ireplaces. This is like the custom of the Venetians and the
Florentines.

But give an Easterner six months of it and he too learns to exist
without a chill in a steady temperature a little lower than that to
which he is accustomed at home. After that one goes about with perfect
indifference to the temperature. Summer and winter San Francisco women
wore light tailor-made clothes, and men wore the same fall weight
suits all the year around. There is no such thing as a change of
clothing for the seasons. And after becoming acclimated these people
found the changes from hot to cold in the normal regions of the earth
hard to bear. Perhaps once in two or three years there comes a day
when there is no fog, no wind and a high temperature in the coast
district. Then there is hot weather, perhaps up in the eighties, and
Californians grumble, swelter and rustle for summer clothes. These
rare hot days were the only times when one saw on the streets of San
Francisco women in light dresses.

Along in early May the rains cease. At that time everything is green
and bright and the great golden poppies, as large as the saucer of an
after dinner coffee cup, are blossoming everywhere. Tamalpais is green
to its top; everything is washed and bright. By late May a yellow
tinge is creeping over the hills. This is followed by a golden June
and a brown July and August. The hills are burned and dry. The fog
comes in heavily, too; and normally this is the most disagreeable
season of the year. September brings a day or two of gentle rain; and
then a change, as sweet and mysterious as the breaking of spring in
the East, comes over the hills. The green grows through the brown and
the flowers begin to come out.

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: =