Springs. Mineral In eastern Riverside county is Palm Springs, a health resort of peculiar attractions. It is situated in a sheltered valley and surrounded by giant palms of natural growth. The dry air gives great relief to sufferers from lung and throat troubles. And indeed, scattered all through the mountains of these south counties, as well as through the mountain regions mentioned elsewhere in this volume, are resorts peculiarly fitted for bringing back health to humanity. The dry air, mineral springs, the atmosphere of pine forests and above all sunshine, are climatic assets of these resorts that give health to all who seek it in time. Famous To the north of Riverside county is San Bernardino, one of the largest counties in the United States, a small empire of wondrous possibilities, noted not only for the fruit growing possibilities of its southern part, but for the rich mines and mining prospects of its northern section. Through the county runs the main line of the Santa Fe railroad, a great factor in the rapid development of this mining store-house. In San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties are large government forest reserves, where forethought of prudent men is checking the destruction of the trees on mountain ranges which shelter the source of water supply for the fertile valleys below. The most southern county is San Diego, noted for Resorts. many things, but above all for its famous winter resort hotel at Coronado, for its wonderful harbor at San Diego, for its fruit growing and for its health-giving climate, which last element alone is gaining for its population thousands yearly. Northerly from Los Angeles is Ventura, and beyond, Santa Barbara. These two counties are noted, as are all others of the south counties, for their climate and for their soil possibilities. Olives, English walnuts and oranges are the chief orchard products, while there are opportunities for returns from other lines of industry in their valleys and foothills. A peculiar educational institution that means health for growing boys is located near Nordhoff in Ventura county, where the son of a Yale professor has established CALIFORNIA SOUTH OF TEHACHAPI 183 an outdoor school where boys are prepared for college. Half of their day is devoted to horseback riding or exercising out of doors, and the output of this school is sure to form timber for football teams or 'varsity crews. At Santa Barbara recently there has been constructed the new Potter Hotel, a modern establishment that attracts each winter a vast number of health-seeking tourists. The recent completion of the Southern Pacific coast line has given new life to Ventura, Santa Barbara and other coast towns. At Santa Barbara is one of the best preserved California missions, the building, garden and surroundings being kept in excellent condition and forming an attractive visiting point for tourists. All through these south counties are mines, especially in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, mines of gold and silver chiefly. The recent development of the mines of the Mexican peninsula of Lower California is a good thing for these south counties, as Los Angeles and San Diego are the outfitting points for many expeditions, and there is a growing trade in mining machinery and supplies with the Lower California mines. A recent writer on Southern California and its varied. resources, thus summarizes its manifold charms: The Potter. A Land of "It is a country of eternal snow-on mountain peaks 12,000 feet high; it is a country of eternal summer-in the Contrasts. smiling valleys radiant with perennial beauty. It is a land of roses, fragrant, beautiful; it is, too, a land of unbaked Boston beans. It is a land of ostriches, and, still more, a land of humming birds. Meadow larks unnumbered hail the morning from the upland grain fields; and at night in the fastnesses of the mountains yet may be heard the mountain lion. In the late winter and the early spring the valleys are a carpet of baby blue-eyes; and up on the higher mountain ridges, usually over the summits to the desert sides, majestic pines, too large for the saw-mill, lift their heads so high that their vesper songs, when the evening sea breeze comes, are lost. Southern California is a land of celery, for celery flourishes in the lowlands south of Los Angeles, and it is a land of salt to season that celery with, for out of the California desert broad acres Where Every glisten in the sun at a lower level still-200 feet below the surging tide of the ocean. It is pre-eminently a land of magnificent sandy beaches, with gentle surf; it is not less pre-eminently a country of mountain resorts, with sparkling trout streams and pine needle carpets. "It is a land of long ocean piers and high oil derricks. Pleases. It is a land of many pumpkins to the acre and of many magnificent resort hotels. It possesses the most modern and active of cities and some quaint and sleepy Spanish pueblos. It has many mineral hot springs and hundreds of cool artesian wells, some of 400 inches flow. There are broad fields of waving grain and fleets of fishing boats. There is a vast network of irrigating canals and another network of many well-kept country highways. It is a land of sweetness, with many thousand acres of sugar beets and three large factories; and with every valley fringed with honey, for along the foothills and in the mouths of canyons, the hum of industry is apparent around many a hive. Large vineyards and grain fields neighbor amicably. Yes, it is a land of many things-of gold and silver, small fruits, vegetables, flowers, wool, wheat, hay, cattle, cranberries, walnuts, almonds, melons, wine, of tourists and of climate. It is above all a land of horticulture; of oranges, lemons, grape-fruit, apricots, peaches, pears, olives, prunes, quinces, guavas, bananas, loquats, nectarines, pomegranates, cherries and plums. Sunshine and "The climate possesses an annual mean temperature Balmy Air. of about 62 degrees, and there is nothing very mean about it, either; indeed, it is about right; in the dry air of the summer (but not at the coast) it wanders up to a hundred degrees, with a much lower sensible temperature; in winter it draws the line at frosts as a whole, though in a few localities the welcome is not so warm as to forbid Jack Frost from tarrying a few hours. The climate rejoices in 300 sunshiny days every year; it invites you to midsummer nights beneath clear stars, and open windows in the longer stretches of January darkness when the rosescented air aids to pleasant dreams. It has a fraternal feeling for porches, swinging on the gate, long walks, bicycling, automobiling and coaching." |
