USA > California > California of the South: Being a Complete Guide Book to Southern California > Part 17
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The tourist will be well repaid if he gets off the cars at Temecula, and goes by team twelve miles inland to the Pala Mission. There is a comfortable hotel, and abun- dance of good food. Mrs. Jackson spent three months at the various Indian villages in this vicinity. A pilgrimage to these shrines, where this gifted author worshiped, will be long remembered.
Five miles farther on is the pretty town of MURIETTA. There is an excellent hotel at Murietta, and the visitor to these Indian villages would do well to make his head- quarters here. Charges for board and livery are reason- able, and the details in regard to the location of the Indian villages can be learned from the landlord.
Three miles east of Murietta are the Temecula hot springs, a detailed description of which is given in the chapter on mineral waters of San Diego County.
Four miles north of Murietta is romantic WILDOMAR, with its neat homes, green lawns, and brilliant flowers.
The next place, and one of much note, is ELSINORE, situated on the lake of that name, at an altitude of twelve hundred feet. This place is just midway between Los Angeles and San Diego, and the quail and wild water-fowl make it a choice place for sportsmen to congregate. There are numerous small boats and a small steamer on the lake. A variety of clay is found here especially adapted to the manufacture of the pottery for which Elsinore has become
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writer has several times traveled over the county, and has tried to condense and present its most salient points. Lib- eral use has been made of the valuable works on San Diego County, by Douglass Gunn and T. S. Vandyke, Esq. The San Diego "Sun " and the San Diego "Union " have also been frequently quoted. The writer is also indebted to Bryant IIoward, Esq., president of the Consolidated Bank of San Diego, for valuable assistance.
Climate of San Diego County.
The following, from the "Southern California Practi- tioner" for May, 1887, is from the pen of C. M. Fenn, A. M., M. D., a gentleman who has been for many years a practitioner in the city of San Diego :
" In the course of a statistical contribution to the last United States Census, I wrote of California as the very mother of desirable climates. Nor, after a residence of more than twenty years in dif- ferent portions of the State, am I in the least disposed to retract the statement. And whatever may be said of this broad area of 769 by 332 miles is a hundred-fold more applicable to our phe- nomenal county, with an expanse of seventeen thousand square miles ! The latter is a principality in itself, and contains a great diversity of excellent climates.
" It is, however, very difficult, as Bacon suggests, to convey an adequate idea of atmospheric conditions by either signs or words, and especially to those living on the Atlantic side of our continent. For neither parallels of latitude, nor isothermal lines, nor yet the otherwise accurate data of the Signal Service, enable one to institute a fair comparison. For example, the cities of New York and Charleston may approximate in latitude the northern and southern boundaries of California, while a locality isothermal with San Diego might be far removed from the latter city, and be surrounded with miasmatic swamps, which are unknown here; nor does a mean low temperature necessarily imply entire freedom from very mean at- mospheric and other conditions. Madera, it is said, wears a mean annual temperature of 64.9°, the seasons never ranging below 60°,
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nor exceeding 70°; yet the parching lestes, or easterly winds, laden with impalpable and irritating dust, and a debilitating summer at- mosphere, render it well-nigh uninhabitable for a portion of the year. Malaga, for similar reasons, is a paradise at one season, but an inferno at another.
" The fatal objection to such so-called health-resorts is-and many places in our own country are no better-that they are wanting in the important feature or element of continuity, and the tourist or invalid has barely unpacked his wardrobe when the approach of the pestilential season warns him to flee to some other city for refuge or return home. Such repeated and sudden transitions of air, food, water, and associations must be a severe ordeal to the robust, and how much more trying to one of feeble vitality !
" In striking contrast to such places, and at the same time illus- trating one of the leading traits of our classical climates, stands the fact of their all-the-year-roundness.
"Furthermore, it is a common experience that, directly after the traveler by steamer gets below the thirty-fourth parallel, he becomes conscious of breathing a different atmosphere. If he has been sea-sick and bedridden, he now ventures upon his ' sea-legs,' his appetite returns, and he eats and breathes to some purpose ; the aroma of the semi-tropic vegetation now comes to hiin over the really Pacific Ocean, and he appreciates, for the first time, the sig- nificance of the adjective. The farther southward his journey the more congenial his environment, until within the land-locked Bay of San Diego he attains the realization of his dreams.
" If his approach has been by railroad, and the time our early spring, his senses will be regaled with a scenery at once diversified and beautiful. From Colton southward there is a long succession of rocks and rills, meadows and canons, flowers and trees, inter- spersed with thriving settlements, until the Pacific comes into view at Oceanside. As its name implies, this embryo city overlooks the ocean from a somewhat precipitous bluff, nearly fifty feet above mean tide. The air is necessarily invigorating and healthful, coming as it does directly from the sea; with Del Mar, some miles farther south, and between the two the town of Carlsbad, where they have discovered mineral water, which by recent analysis equals, if not surpasses, the celebrated springs of Germany and the Kissengen waters of Bohemia; this growing town forms a triumvirate of cli-
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matic conditions which characterize one type of our San Diego County climates.
"I might describe also the El Cajon, Escondido, and many other valleys, varying in altitude above mean tide from 400 to 6,500 feet, in which hot and cold springs, pure and mineral waters, together with a genial atmosphere, suggest an almost fairy-land.
" But the purpose of this paper is to put upon record the cli- mates more immediately connected with this bay. Selecting two that are most distinctive, I shall first speak of Tia Juana, a large body of land situated at the foot of the bay. The portion which I consider especially salubrious consists of about a township and a half of the red upland, or mesa, so characteristic of this part of the State; a stratum of marl, or conglomerate, impervious alike to water and tool of iron, underlies the whole of it. The soil proper, of vary- ing thickness, is in wet seasons susceptible of a high state of culti- vation at such times, maturing any of the cereals. Its usual condi- tion, however, is dry, and with cultivation, porous, ordinary rains being so rapidly absorbed or evaporated that within a few hours thereafter one can safely sleep on the ground. From sea-level the rise of the land is gradnal and undulating, until at a distance of two miles it reaches an elevation of perhaps one hundred feet, then a depression occurs included within a mile, when the ascent is rapid to the height of five hundred feet.
"The air of this entire belt, partly because of the ocean-breezes which constantly fan the heated soil, is wonderfully soothing to lesions of the lungs, and mucous membranes generally. Fogs are seldom known here, and rains are not at all frequent, though both may at times be seen following up the estuaries on either side of this plateau.
"During seven months' sojourn here the writer completely over- came rheumatic proclivities, which had driven him away from San Francisco, and parted company with a catarrhal trouble which had annoyed him for many years. Another medical gentleman, a victim to one of the severest forms of ozcena, was measurably relieved dur- ing a short stay. Besides these cases, an aphonic consumptive en- tirely recovered her voice and a fair degree of health in less than four months after her arrival. Within my observation, also, were several phthisical incurables, whose lives were unquestionably pro- longed by residence here.
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" In addition to its hygienic advantages, this locality furnishes a rare opportunity for all kinds of sea-bathing, fishing, pleasant walks and drives, on land and beach, and a varied landscape of plain and ocean, mountain and valley, upon which the eye can not dwell without increasing interest. As an adjunct to pneumatic differenti- ation, inhalations, or medication of the lungs, by any method what- ever, I can cordially recommend the Tia Juana. For suburban resi- dences, also, it can have no formidable rival in that vicinity.
"Another typical and remarkable salubrious climate is found in the city of San Diego, which, from its position on the eastern shore of our bay, is neither coast nor inland; it includes, however, the desirable qualities of each. Point Loma, one of the most elevated light-house promontories of the world, shuts out the sea from a small portion of the city. From sea-level the red granite earth trends eastward with gradual ascent, until it culminates in a plateau one hundred feet in altitude, and extending in all directions. It will be readily inferred that the natural drainage of San Diego can not be excelled. Yet her citizens have recently, and unanimously, voted to appropriate several hundred thousand dollars for sewerage pur- poses, which will doubtless be carried out under the immediate su- pervision of that eminent sanitary engineer, Colonel Waring. The water-supply, derived from wells of soft water, and chiefly from the San Diego River, is more than enough for the present population of fourteen thousand. Besides these, the near future promises us an abundance of pure mountain water, through the medium of two extensive flumes already in process of construction. The rainfall of the city is less than in the interior, an average rainy season with us implying about ten inches of water, evenly distributed through the winter and spring months. As in the ancient days and times, when the great temple was building, so here it usually 'rains in the night season only,' and the days pass with genial sun and unclouded skies, as if to give the invalid no reasonable excuse for remaining within doors. For the same reason mud is seldom seen, and then for a brief period, even upon our thoroughfares. For the most part, therefore, there is an absence of the noxious fumes so frequently emanating from filthy streets, and which are often not less deleteri- ous than sewer-gas itself. In corroboration of our equable tempera- ture, the Signal-Service records for thirteen years, ending with 1884, show a mean difference between summer and winter of only 12-3º1
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SAN DIEGO.
I have also been favored by the department at Washington with the meteorological data of January and July, 1886. Without quoting in extenso, I find the mean daily range of temperature at San Diego to have been 13° and 11°; mean daily relative humidity, 74° and 77°; highest velocity of prevailing northwest wind, 29 and 19; number of days on which the sun was more or less obscured, by what we might call high fog (?) or vapor, 10 and 2 (I believe the records class those as cloudy days, and write foggy days 0).
"By way of contrast, and at the same time demonstrating the superiority of coast climates, I append data collected for same period at an inland locality of some celebrity : Mean daily range of tem- perature, 16.6° and 29.1°; mean daily relative humidity, 77.8° and 72.8°; highest velocity of the prevailing west and north winds, 37 and 22; cloudy (high fog?) days, 12 and 2; greatest daily range of temperature, 28.2° and 40-4°, and of San Diego 19° and 24°!
" Referring to the San Diego data, we discover less humidity than in the interior, and a much less range of temperature. The effect of such atmospheric conditions upon the system will be read- ily appreciated. The changes between night and day, as well as of the seasons, are so insignificant relatively that the least vitality is not too severely taxed. The day heat, as we have seen, can never be oppressive, and cool nights ever conduce to refreshing slumber. It is the commonly received opinion, I know, that an Eastern win- ter is the chief source of danger to one of weak habit. But I imag- ine that it is only so when a hot, debilitating summer has already handicapped him in his coming contest with cold weather. If com- fortably housed, one can guard against the cold, but the heat of those prostrating summers can only be escaped by flight. In these respects our delightful summer weather offers especial inducements, and should be cultivated more generally than it has been in the past.
" Without attempting to enumerate and explain all of the factors which give to these climates their peculiar character, I may speak of the constant trade-winds, which bring us iodine, ozone, and other healthful elements, and at the same time, like scavengers, carry off endemic impurities, where they exist; our position on this western slope of the continent, our latitude, and especially our longitude, which places us twenty minutes farther east than San Francisco, thus shielding us from the cold ocean-currents which come down
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from the polar regions; and more than all, a soil sui generis. In addition to this, we are largely indebted to the desert, sixty miles to the east of us, and which has been somewhat of a bugbear in the minds of those who did not understand its situation. Besides being the frame or setting to the landscape in front and to the westward, this great inland sea keeps our currents of air in motion. It projects its high and hot air-waves skyward, leaving vacua to be filled with colder air, and at the same time modifies the more humid strata, which rush landward, so that even the laws of decomposition are held in abeyance. In many inland localities meat suspended in the open air becomes thoroughly desiccated, and the carcasses of animals, if left upon the plain, simply dry up.
"In conclusion, I would suggest that there are many other ele- ments of equal or greater importance in forming an estimate of cli- mate, and which I fear me are frequently suppressed. I refer to the presence or absence of ordinary and local diseases. Manifestly, the consumptive should studiously avoid places known to be the habitat of pleurisy and pneumonia, though phthisis may never have been heard of therein. So, also, the victim to hepatic lesions should keep away from malarial districts. In short, a place may be known by the diseases it harbors, much as an individual by the company he keeps. In illustration of this maxim, I quote briefly from my paper on the 'Ordinary Diseases in San Diego,' published in an Eastern medical journal some months ago:
"' I have never witnessed an epidemic of typhoid fever in San Diego, nor have I ever seen a typical case of the malady that was not imported.
"' I have never known pleurisy and pneumonia to be extensively epidemic here.
"'Indigenous intermittent fever is practically unheard of in San Diego.
". Cholera infantum occurs only sporadically, if at all.'
"The remarkable infrequency of these staple diseases, during more than fifteen years, is an immense percentage in favor of this climate. To the medical man such facts speak more forcibly than meteorological data, however obtained.
" I may further add, that for more than ten years I have repre- sented several insurance companies as medical examiner, and during this entire period not one of the insured has died from natural
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causes! While one Eastern company, with more than sixty local risks, has been collecting from twenty to thirty-three assessments annually, it has paid no losses here. The same is true of the A. O. U. W., with the same number of assured, except that its assessments have amounted to about twenty each year.
" Among our most active business citizens are many who came here years ago, hoping for only a brief respite from their maladies. They still live.
"Unexceptionable as are these California climates, they should be sought early in the disease, or better, early in life. For when such a malady as phthisis is fully developed, and the plague-spot is out, the victim, like the leprous voyager to Molokai, may seldom hope to return."
Mineral Springs of San Diego County.
San Diego County is very rich in valuable waters, but very poor in authoritative reports. The following has been received from the authorities mentioned.
In response to a request from the writer for informa- tion on this subject, Dr. J. F. Escher, a prominent physi- cian of San Diego, says :
" THE BOCKMAN SODA SPRINGS are forty-five miles directly east of the city of San Diego, and can be reached by stage and private conveyance; the former every two days as far as Descanso P. O., and the remainder of the distance-twelve miles-by private convey- ance. The water is cold, and is strongly impregnated with soda, iron, and carbonic-acid gas. The water resembles that of the Napa Soda Springs.
"THE TIA JUANA HOT SPRINGS-temperature from 120° to 140° -though not in San Diego County, being directly across the line in Lower California, are tributary to San Diego city, and nearer to the latter than any of the herein-named springs. The water is im- pregnated with sulphur, arsenic, and other constituents, and has proved very efficacious in the treatment of rheumatism, renal affec- tions, and anæmia. The distance is sixteen miles south of San Diego, and can be reached by stage every day. In a short time a steam-motor line will be completed to them, so that they can be
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reached any hour of the day in a few moments. At present the ac- commodations are very inadequate, as a year since the buildings were washed away in an unusual freshet.
"THE AGUA CALIENTE, on Warner's Ranch, in the Valle de San Jose, seventy miles northeast of San Diego city, and twelve miles north from the Julian mine, can be reached from the latter place by private conveyance, between which place and this city there is a daily stage. The accommodations are ample, though somewhat rude, the springs being in the possession of the Indians. Temperature of water, 140°, strongly impregnated with sulphur and iron.
"Dr. Winder, of this city, who has visited most of the famous mineral springs of the United States, thinks these springs are not surpassed, if equaled, by any in the land.
" AGUA TIBIA SPRING, also in the vicinity of Julian, is sixty miles from here. Of this spring I can learn literally nothing.
"There is also a mineral spring in the Santa Margarita Ranch, near the C. S. R. R., which has quite a reputation in the cure of rheumatism.
"Carlsbad, north of San Diego, has already been referred to. The waters for which the place is noted are from an artesian well six hundred feet deep. A correspondent of the Los Angeles . Daily Times' sends the following report :
"'I send you the analysis of the Carlsbad water, signed by the State chemist :
Per gallon.
Free carbolic acid.
4.99
Sulphate potassium
13.79
Sodium.
19.54
Chloride sodium
81.48
Sulphate magnesium
.42
Lime
10.33
Carbonate.
1.19
Magnesium.
1.24
Peroxide iron
.23
Silica.
1.64
Chemically combined.
2.37
Water and organic matter
2.37
Total
132.23
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"'A spectroscopic examination of the water gave no reaction -lithium, strontium, or barium.
"'The water contains no ammonia or nitric acid.
" '(Signed) GEORGE E. COPLEY, "'Assistant State Chemist.
"' A light, purgative saline water, with enough of the chalyb- eate character to impart tonic qualities, and are rendered palatable. A slight impregnation of carbonic-acid gas.
"' (Signed) E. W. HILGARD, "' State Chemist, University of California.'
"Together with this analysis they send an analysis of the cele- brated Carlsbad Springs of Germany, and the Kissingen Springs of Bohemia. Every ingredient that is in the one is in the other, with the advantage of the Carlsbad of California in its being about twen- ty-five per cent stronger. There is not a day that passes but a ship- ment of the water is made to some place, and but a few days ago nearly a car-load was shipped to Boston, Mass. More anon."
The TEMECULA HOT SPRINGS are the most noted in San Diego County. The following, from the "Southern Cali- fornia Practitioner " for June, 1887, is by Dr. Henry Worthington, of Los Angeles :
"Some twelve years ago, while I was seeking health in the Te- mecula country, I met one day an old-fashioned Mexican carita drawn by two mules, driven by an Indian boy, and in the bottom of this strange vehicle lay an old man quite unable to move. Out of curiosity I examined this man. He was suffering from chronic rheumatic arthritis of several years standing, and he had traveled from Lower California (about 300 miles) to visit the celebrated Te- mecula Hot Springs. Having become interested in his case, I watched the effects of the waters on him. This was in July, 1874. Three months afterward I was much surprised one day to see this same old fellow drive the carita himself, and I then learned that his rheumatic joints had been quite restored to their normal functions by a three months' course of bathing. Since that time I have known many cases of rheumatic diseases either cured or much re- lieved by drinking and bathing in these waters.
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"These hot springs are situated in the northern part of San Diego County, about three miles from Murietta colony, in the foot- hills, having an altitude of some 1,200 feet above the sea-level. The waters emerge from the side of low lime-hills, and, filtering through the earth, form a sort of limited cienega or marsh, and collecting at a lower point flow as a small stream until they are lost in the sands of a dry creek.
"The medicinal properties are due to sulphur, iron, and soda salts, as follows :
Bisulphate of potash, Bicarbonate of iron,
Bicarbonate of soda, Bicarbonate of manganese,
Bicarbonate of potash,
Chloride of sodium,
Bicarbonate of lime,
Free carbonic acid.
Bicarbonate of magnesium,
"The temperature is about 144º F., hot enough to boil an egg in from five to six minutes. These springs are well known-I may say celebrated-throughout this region, and even into Baja California and Sonora, so that for years they have been the resort of the natives and others. As in the instance of the old man referred to, many have made pilgrimages from great distances.
" The climate of this region is, perhaps, somewhat different from that of any other part of Southern California-in fact, the winters are colder and the summers hotter-the changes more decided ; and I am fair to say that, in many cases, this may be a desideratuin quite as desirable as the most ideal equability. In the summer sea- son, that is from June to November, one may get extreme dry heat; in the winter extreme dry cold, not the harsh chilliness of the East, but the tempered, bracing cold of a sub-tropical region. So much is said about equable months in these days, that I think this hot spring region is rather unique, in its having a climate hot in summer, withal so dry and bracing, and in winter an exhilarating dry cold, without extreme altitude.
"There are certain pulmonary diseases that require these very climatic elements, and I have seen many cases of lung-troubles at once improve upon a removal to this district, after having exhausted, apparently, the climatic benefits of other more popular regions.
" In 1876 I examined H. L. B., a young man of 25-cavity in right apex, extensive adhesions posteriorly-who had tried several
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other climates, but who was evidently becoming worse monthly. I advised the hot springs country. In November, 1886, the apex had cicatrized, and the fibroid condition at the posterior base I do not consider serious.
"In 1877 I sent a patient to this same region, who was evidently in the third stage of phthisis. After a residence of some four years in this neighborhood, this patient did so well that he returned home to New York, and is still living.
" A case of asthma that had resisted every treatment, making life well-nigh intolerable, has perfect relief when at Temecula.
" A gentleman, who was an intense sufferer from chronic bron- chitis and cardiac dilatation, went to the hot springs some fifteen months ago, and got such surcease from his bronchial catarrh that he now has little discomfort from cough or dyspnœa.
"A great many cases of rheumatism I know of, that have been quite cured by these waters; two intractable cases of urticaria; a severe case of psoriasis rubra, that had resisted arsenic and strych- nine ; one rather bad case of so-called muscular rheumatism ; several cases of cystitis, one my own patient, whom I could not cure by or- dinary treatment; a case of chronic cellulitis of left broad ligament, with successive agonizing attacks of suppuration, was relieved by the hot baths, hot vaginal injections, and drinking large quantities of the water, more than by any other treatment; and so on, I could adduce many other cases from my own and others.
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