- fields of the Mississippi \'alley, had to learn over again how to farm; and, now^ that he has learned the lesson, is growing ricli on the land which was deemed compara- tively worthless. The early farmers had to begin their agricultural edu- cation in the new land by forgetting the word winter, and, instead of plowing and planting in the spring of the year, as they would in the East, seeing to it that their grain was put in with the coming of the early autumn rains. This lesson once thoroughly learned, no further diffi- culty was found in making grain farming a success. A mistaken idea has prevailed to some extent among people in the East that farming is only carried on in South- ern California by means of irrigation, and that without it crops would be a failure. For all small grains and winter crops irrigation is not employed. These are cultivated just as they are in the Mississippi Valley or the Atlantic States, and need only the regular rains of the winter ami spring, or wet season, to mature them. Corn, however, which is a summer crop, planted after the rains are over, is in many locali- ties irrigated, yet in many otlier sections the natural mois- ture of the soil is sufficient to mature the crop without irrigation. Upon many of the lands, after a winter-sown crop, raised without irrigation, has been harvested, an- other crop is raised when the rains are over, by means of irrigation, and thus the land does double duty. In many places land will be seen which is never free from a growing crop from year to year, except during the few days when ])lowing for the new planting. Where water from the rivers is used, the sediment held in sus- pension ccmstantly renews the fertility of the soil over which it is sjjread. There are sandy lands about Los Angeles which have now been cropped for three quarters 4$ CAI.IFORXIA OF THE SOUTH. of a century, with no apparent diminution of fertility. Water is also used, to a certain extent, in the ^reat or- chards and vineyards on the uplands and about the foot- hills. It is found that a limited (luantity of water, given at the time when the fruit is swelling, makes a better quality, yet it must be used with discretion, as too much injures the quality. The tendency is, year by year, to the use of less water, it being found that, with thorough cultivation, the soil retains its moisture so well that irri- gation is, upon many of these lands, unnecessary, and upon others less needed. In many sections are large bodies of moist lowland, called by the Spanish cicncgas, and extending often for miles, which are natural pasture lands, green all the year round. These are found to be especially atlapted to dairying, and are with each year more and more devoted to that ])urpose. Such lands generally lie near the sea, and have the benefit of the heavy sea fogs at night through the summer, and the cool ocean winds during the day. The same lands are well adapted to the cultivation of corn and the Northern fruits, such as the apple and the pear. Peaches, the vine, and all the semi-tropical fruits do better farther back from the sea. The orange, the lemon, and the lime are found in their greatest j^erfection in the interior valleys and in the foothills which line the base of the Sierra. Water for irrigation is obtained from the rivers, from all the small mountain streams, and from artesian wells. Over the lowlands flowing w-ells are obtained at depths varying from seventy-five to two or three hundred feet. They are bored by machinery and piped with iron, and are quickly and cheaply made. In many of the apparently dry mountain ravines and cations submerged dams are put in at favorable points, forcing the underground flow of water to the surface. In others, tunnels are run at a slight slope until bed-rock is reached, and the stream tapped and brought to the surface. In other localities CLIMATOLOGY. 49 extensive storage reservoirs are constructed. In the open valleys windmills are used by the thousands for pumping water for household and garden use. This general use of water, besides adding so immense- ly to the productive capacity, and thus to the wealth of the country, constitutes one of the great charms of life in both city and country. It gives to the farmhouse the piped water and all the conveniences of life which are ordi- narily found only in cities, while in city and country alike dooryards and lawns and flower gardens are kept green and fresh through the rainless summer by the liberal use of water. Strangers and newcomers constantly express surprise at the pleasant surroundings of the country houses. Under this system of cultivation and with the natural fertility of the soil, stinudated to the utmost by the warmth of the long sunnner, and unchecked by any severe chill to the winter, the productive capacity of the country and its power of supporting a dense population are very great ; in fact, the area of land which a laborer can take care of is much smaller than in the less productive East. The tendency is in consequence to a more thorough subdi- vision of land. Twenty acres are — especially in the fruit districts — a suilficiently large area for the united labors of a large family, and, with ordinary prudence, they will live more comfortably and clear more money than on the large farms of the Mississippi Valley. This great productive capacity explains the apparently high price of land. The time is not far distant when what is distinctively known as vSouthern California will support and give wealth to a population of several millions. As yet, the country is hardly touched by agriculture — only a settle- ment here and there over the broad plains; l)ut the influx is now so rapid and unceasing that all this will soon change. One noteworthy feature of the incoming popu- 5 50 CALIFORNIA OF TIIF SOUTH. lation is that it is made up almost entirely of the well-to-do — those who bring intelligence and money with them, and are prepared to improve their lands at once. An- other feature is the colony system. Large tracts of land are purchased and water piped over the whole before they are divided and sold out; schoolhouses and churches are provided for, and all the conveniences and appliances which in other lanrls are found only in old settlements, and so the discomforts of ordinary frontier life are avoid- ed. No other portion of the Pacific coast is so well opened up and tapped by railroads. The various lines penetrate in every direction, so that the farmer has ready access to market, and every facility for shipping his produce. I'ew countries yield as great a variety of products as Southern California. In the list may be enumerated wheat, barley, corn, potatoes — Irish and sweet — and all kinds of vegetables, melons, berries, fruits of every variety found in the temperate and semi-tropical zones, includ- ing, in the latter, the orange, lemon, lime, fig, and ba- nana, nuts, the vine, the olive; also honey, wool, meat, fish, petroleum, asphaltum, some coal, and timber. IVlany others might be mentioned, but the list given will serve to show the wide range. This wide range of products, together with the regu- larity of the yearly rainfall and the extensive systems of irrigation, make the country peculiarly exempt from the drawback of dry seasons, such as are found in many sec- tions east of the Rocky Mountains. A feature to be noted in the agricultural and horticul- tural products of Southern California is the relatively high valuation to the bulk, and the consequent cheapness of placing them in the markets where consumed. Wheat and barley, which are bulky, take ships in our own har- bors for the ports of Europe, having to pay no railway charges over long lines. Corn is turned into lard and bacon at home, and has the whole interior of the mining CLIMATOLOGY. 5 1 Territories for a market. Fresh fruits and vei:^etables of all kinds go by the train load to Arizona and Xew Mexico. Dried and canned fruits, which are produced in large quantities, go directly to Europe by sea. The orange, the lemon, and the lime are shipped by the train load all over the Pacific coast, and eastward to the Territories and the Mississip]M \'alley. Raisins have the whole United States for a market. Wool, in excess of the consumption of the factories here, goes by sea to the East and to Eu- rope. Wines and brandies lade in our own ports for all parts of the world. Petroleum has the whole Pacific coast for a market, as no other point has developed it in paying quantities. The olive is just beginning to show its possibilities as a wealth-producer. It has been cultivated in the old mis- sion orchards for a century, but now a rapidly increasing acreage is devoted to its culture. So valuable is it deemed in southern Europe, that the kingdom of Italy alone has fifteen hundred scjuare miles of solid olive orchards. Commercial Development. In the earlier days of the Pacific coast, when gold was the one great product, and its (|uest in the mines the one absorbing pursuit of the inrushing population, trade lines became fixed in certain channels. Every other industry of the coast was viewed only in its possible relation 10 the mining interests. San Erancisco, as the shipping jjoint of the mining counties, became, by her location and In' the rapid accumulation of capital, the conmiercial me- tropolis of the whole coast. P)etween the California of that day and the East lay the little-known heights of the Sierra and the Rocky Mountains and the long reaches of almost trackless desert. Instead of the railroads of to- day, were only the scattered trails of the pioneers. Trans- coptincntal trafBc was an impossibility, and the ocean 52 CALIFORNIA OF J' HE SOU 'J II. became the hig-liway of trade. Everythiiii^ in the shape of imports for California came by sea to San f'Yancisco, and was thence distributed by sea along the coast north and south. Everything to be exported was gathered in to her wharves by vessels plying in a coastwise trade, and thence reshipped for the conunerce of the world. The merchants from all over the coast went to San Francisco to buy their stocks of goods. The banks of San Fran- cisco controlled the finance of the coast. Her commis- sion merchants fixed the prices of the products of the coast. When men spoke of the commerce of the Pacific slope, they meant the commerce of San Francisco. No other portion of the United States has ever been so dominated by the preponderating influence of one com- mercial center. It was an exceptional state of afTairs. brought about by an exceptional train of circumstances, and could not. in the nature of things, continue indefi- nitely. About the year 1875 a great change set in. Like most far-reaching changes in the lines of trade, men were slow to perceive its drift. The merchants of San Francisco were slow to perceive it. Even now, w^hen the trade of the coast has in a measure slipped from their grasp, under the working of laws which nuist prevent it from ever re- turning, they scarcely seem to see what it all means. The long, undisputed monopoly had the efifect wliich it always has. of narrowing business methods and sap- ping energy. They became provincial in their ways of business. The trade which had to come to them they ceased to strive for. When it no longer had to come to them, they had lost the art of striving for it. and could not meet the keen, wide-awake competition of business centers which began to reach out from the East. A representative of one of the leading San Francisco papers said recently to the writer: " There is no hope of a change in the business methods of San Francisco CLIMATOLOGY. 53 until the present generation of business men dies out, and new men fill their places." And the end is not yet. It is only the beginning. The revokition was only hastened by the lack of foresight in San h>ancisco's business men. Back of it were im- mutable laws of trade which, had San Francisco pos- sessed every energy and the keenest foresight, would in the end have worked out the same result — only, it might have been somcwiiat delayed. What are the facts in the case? Transcontinental Roads. Attention has already been called, in that portion of this part which was devoted to the central belt, to certain marked features of the various lines across the continent. It may not be amiss to mention them again. Both the Sierra and the Rocky Mountain Ranges gradually rise as they go northward, until their highest portions are found between the thirty-fifth and forty-third parallels. This is also the region of the highest mountain passes, of the deepest snows, and of the severest winter storms. It is the line of the greatest reach of desert, and is the line across the broadest portion of the conti- nent. Under pressure of the war, and, in fact, as a military measure, and with the assistance of large Government subsidies, the Central Pacific Railroad was pushed across by this line to the P^acific coast. It is probable that even then the line would have been run farther south but for the unsettled state of the country through which it would h.ave had to pass, and the possibility of its seizure by the Southern armies. Years went by, and other transcontinental lines were projected and built, but they did not follow the central route. Trade seeks, as a matter of economy and profit, 54 CALIFORNIA OF TIIF SOUTH. the shortest lines between terminal points, the lowest grades, freedom from interruption by storms, and a pro- ductive tri])utary territory through which to pass. It did not find these upon the central route. It found them farther south. It was found cheaper to flank the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra rather than to cross them. And so the newer lines, even when starting from the East, on the central line, were deflected toward the south as they began to make the rise of the continent. Lines which had crossed the Rocky Mountains found before them the high Sierra, while southward spread the easy slope of the valley of the Colorado, and then the low passes through the Sierra to the sea. Traffic from sea to sea found only thirteen hundred miles from the wharves of Galveston to the wharves of Port Los Angeles, San Diego, or San Pedro, and, instead of the interior desert of the more northern routes, the long, fertile valley of the Ciila. What has been the result? The central line of rail- road across the continent has now been finished for twen- ty years, and in all that time no second line has been built or even proposed over that route. The southern routes, on the contrary, have practically three complete lines: the Southern Pacific, from Xew Orleans and Galveston, to Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and San Pedro; the At- lantic and Pacific, which taps the Southern Pacific at Mojave; the Atchison and Topeka, which reaches the sea at Santa Monica, San Diego, and at Redondo, one of the ports of Los Angeles; and now the Union I'acific proposes to extend itself by its Southern Utah branch southward along the easy grades of the inner plateau to the sea in Southern California. (^ne of these roads, the Southern Pacific, after reach- ing the sea at Port Los Angeles and San Pedro, turns northward again, as a coast road to San Francisco. By thus turning southward as they make the rise of CLIMATOLOGY. 55 the continent, these roads escape the great elevations and the steep grades of both the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra; they escape the deep snows and the severe storms of the winter; they gain, owing to the sharp east- ward trend of the Pacific coast in Southern Cahfornia, shorter Hues to the sea. Another and very ini])ortant gain is made. Instead of traversing for hundreds of miles the non-producing desert lands of the central route, which can furnish to them little business either in the shape of way-travel or way-freight, they traverse tlie most fertile portion of the interior of the continent, the high timber and grass lands of New Mexico, and of northern and eastern Arizona, and then the long, fertile valleys of the Gila and the Col- orado and their tributaries. The productive capacity of these valleys has already been described. It is sufficient to add here that, sooner or later, with their almost unlimited area of deep, rich soil, and their practically inexhaustible supplies of water for irrigation, they must contain a dense population num- bering into the millions, and with their traffic nuist fur- nish a large and profitable way-biisiness to the southern transcontinental lines. Looking to the future, the richest and the most popu- lous of all the transcontinental routes from sea to sea will be that which takes in Southern California and these great fertile, interior valleys which lie back of it. With these facts from which to reason, it is not difficult to fore- see the future drift of trade. The law^ of grades, the free- dom from snow, the shorter lines, the productive way territory, and the greater aggregate of population, will inevitably draw the transcontinental traffic away from the central to the southern route. Even now it is found cheaper to ship freight intended for San Francisco by the way of Los Angeles than to send it across the northern route bv the Central Pacific, and a 56 CALIFORNIA OF TIIF SOUTH. large portion of her traffic takes this Hne. With the de- velopment of the southern ports and the establishment of steamer lines, the Asiatic and island trade will land at these points, and so save the five hundred miles of extra railroading, and the heavy grades of tlic Tehachapi on the line south from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Harbors. The Pacific coast south of Puget Sound is, by nature, deficient in harbors. The only two good natural ports within the limits of the United States south of that point are San Francisco and San Diego. Of the harbor of San r^rancisco it is scarcely necessary to speak; it ranks among the few great seaports of the world. San Diego, less known, is also one of the harbors turned ofif fin- ished from Nature's hand. A landlocked sheet of water, some twelve miles in length, with a safe, deep entrance, carrying some twenty-three feet at low tide across the bar, it has the capacity to accommodate a large com- merce. The California Southern line of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe road reaches tide water there. It labors under the disadvantage of lying at the southern edge of the great area of agricultural land of Southern California, and opposite a higher portion of the Sierra, which rises again south of the San Gorgoiiio Pass. The greater portion of the shipping of Southern Cali- fornia, from the time of the earliest Spanish settlement, was done through the port of San Pedro, which lies far- ther north, and opposite the great body of agricultural lands and the center of population, besides being the port nearest to the low ])asses through the Sierra. This port, which is one of the chief shipping points of Los Angeles, consists of an inner harbor, formerly shut off from the sea by a bar, and an open roadstead, sheltered from west- erly winds by Point San Pedro, but exposed toward the CLIMATOLOGY. 57 south. For many years the business of the port was man- aged by a system of Hghters, the vessels lying at anchor out in the roadstead. A i)ortion of it is still so carried on. Several years ago the (iovernment, after three careful surveys, entered upon the work of improving the har- bor. A breakwater, about a mile and a half in length, was constructed to confine the tide to one channel in its flow across the bar, and the scouring effect of the flow has been assisted by dredging. The channel through the bar, which, when the work was begun, only carried about a foot and a half of water at low tide, has now a depth of some fourteen feet, and eighteen and a half feet at high tide. The h.arbor lies twenty miles south of Los Angeles city. It is one of the terminal points of the Southern Pa- cific system of roads. San Pedro is also the terminal point of the Terminal Railway, a local line. North of San Pedro, on the other side of the point, is Redondo, a new place, created by the energy of two private citizens, who built a magnificent tourist hotel, a wharf, railroad to Los Angeles, bath house, pavilion, etc. Redondo now does a large shipping business, steamers of the coast line polling regularly, and much lumber being imported by sailing vessels. Port Los Angeles, sixteen miles from Los Angeles, is another terminal point of the Southern Pacific. Here that railway has a great wharf four fifths of a mile long, which was constructed at a cost of one million dollars, and where a large proportion of the shipping of Southern California is now done. At other points along the coast are good roadsteads, as at Ventura, and at Santa l)arbara, where, through the protection afTorded by the channel islands and projecting points of land, vessels lie at open sea w^harves most of the year with little dif^culty. The effect of the completion of an Isthnuis canal. e3 CA LI FORM A OF THE SOUT/F either by the Panama or the Xicaraj^ua route, will be to stimulate in a marked degree the growth of these south- ern ports. The commerce which now strikes far out to sea in its long voyage around the Horn, because of the wind currents, and only approaches the California coast as it nears the harbor of San Francisco, will then become largely a coastwise trade, and will pass more under the control of steam; and as the shorter lines will be those nearest the land, it will naturally be tapped first by the southern ports. Type of Civic and Country Life. There are a number of exceptional features in the type of life which is growing up in Southern California. It is a type unlike that found upon any other portion of the coast, and, indeed, with scarcely a parallel within the United States. Most new lands go through the slow pro- cesses of a rude pioneer life before the comforts and the conveniences of a matured civilization are a possibility; and the first waves of population, while made up of the more energetic elements from older conununities, are yet not marked by any high degree of cultivation or mental refinement. The class of immigration which has come to Southern California is, in many respects, the opposite of this; it has been made up largely of the best and most highly cultivated elements of older communities. Under the old Spanish n^gimc, before the Mexican War, when the Anglo-Teuton was yet almost unknown in the land, the country, as headciuarters of the Spanish colonial system for the coast, possessed many of the ele- ments of a kindly and refined civilization. It was isolated, little known, slumljering away the years, like some dreary valley of peace. The years came and went, and the rest- less currents of the world swept by and left it undisturbed. Yet around the old missions, and upon the broad ranches, CUM A rOI.OG Y. 59 and ill the quiet pueblos, was a kindly, courteous, old- time life, which had in it none of the roughness of the frontier. The writer, coming- to Los Angeles twenty years ago, while this old ranch life was not yet in its de- cay, wishes here to pay at least a slight trihute to the kind- ly spirit of that type of civilization which is now rapidly passing away. It had in it nothing of the rush and the drive, of the restless energy which have come with the type which has supplanted it; it possihly had fulfilled its mission, and the times were ripe for something else. Yet it came of a blood as truly and intensely American as that which dates from Jamestown or Plymouth Rock. It is even an older American blood, for it dates from the con- quistadors and the shores of the (julf, while yet the Anglo- Teuton had only coasted along the west shores of the At- lantic. These two bloods share the Western Continent be- tween them. As race types they have absorbed all others. With a common mission and a common ftiturc, they should be friends. They met here, and were friends. The old Campo Santo and the Anglo-Tetiton graveyard hold in their restful sleep hearts that beat as kindly for each other as though no bar of blood or religion ever stood be- tween. The writer has known no warmer friends — none for whom a more tender feeling of kindly regret lingers through the years — than some whose greetings were worded in the courteous speech of Castile. One face especially comes up from the past with the softened memories of years of personal friendship, and of many a ])leasant day spent together in the old ranch house — the face of Don Manuel Dominguez. It is a face wrinkled with the touch of nearly eighty years, eyes dimmed by age, yet having in them the light of a simple- hearted, honest life. " Yotir ancestors," he would often exclaim, when we were speaking of the future of the country, " crossed the 6o CALIFORNIA OF THE SOUTH. continent by one road, mine by another. For nearly three centuries we have between us possessed the land. We are not cstrangcros; we are Americans! " As the old man lay dying, he said, gently, in Span- ish, thinking, evidently, as his mind wandered, that he was bargaining for some purchase: " I will pay so much; I will pay no more ; / zvill pay no less, for that amount is just." I thought, as 1 heard him talking, that the remark was typical of the man, and was also typical of that older Spanish life of which he was a lingering representative. It is to this older, simple-hearted type of Spanish civ- ilization that a wave of Anglo-Teuton blood has come, unlike that which generally first reaches the frontier. Before the days of transcontinental roads, the distance and the expense of removal were so great that only the more energetic and prosperous portion of the American emigrating element found its way to this far-ofif region. After the building of the roads, and when the cost of travel was no longer a bar, the fact that there was prac- tically no Government land in the country kept away that element which drifted to the frontier to take up land, and then, after a few years, sell out and move on. Then, the methods of cultivation and the class of products involved time and outlay of capital before nuich return could be expected, and a higher average of intelligence in the cul- tivator. Orchards and vineyards and tropical fruits in- volved a style of cultivation and of management very dif- ferent from the simple farming of wheat and barley and corn. The climate, too, as it became more widely known, began to attract the wealthy and cultivated element from all the East. And so it has been that the emigration to Southern California has been culled out from the choicest of the population of the East. The intelligence, the culture, the refinement, the energy, the wealth of all the East, have CL/MATOLOaV. 6 1 contributed to make up the current which, with each year, is swelhng, and will not cease until the land is filled. The result is already showing- in a population which, in all that goes to make up tlie highest and best type of civilization, can probably not be paralleled elsewhere in America. If there is any truth in the law of the improvement of race by selection and elimination, and in that other law of the power of climatic surroundings to influence race development, history shows what the fruitage must be. It was in the analogue of this climate, as found about the east shores of the Mediterranean, that, two thousand years ago, grew up the Grseco-Latin civilization which for centuries swayed the destinies of the world, and to-day, after all the ages, still stamps itself upon the mental life of the races. The working of these laws was traced by the writer in an address upon The Climatic Belts of Civ- ilization. Education. The colony system of settlement, which has been so common in Southern California, has borne good fruit in educational work. Wherever one goes, over the country or in villages or towns, the public-school buildings at- tract the eye at once by their neatness and the creditable style of architecture. The school and the church have gone hand in hand in the work of building up a new civ- ilization. Good primary and grammar schools are found in the country districts, and high schools in all the smaller towns and the cities. In efficiency the schools of no State rank higher. A State Normal School, with an attendance of several himdreds, exists in the city of Los Angeles. A large number of seminaries and colleges, under con- trol of various churches, supplements this educational 62 CALI/'OA\V/A OF THE SOU TIL work. Most of these cluster in and about the city of Los Angeles, as the center of population. More detailed ref- erence to the educational institutions of Los Angeles is made later on in this work. The educational work of Southern California has been planned upon a broad and liberal basis, as it is felt that this is to become one of some half-dozen great educational centers for the United States. The cool, healthful climate of Southern California and its social advantages will draw to its schools students from the interior Territories and from Mexico, while its advantages as a health resort are already bringing many students from the Atlantic and Mississippi States. Diseases. Under this heading may be given the diseases which are peculiar to or endemic in the country, and also those which may hope for benefit by removal to it. Southern California is practically free from any diseases which be- long especially to it, or have their habitat, as the natural- ists say of a plant, in it. Malaria is but little known. Here and there a spot may be found in mountain canons, or in river bottoms not reached by the ocean wind, where ma- larial diseases exist during a portion of the year, l)ut for practical purposes the country may be said to be exempt from them. It is the benefit which comes of the free sweep of the ocean wind to the whole of the land. The l^rcaking down of the Coast Range of mountains, and the consec|ucnt openness of the entire system of interior valleys and plains to the sea, have thus had an important bearing upon the healtlifulncss of the whole of Southern Cali- fornia. Yellow fever is unknown. Typhoid, which has its habitat wherever men congregate in cities, is found to a limited extent ; but the purity of the air and the abund- CLIMATOLOGY. 63 ancc and excellent (inality of the water make it a disease not common, nor ordinarily of a violent type. The cool sea breeze, which gives exemption from fevers, brings with it, however, a certain amount of neuralgias and sub- acute rheumatisms. Persons with a tendency to these troubles escape by living farther back from the sea. Acute inflammatory rheumatism is seldom seen. The contagious epidemics of children are found here as elsewhere in the world, but with this difference: that the possibility of more thorough ventilation and of a constant supply of pure, mild air in the sick-room ren- ders them much less violent than in the colder climates and the close houses of the East. The proportion of deaths to the number of cases is much less. Pneumonia and bronchitis are occasionally but rarely found. Phthisis, the scourge of civilization, will require more time for a complete answer. Yet this much seems to be already clear: that it does not often originate here among families free from a strong inherited taint, while the tend- ency of physical growth among the young, born and reared in this climate, is to an increased lung capacity in proportion to height and weight, as contrasted with the children of the East; and the clear, ruddy complexion and marked vigor of body point to an increased vitality. Catarrhal troubles are not common. Apart from the ordinary average of cases induced by excesses, diseases of the liver and kidneys are comparatively rare. The cases which may hope for benefit by coming to Southern California are, first and foremost, the feeble and invalid from whatever cause; those who find the drain upon vitality in a harsh climate too great for them ; who have need to spend a considerable portion of each day in the open air, yet who in their own climate are prevented from so doing by the inclemency of the weather; those who need clear skies and sunshine; to whom the refresh- ing sleep of a cool, bracing night is a necessity after the 64 CALIFORNIA OF THE SOU 771. warmth of the summer clay; those to whose enfeebled di- gestion or to whose capricious appetites a market stocked with fresh vegetables, fruits, and berries, every month of the year, is of importance. For such, and for all wdio are suffering from the nervous prostration of overwork, there is probably no better climate to be found. It is a climate in which the drain upon vitality is, with any proper man- ner of living, less than the gain. A mistake is sometimes made in the selection of a cli- mate for cases of nervous exhaustion, by sending them to the stimulation of a dry, elevated, interior region. To such cases the first effect of such a climate is like that of a dose of alcohol, the temporary exhilaration of the stimu- lant, but with the inevitable reaction. For such cases the best climate is one of less elevation and more atmospheric humidity, the climate of a mild seacoast region. It is not the spurring up of stimulation which they need, but the recuperation which comes of restful climatic surround- ings. While the immediate coast line with its fogs develops a certain amount of subacute rheumatism and neuralgia, yet such cases coming from the East often improve in a marked degree with the improvement which comes in the general health; and if they avoid the seacoast, and live back in the interior valleys, they generally escape such troubles entirely. Persons suffering from malarial poisoning and its various sequels find in the seaside life, and the surf-bath- ing, an almost certain relief. The number of such persons coming from the valley of the Mississippi and its tribu- taries is increasing rapidly with each year. The free action of the skin, which comes of the milder climate, makes Southern California the most favorable portion of the Pacific coast for kidney troubles. With such cases in any chronic form the question is rather one of prolonging life, and of living in comparative comfort, CLIMA TO LOG Y. 65 than of cure. To this end a fair but not excessive action of the skin, freedom from sudden changes of weather and the risk of chill, and the choice of a wide range of diet, are necessary. In consumption a great mistake is often made. Cases by the hundreds arrive in Southern California which would be much better ofif at home. No climate can claim to be a cure-all. It should be considered, before starting an invalid upon so long a trip, whether there is strength to endure the fatigue of the journey. Many, too, come without friends or ac(|uaintances, and literally die of homesickness. Many also come who, through lack of means, or through a mistaken economy, rent cold, shady rooms, and live at restaurants, and so, missing the com- forts of their home life, are worse ofT than if they had never started. There is also a great difference in locali- ties and local climates, and invalids dififer in constitution, and many, instead of at once seeking the advice of some competent physician as to the point to be selected for resi- dence, drift around thinking that the country is all alike, and one spot as favorable as another, until much valuable time has been lost and possibly irreparal)le harm done. To the consumptive coming before the disease is far advanced, having the means to secure reasonable com- forts, taking steps to select from the first the locality best suited to the peculiarities of his especial case, and then avoiding the common mistake of trying to make a sight- seeing tour of what should be a quiet rest, the climate of Southern California in some one of its varied phases ofTers a fair hope of check and amelioration to the disease, and of possibly years of comfortable life, and to some even more — an apparent or possibly real recovery. Rut this will not be by a winter's trip, or spending a few months here, and then returning again to the climate in which the disease originated. It will be by coming and making a new home. It must not be a trip, but a migration. 6 66 CALIFORNIA OF THE SOUTH. The best of all prospects is for the person or the fam- ily inheriting the tendency, but in whom it is yet dormant. To them there is a well-founded hope that the disease may remain dormant, and to their children, born and reared in the new home, a prospect of its entire eradica- tion from the blood. Suflferers from that erratic and torturing disease, asth- ma, generally secure in some one of the various shades of climate, or in the different elevations which are to be found within a limited area, immunity from the attacks of their remorseless foe. It is impossible in so limited space to go over the whole list of diseases, but the climatic laws and facts given in this part will enable a competent physician to form an opinion for any especial case. A pleasant feature of life in Southern California, and one which has much to do with the development of vig- orous health, is the custom, which yearly grows in favor, of summering by the seaside and on Catalina Island. The long ocean face of the country is each year, for several months, dotted with canvas villages, where thousands of people live over again for a season the old tent life of the race, and, while enjoying the surf-bathing, drink in with every breath of the salt air the ruddy and rugged health which is born of the sea. Besides these tent villages there are numerous well-built towns with all the comforts and conveniences of settled society, and with numerous and costly hotels. The railroads from the interior reach the coast at many points to accommodate this summer ex- odus to the seaside. In concluding this part upon the climatology, and some of the allied features of the Pacific coast, the writer would say that the task has been to him a labor of love. It is a slight tribute which he pays back for the health and the sunshine which, during all these years, it has thrown into his life. CLIMATOLOGY. 67 Coming to the coast in boyhood, he has Hved its varied life — in the mountains — on its broad plains — by the sea — and upon the deserts of the great inland plateau — until they have interwoven themselves into the very fiber of his being. Whv should he not love his land? It has been to him in all these years a thing of infinite worth. He can well understand the love of the old (ireek for his seagirt home. And he has faith in its future. I-'or over thirty years he has taken active part in its growth; has seen it broaden and strengthen, and has seen behind the feverish quest for gold a higher, nobler life growing up — a life that no longer has eyes bent downward to the yellow-speckled slime of the river, but has lifted them up to the eternal mountains, and the deep skies that lie beyond; a life which no longer hears only the jingle of the nugget upon the gaming table, but has ears growing attuned to the voice of the wind in tiie upland pines; a life which is learning that there are other and better questions to man's existence than what he shall eat, and what he shall drink, and wherewithal he shall be clothed. And in this newer and nobler life which is growing up here upon the shores of the Pacific, and upon the high- lands of that great inner plateau which reaches on south- ward to the city of Mexico, it seems to him he can discern the fair promise of a civilization whicli had its only ana- logue in that (iraeco- Latin race-flowering which came to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean centuries ago. Longitude West 118 from Greenwich lAltadena r\Aiiaueiia / Vcrdugo /^Junc. | ^ Park'- IVi\SiHlona ,, r-^ ^,,1 .iTLamaiul^^j^ f^,.,,^., VliaynidiulfJ ^ — •' iVzusa LOS ANOELES AND yiClMTY 5 10 20 Scale of Miles. PART II. LOS ANGELES, ORANGE, SAN DIEGO, SAN BERNARDINO, VENTURA, SANTA BARBARA, AND RIVERSIDE COUNTIES. By WALTER LINDLEY, M. D. The Overland Trip — How to enjoy it. The health-seeker who, after years of suffering in both mind and body, after vainly trying the cold climate of Minnesota and the warm climate of Florida, after visiting IMentone, Cannes, and Nice, after traveling to Cuba and to Algiers, and noticing that he is losing ounce upon ounce of flesh, that his cheeks grow more sunken, his ap- petite more capricious, his breath more hurried, that his tem])erature is no longer normal, his pulse beats loo in- stead of J2, and that his finger nails curve ominously, turns with a new gleam of hope toward the Occident. Another health-seeker who, after years of exciting, exacting work, is unable to concentrate his mind, worn out by sleepless nights, weak from loss of appetite, and distracted by melancholy, also looks toward the equable climate and mild breezes of the Pacific slope for the seda- tive and restorative effects that medicine fails to supply. Still another health-seeker, whose joints no longer respond to the mandates of the will, who is harassed and 69 • ^o CALIFORNIA OF THE SOUTH. tortured with pains at every cliangfe in the weather, looks to the genial climate and the healing waters of the springs of Southern California for relief. Still, again, we have the wretched sufferer, whose sleepless nights are one long struggle for breath because of an inherited or an acquired asthma, and who also hopes in the varied climates of Southern California to find one that will dethrone the demon which clouds his life. The questions naturally arise: Where shall I go? What route shall I take? How long shall I be on the way? What will be the expense? What are the accom- modations after reaching there? What is best to carry with me on such a journey? What clothing shall I need? Shall I take my family? Are there good schools for my children? What are the means of whiling away the time? The man with sporting proclivities wants to know of trout-fishing, of the facilities for boating, and of the vari- ous kinds of game. The artistically inclined wishes to know of the scenery ; the student of Nature is interested in the mosses, flowers, and ferns; the horticulturist de- sires knowledge of the fruit; the farmer of grain; the dairyman of the creameries and cheese factories; the phy- sician of the prevalent diseases, the wind, altitude, tem- perature, rainfall, and humidity. It is to answer these questions that this book is written. There are excellent eating stations along all the vari- ous routes, but trains arc apt to be behind time, and fre- quently the traveler who has not provided for himself must wait until eleven or twelve o'clock for breakfast or till mid- night for his dinner. The suggestion of Rev. E. P. Roe,* author of lUirriers P.urned Away, that the overland roads furnish tea, coffee, and sandwiches when trains are de- layed is a good one, and has been complied with, but nev- ertheless a well-filled lunch-basket is a great desideratum. * Letter from Los Angeles to Chicago Inter-Ocean. LOS ANGELES. 71 It is, on the whole, much better for heahh and comfort to eat at the stations and get freshly cooked food whenever the railway eating stations are reached at reasonable hours. The traveler should always carry something with him to guard against constipation. A sedlitz powder, a tea- sp(Jonful of Rochelle salt, or a tablespoonful of Hunyadi Janos taken before breakfast, is a simple and efficient pre- ventive. A bottle of paregoric, a bottle of aromatic spir- its of anmionia, and a flask of good whisky, are all excel- lent things to carry in the satchel. If you do not need them, some fellow-traveler will. The sensible transcon- tinental traveler throws aside unnecessary conventionali- ties, and in twenty-four hours becomes well acquainted with every occupant of his Pullman. Elderly ladies and children generally are the earliest passengers to start the social ball rolling. On one transcontinental trip, in the writer's experi- ence, all were having a jolly good time except one man, whom the others called the mute; but on the third day a cup of good tea from a good-hearted old lady caused his stolidity to vanish like a heavy mist before the noonday sun, and he then became one of the family. In another car there was a solemn-looking man from San Francisco and a mischievous little three-year-old girl from Los Angeles. This little girl's mamma was in a constant tremor, thinking of the terrible consequences should her little girl annoy the sedate gentleman. One day she relaxed her vigilance, and, on looking up, was terror-stricken to see her child standing on a seat back of this man and with a string around his neck was crying in childish glee, " Get up, horsey! " The mother ran to the man with apologies; but he soon quieted her fears by telling her that the man who didn't like children ought to be shot, and from that time on he joined in the social di- versions of the trip. 72 CALIFOK\'IA OF THE SOUTH. Several years ago on the same train were the Rev. Samuel Scoville, son-in-law of Henry Ward Beecher, and Rev. Charles B. .Sumner, also a New England clergyman, and these preachers and their families entered heartily into the pleasures of the trip. When Sunday came, the train was passing through the grand pine forests of Ari- zona, and there in one of the Pullman's, passing under the branches of " God's first temples," services were held. The clergymen conducted the exercises. T^amiliar hymns were sung, and l)ricf remarks were made by several. Among others a spiritualist spoke, and said that he had abused the Church frequently in the past, but, after listen- ing to these services, he felt like taking it all back. Thus, incongruous people become pleasant and mollified. I)uring such a trip cards, books, newspapers, and il- lustrated papers are always in demand. A young man with a violin, or a young lady with a guitar and a sweet voice, is a great acquisition to any party. Tiie four days' ride from Kansas City, New Orleans, or Omaha is either dull, monotonous, and desolate, or cheerful, exciting, and instructive, just as each passenger elects. The wide-awake traveler will gain much knowledge of the country he will traverse by conversing with his fellow- passengers. The Arrival in Southern California. But we will now suppose the journey across the great republic is completed, and the traveler is in Los Angeles, the central city of Southern California. Should you be fortunate enough to have friends whom you expect to visit, be sure and telegraph them the time of you' arrival and what route you wnll travel. Inform your friends that, if the train arrives at night, you will re- main ir \\\