of far more value than if they were like the prairies of
Illinois. Fortunately they will remain deserts forever. Some parts will
in time be reclaimed by the waters of the Colorado River, but wet spots
of a few hundred thousand acres would be too trifling to affect general
results, for millions of acres of burning desert would forever defy all
attempts at irrigation or settlement."

This desert-born breeze explains a seeming anomaly in regard to the
humidity of this coast. I have noticed on the sea-shore that salt does
not become damp on the table, that the Portuguese fishermen on Point
Loma are drying their fish on the shore, and that while the hydrometer
gives a humidity as high as seventy-four, and higher at times, and fog
may prevail for three or four days continuously, the fog is rather
"dry," and the general impression is that of a dry instead of the damp
and chilling atmosphere such as exists in foggy times on the Atlantic
coast.

"From the study of the origin of this breeze we see," says Mr. Van Dyke,
"why it is that a wind coming from the broad Pacific should be drier
than the dry land-breezes of the Atlantic States, causing no damp walls,
swelling doors, or rusting guns, and even on the coast drying up,
without salt or soda, meat cut in strips an inch thick and fish much
thicker."

At times on the coast the air contains plenty of moisture, but with the
rising of this breeze the moisture decreases instead of increases. It
should be said also that this constantly returning current of air is
always pure, coming in contact nowhere with marshy or malarious
influences nor any agency injurious to health. Its character causes the
whole coast from Santa Barbara to San Diego to be an agreeable place of
residence or resort summer and winter, while its daily inflowing tempers
the heat of the far inland valleys to a delightful atmosphere in the
shade even in midsummer, while cool nights are everywhere the rule. The
greatest surprise of the traveller is that a region which is in
perpetual bloom and fruitage, where semi-tropical fruits mature in
perfection, and the most delicate flowers dazzle the eye with color the
winter through, should have on the whole a low temperature, a climate
never enervating, and one requiring a dress of woollen in every month.

CHAPTER II.

OUR CLIMATIC AND COMMERCIAL MEDITERRANEAN.

Winter as we understand it east of the Rockies does not exist. I
scarcely know how to divide the seas