Pacific coast fairly bristles with statistics on this subject, and
many writers have found it impossible to resist the temptation of
adorning their pages with tables of humidity, temperature, and
rainfall. Some hotels even print in red letters at the top of the
stationery furnished to their guests:

"The temperature to-day is ----."

Among the photographs of San Diego are several which represent groups
of ecstatic bathers, ranging from small boys to elderly bald-headed
gentlemen, apparently ready to take a plunge into the Pacific; while
beneath them is displayed the legend, "January 1, 18--." Candor
compels me, however, to state that, as far as I was able to
ascertain, these pictured bathers rarely pay a New Year's call to
Neptune in his mighty palace, but content themselves in winter with
going no further than his ante-chambers,--the sheltered, sun-warmed
areas of public bath-houses.

[Illustration: MIDWINTER AT LOS ANGELES.]

"I believe this to be the best climate in the world," said a
gentleman to me in San Diego, "but I confess that, when strangers are
visiting me, it occasionally does something it ought not to do."

The truth is, there are several climates in Southern California, some
of which are forced upon the resident, while others can be secured by
going in search of them in a trolley car or a railway carriage. The
three determining factors in the problem of temperature are the
desert, the ocean, and the mountains. Thus, in midsummer, although
it may be fiercely hot in the inland valleys, it is invariably cool