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ration on this coast. The general health, however, of San Francisco is shown to be, by the same authority, better than that of the average of large cities in the older States. While the temperature in winter at San Francisco is maintained at a comparatively high point,--allowing the outdoor cultivation of some of the hardier varieties of flowering shrubs,--the atmosphere, meanwhile, is damp and chilling, and extremely detrimental to most cases of lung difficulties. The climate of California is, in the neighborhood of San Francisco, and northward, divided into two distinct seasons,--that of the wet and dry. The wet season begins usually in November, and terminates in May, while the dry season embraces the remaining portion of the year. Of course the length of either varies considerably, as do all our seasons everywhere in the temperate latitudes. The quantity of rain falling in this wet season equals that of the entire fall for New England,[G] and coming in the cooler portion of the year has just those demerits, to a considerable, though modified degree, which inhere in the climate of the Atlantic coast, of which we have spoken elsewhere in detail. The southern portion of California, however, presents a radical dry climate, and is quite free from those wet and dry seasons which obtain in central and northern California. The amount of annual rain-fall is, in the region of SAN DIEGO, about ten inches, and while it is true that this precipitation is in sympathy with, and indeed is distributed over a portion of what is known as the "wet season," in Upper California, yet it does not amount to enough in quantity to establish a wet season. The balance of the year the air is dry and elastic, and highly favorable, so far as we are able to judge, to all cases of pulmonary troubles. San Diego is an old Spanish town, and for many years has been neglected, and not till recently has it shown much signs of recuperation. But, now that some Yankee pioneers have settled in the town and neighborhood, its prospects brighten. Fruits of all kinds, such as peaches, oranges, figs, and plums flourish in the neighborhood, and in time must form one of the chief articles of commerce. Few places offer so good an opportunity for stock-grazing as does this fertile region. This old city is, ere long, to become the terminus of one of our great continental lines of railway, namely, the Southern Pacific. Access is had, at the pres
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