Glimpses of Three Coasts

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.