As a matter of fact, the unpleasantness of summer is modified by the certainty that one can go anywhere without fear of rain. And in all the coast mountains, especially the seaward slopes, the dews and the shelter of the giant underbrush keep the water so that these areas are green and pleasant all summer. [Illustration: =MARK HOPKINS INSTITUTE, NOB HILL.= This Institute which crowned Nob Hill in San Francisco was originally the residence of Mark Hopkins of Central Pacific fame. Nob Hill was noted for Palatial Homes. They were destroyed by the fire.] [Illustration: =UNITED STATES MINT AND SUB-TREASURY, SAN FRANCISCO, CAL.= This building, which had some $39,000,000 stored in it, remained intact.] [Illustration: =NEW POSTOFFICE BUILDING.= This costly and handsome structure was destroyed by fire.] [Illustration: =JEFFERSON SQUARE.= All of the buildings shown in the background were destroyed. Tents were erected in this square to shelter the homeless.] In a normal year the rains begin to fall heavily in November; there will be three or four days of steady downpour and then a clear and green week. December is also likely to be rainy; and in this month people enjoy the sensation of gathering for Christmas the mistletoe which grows profusely on the live oaks, while the poppies are beginning to blossom at their feet. By the end of January the rains come lighter. In the long spaces between rains there is a temperature and a feeling in the air much like that of Indian summer in the East. January is the month when the roses are at their brightest. So much for the strange climate, which invites out of doors and which has played its part in making the character of the people. The externals of the city are--or were, for they are no more--just as curious. One usually entered the city by way of San Francisco Bay. Across its yellow flood, covered with the fleets from the strange seas of the Pacific, San Francisco presented itself in a hill panorama. Probably no other city of the world could be so viewed and inspected at first sight. It rose above the passenger, as he reached dockage, in a succession of hill terraces. At one side was Telegraph Hill, the end of the peninsula, a height so abrupt that it had a 200 foot sheer cliff on its seaward frontage. Further along lay Nob Hill, crowned with the Mark Hopkins mansion, which had the effect of a citadel, and in later years by the great, white Fairmount. Further along was Russian Hill, the highest point. Below was the business district, whose low site caused all the trouble.