Los Angeles herald., 1890-04-03
ErrEcr OF CLIMATE UPON ENERGY.

III. Dana's 1.-TWO Years Before the
Mast" 1t had popularity which made
fortune for its publishers and which
gave it a celebrity that but few new pub
lications could attain in those days. 1t
was the simply-told story of young
man who had just graduated from Har-
ward, and who. on account of an affec-
ton of the eyes had concluded to take
long sea voyage where they would have
a compelled rest from study. He chose
to go to sea as common sailor, and
shipped before the mast on board the
brig Pilgrim, which had cleared for a
trading voyage to California. Mr.. Dana
kept diary from the time he left Bos-
ton until he got back two years after
wards, and the story OF his expert
ences at sea, and especially in this
then but little known and distant part
of the world, possesses an interest even
at the present day which is not sur
passed by any book OF travels or adven-
lures we are conversant with. For over
year. Beginning with January, 1885, he
was hide-droghing along this coast, and
visited all the ports from San Diego to
San Francisco, becoming personally
acquainted with many people whose
names have become historical in Cal
ifornia, and especially with many in Los
Angeles who haye since been famous as
pioneers of the pioneers. On the same
vessel with Mr.. Dana was youth who
was compelled, on account of acute and
constant suffering at sea from rheum-
atism, to abandon the ship and become
permanent resident of California. His
name was Henry'F Mellus, and his de-
scendants are numerous and well known
here at this day. He encountered that
patriarch of pioneers, Don Juan j. War
ner, who is still, we are glad to say,
with us, and Alfred Robinson, who yet
survives in San Francisco, and General
Vallejo, who has just ended his long and
notable career.
His descriptions OF the country at that
time are so accurate, and his apprecia-
ton of its possibilities so borne out by
subsequent facts, that one is struck with
at his remarkable powers of
observation. He speaks OF our climate
in the most glowing terms, and to read
what he says about its matchless soft
ness and equability, one would think he
was perusing the everyday rhetoric of
our local papers at the present time.
But there is one phase of his specula-
tions which has, in the light of the facts
that have been developed by nearly half
a century Of experience, proved to be
erroneous. After paying
glowing tribute to the fruitful character
Of the soil of California, its unlimited
extent OF fertile acres, the beauty and
majesty of it's scenery and its wealth of
resources both by land and
water, he adverts to the listless and
unenterprising character of its inhab-
itants, and fancies to himself what
development could be made
here if California were only in the posses
sion of Americans. But then comes the
that if our people
were settled here, they, too, would sue
,umb to the inevitable" effects of the
soft and enervating climate, and in a
generation or SO would be as indolent
and unenterprising as the Mexicans
themselves.
The facts, OF course, show that Mr..
Dana's speculation has not been in effect
realized. Indeed, he fell into the very
error that climate produces
the same effects upon one race as upon
another. Experience has shown that
the energy of the Anglo-Saxon race is
not materially effected by climate. 1t has
not lost its vim in the tropics any more
than it has been chilled by the hyper
borean rigors of the high attitudes.
Wherever it has located, in the swelter-
ing heats of Africa, India or America, it
has lost none of its pristine energy, but
exemplified its Unborn spirit OF push and
in planning and carrying out
works of magnitude, and leading tie
van in all the progressive stcps of
Nv lllLtllOI.
Inc American element in California
s' 'oi = Early half century kept up its
" cstige and sustained its reputation for
go-ahead activity and unhagging enter
prise. 1t has energized every industry,
and with its motto of labor omnia rincit,"
it has turned our great State from a
wilderness-but a wilderness of magnii-
cent and matchless possibilities-into
commonwealth OF marvellous produc-
ton. 1t has transformed the matched
villages of Mr. Dana's time into cities OF
noble architecture and centres of all the
great and varied industries known to the
most advanced seats of civilization.
And where is that enervation which is
said to be the inevitable result of a soft
and genial climate?'' 1t is certainly not
in the second or the third generation Of
Americans natives here and to the
manner born" Nor has it developed in
the hardy pioneers who are yet to the
fore and who have been here for more
than common lifetime. They are yet
to be found in the forefront of the activ-
tiles of our State, as alert in mind and
as energetic in physique as any men OF
their wears in any part of the globe