"Weather.—Winter.
"People (invalids) sit on porches without extra wraps; so powerful is the sun's heat in winter that sunshades are grateful, and mid-day picnics are taken with enjoyment and benefit. It is at this season that the greatest improvement is noticed in the consumptives. On turning to the tables at the end of this chapter it will be seen that though the nights are often intensely cold, the days are seldom so. However, until we take thermometric observations, both in the sun and shade, and with continuous self-recording instruments, we cannot show what is the real temperature of the hours that especially concern the invalid. To a person unacquainted with physics or practically unversed in climates, the cold of the winter nights may seem a disadvantage; why this is but seldom the case is owing chiefly to the dryness. The proportion of sunshiny days is more remarkable at this resort throughout the year, and especially during the fall and winter, than at any other from which reports could be obtained.
"Sleighing is seldom possible, and only for a few hours at a time in occasional winters.
"Skating, however, is good on most days through the middle of every winter. The frosts at night make the ice so thick and hard, that the hours of sunlight are not long enough to melt it to any appreciable extent, and the dry air absorbs the moisture from the melting ice so rapidly that a smooth hard surface is usually presented for the skaters' enjoyment.
"Snowfall.—The total amount of snow that falls through the whole winter is so slight that there are very few days upon which it is seen at all. The snow when it falls rarely lies more than a day or two, for the reasons that the dry air produces rapid evaporation and the dry soil quick absorption, so that it disappears without evidence of melting, and there is not the danger to the invalid of wet ground with a bright sun overhead.
Spring.
"The spring is undoubtedly here, as elsewhere, the least desirable season of the year, but it compares favourably with other climates, and there is no period of melting snow or special month to be shunned, and an invalid can on occasion change with advantage his location on the elevated ground of Colorado to New Mexico, for a few weeks, guided by the weather reports.
Summer.
"Temperature by Day.—In the shade the heat is seldom over 82°. The air being dry, the heat is much less felt than a lower temperature in damper climates. But there being no solar temperature observations, the fact of the intense heat of the direct rays of the sun is not apparent.