The peculiar geographical position of this State, in conjunction with its elevated mountain ranges, gives to it nearly every climate, from that of the equator up to the limit of the temperate zone; and while the atmosphere of one neighborhood is bland and delightful, that of another is quite disagreeable and trying.  No general character obtains for that of the whole State.  The eastern sides of the mountains are everywhere more dry and elastic than are the western, and for tubercular cases are preferable to the sea-coast, though the vicinity of San Francisco would, for simple bronchial affections, be best,—­yet we do not regard either of these points as specially desirable as places of resort.

An examination of the mortuary statistics of San Francisco for 1870, as given by the Pacific Medical and Surgical Journal, in the February number of this year, discloses an alarming percentage of deaths by consumption.  For instance, the population of the city is one hundred and fifty thousand, while the deaths by consumption were five hundred for the year (round numbers), which gives one death to every three hundred inhabitants, being but a shade more favorable than is that of New England for this particular disease.  Still this is not, perhaps, a fair test of the climate, since a number of the decedents are among those, probably, who came from other portions of the country seeking a restoration 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.