With a total rainfall of only 15·43 ins. (392 mm.), and a remarkably high percentage of hours of sunshine, even during the rainy months, one begins to understand how it is that a Californian fellow-member of the Golf Club of Rome used to complain of the “gloom” of a Roman winter. The one drawback is the enormous daily range of over 50° F., which must be necessarily trying to delicate subjects who neglect obvious precautions; but avoidance of the fierce heat out of doors of the afternoon, and the chill that follows sunset, should suffice to neutralise this defect. Across the sierras, in Texas the rainfall remains very scanty, amounting to no more than 9·8 ins. (250 mm.) in the district of El Paso, but improves steadily as we approach the eastern frontier, where it reaches 52 ins. (1,320 mm.) at Galveston, on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. This place is regarded as a health resort for the Southern States; Dr. Solly, the American authority on medical climatology, writes:-- “The climate of Galveston, in the Gulf of Mexico, is warm, mild and humid. Occasionally, there are winters when the temperature does not fall below 32°. During the past twenty years there have been thirteen years in which the temperature has not fallen below 24°, and but two years below 20°. The seasonal mean temperatures are: Winter, 55°; Spring, 69°; Summer, 83°; Autumn, 71°. The annual mean is 70°. Monthly mean for January, 53°; for July, 84°. The extreme temperature record is 98°, and the minimum 20°. The mean rainfall is 51 inches, distributed as follows: Winter, 11·5 inches; Spring, 10·2 inches; Summer, 13·3 inches; Autumn, 16·6 inches. The heaviest rain takes place in September, and the least in February and July. The mean annual relative humidity is 77 per cent.; for Winter, 81 per cent. Wind movement averages 11·1 miles, the prevailing winds being from S. and S.E. The highest winds occur in winter and blow from the N., but the average ‘northers’ of upper Texas are but little felt in the Gulf of Mexico.” Proceeding westward along the Mexican Gulf we find the climate grows steadily moister, New Orleans, which is placed very nearly in the middle of its northern coast, presenting the following climatic factors. NEW ORLEANS. LAT. 29° 58′ N. LONG. 90° 11′ W.