cultivator in his shirt-sleeves; he
hears running water, the song of birds, the scent of flowers is in the
air, and he cannot understand why he needs winter clothing, why he is
always seeking the sun, why he wants a fire at night. It is a fraud, he
says, all this visible display of summer, and of an almost tropical
summer at that; it is really a cold country. It is incongruous that he
should be looking at a date-palm in his overcoat, and he is puzzled that
a thermometrical heat that should enervate him elsewhere, stimulates him
here. The green, brilliant, vigorous vegetation, the perpetual sunshine,
deceive him; he is careless about the difference of shade and sun, he
gets into a draught, and takes cold. Accustomed to extremes of
temperature and artificial heat, I think for most people the first
winter here is a disappointment. I was told by a physician who had
eighteen years' experience of the climate that in his first winter he
thought he had never seen a people so insensitive to cold as the San
Diegans, who seemed not to require warmth. And all this time the trees
are growing like asparagus, the most delicate flowers are in perpetual
bloom, the annual crops are most lusty. I fancy that the soil is always
warm. The temperature is truly moderate. The records for a number of
years show that the mid-day temperature of clear days in winter is from
60 deg. to 70 deg. on the coast, from 65 deg. to 80 deg. in the interior, while that of
rainy days is about 60 deg. by the sea and inland. Mr. Van Dyke says that
the lowest mid-day temperature recorded at the United States signal
station at San Diego during eight years is 51 deg.. This occurred but once.
In those eight years there were but twenty-one days when the mid-day
temperature was not above 55 deg.. In all that time there were but six days
when the mercury fell below 36 deg. at any time in the night; and but two
when it fell to 32 deg., the lowest point ever reached there. On one of
these two last-named days it went to 51 deg. at noon, and on the other to
56 deg.. This was the great "cold snap" of December, 1879.

It goes without saying that this sort of climate would suit any one in
ordinary health, inviting and stimulating to constant out-of-door
exercise, and that it would be equally favorable to that general
breakdown of the system which has the name of nervous prostration. The
effect upon diseases of the respiratory organs can only be determined by
individual experie