GLIMPSES OF THREE COASTS.

BY

HELEN JACKSON (H. H.),

AUTHOR OF "RAMONA," "A CENTURY OF DISHONOR," "VERSES," "SONNETS
AND LYRICS," "HETTY'S STRANGE HISTORY," "BITS OF TRAVEL,"
"BITS OF TRAVEL AT HOME," "ZEPH," "MERCY PHILBRICK'S
CHOICE," "BETWEEN WHILES," "BITS OF TALK
ABOUT HOME MATTERS," "BITS OF TALK FOR
YOUNG FOLKS," "NELLY'S SILVER
MINE," "CAT STORIES."

BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
1886.

Copyright, 1886,
By Roberts Brothers.

University Press:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge.

CONTENTS.

GLIMPSES OF THREE COASTS.

I.

CALIFORNIA AND OREGON.

OUTDOOR INDUSTRIES IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.

Climate is to a country what temperament is to a man,—Fate. The figure is not so fanciful as it seems; for temperament, broadly defined, may be said to be that which determines the point of view of a man's mental and spiritual vision,—in other words, the light in which he sees things. And the word "climate" is, primarily, simply a statement of bounds defined according to the obliquity of the sun's course relative to the horizon,—in other words, the slant of the sun. The tropics are tropic because the sun shines down too straight. Vegetation leaps into luxuriance under the nearly vertical ray: but human activities languish; intellect is supine; only the passions, human nature's rank weed-growths, thrive. In the temperate zone, again, the sun strikes the earth too much aslant. Human activities develop; intellect is keen; the balance of passion and reason is normally adjusted: but vegetation is slow and restricted. As compared with the productiveness of the tropics, the best that the temperate zone can do is scanty.

There are a few spots on the globe where the conditions of the country override these laws, and do away with these lines of discrimination in favors. Florida, Italy, the South of France and of Spain, a few islands, and South California complete the list.

These places are doubly dowered. They have the wealths of the two zones, without the drawbacks of either. In South California this results from two causes: first, the presence of a temperate current in the ocean, near the coast; second, the configuration of the mountain ranges which intercept and reflect the sun's rays, and shut South California off from the rest of the continent. It is, as it were, climatically insulated,—a sort of island on land. It has just enough of sea to make its atmosphere temperate. Its continental position and affinities give it a dryness no island could have; and its climatically insulated position gives it an evenness of temperature much beyond the continental average.

It has thus a cool summer and a temperate winter,—conditions which secure the broadest and highest agricultural and horticultural possibilities. It is the only country in the world where dairies and orange orchards will thrive together.

It has its own zones of climate; not at all following lines parallel to the equator, but following the trend of its mountains. The California mountains are a big and interesting family of geological children, with great gaps in point of age, the Sierra Nevada being oldest of all. Time was when the Sierra Nevada fronted directly on the Pacific, and its rivers dashed down straight into the sea. But that is ages ago. Since then have been born out of the waters the numerous coast ranges, all following more or less closely the shore line. These are supplemented at Point Conception by east and west ranges, which complete the insulating walls of South, or