Climate of Florida--Testimony of Physicians--Coast Climate--Its Advantages--Class of Diseases favorably affected by a Residence in the Climate--St. Augustine as a Place of Resort for Invalids--Accommodations--Society--Tables of Temperature of the Climate, exhibiting the Degree of Changes during the Month and Year, as compared with Foreign Places of Resort--Customs--Conveyances to the City....49 SKETCHES. CHAPTER I LOCATION. This city, the ancient metropolis of the Spanish Province of East Florida, is situated near the Atlantic coast, little south of the 30th parallel of north latitude. The southern point of a narrow peninsula, formed by the confluence of the waters of the St. Sebastian River and the sea, which here is backed in behind Anastatia Island, through the inlets of North River and Matanzas bar, is the site on which the city stands. The island, behind which takes place an expansion of these waters into a beautiful harbor, accessible to all classes of vessels drawing nine feet, which is the depth on the bar at low water, is a long, low, and narrow body of sand and coquina, or shell rock, which is covered with various shrubbery; and though it affords a barrier to the surf of the Atlantic, it does not obstruct the cooling sea-breeze, nor indeed a prospect of the ocean from elevated stations. PECULIARITIES. The town is nearly surrounded with salt water. The face of the country, skirting on the seaboard, from Cape Hatteras hither, is low, level, and sandy. This feature prevails southward to near Cape Florida; when the rock-bound shore, the rudiments of which begin with the coquina formation opposite the city, again is made the barrier against the encroachments of the sea, and continues until it is broken up among the keys of the Florida archipelago. The country around the city, is a plain of sandy shell soil, termed “pine barren.” With this the city is joined, on the west, by a substantial bridge over the St. Sebastian River; and on the north, in a neck of land over a stone causeway. Egress at this point is made from the city by a thoroughfare, once commanded by a fortified trench and gateway. On the east, are the harbor and bay, which open in a beautiful sheet of water, over which, towering above the sand hills, on the adjacent island, is seen the light-house, originally a fortified “look-out,” where the Spanish sentry watched against danger.