a
it is 80 deg. from sixty to eighty days in the year. In the latter city,
the temperature falls below the freezing-point on 100 days in the
year, but at San Francisco on twenty-five mornings only. The coldest
month is January; the hottest, October. 'In the summer months, there
is scarcely any change of temperature in the night. The early morning
is sometimes clear, sometimes cloudy, and always calm. A few hours
after sunrise, the clouds break away, and the sun shines forth
cheerfully and delightfully. Towards noon, or most frequently about
one o'clock, the sea-breeze sets in, and the weather is completely
changed. From 60 deg. or 65 deg., the mercury drops forthwith to near 50 deg. long
before sunset, and remains almost motionless till next morning.' The
summer, far from being the beautiful season it is in other countries,
parches up the land, and gives it the aspect of a desert, while the
'cold sea-winds defy the almost vertical sun, and call for flannels
and overcoats.' In November and December, or about midwinter, the
early rains fall, and the soil becomes covered with herbage and
flowers. These are facts which emigrants bound for California will do
well to bear in mind.

To come back to Europe. M. Fourcault has addressed a communication to
the Academie on 'Remedies against the Physical and Moral Degeneration
of the Human Species,' intended more especially for the
working-classes. He would have schools of gymnastics and swimming
established along the great rivers, and on the sea-shore; gymnastic
dispensaries, and clinical gymnastic in towns; and agricultural and
other hospitals, combining simple and economical means of water-cure.
His clinical gymnastic comprehends three divisions: hygienic or
muscular exercise, not violent or long-continued, or productive of
perspiration; medical, in which the exercise is to be kept up until
perspiration is induced; and orthopedic, which, by means of ropes,
bands, and loops attached to a bed, enable the patient to take such
straining and stretching exercise as may be likely to rectify any
deformity of limb. Whichever method be adopted, it must be carried out
conscientiously, because 'feeble muscular contractions, without energy
or sustained effort, produce no hygienic, medical, or orthopedic
effect.' M. Fourcault may perhaps find some of his objects
accomplished in another way, for the Prince President has, by a
decree, appropriated 10,000,000 francs to the improvement of dwelling