480 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



the grape-bearing vine and the wine press, and with prosperous farmers' 

 homes. 



We have mines and miners yet, and need and want them all. We have 

 valuable mines, and new discoveries making every day, and among the 

 objects of this association are the encouragement, promotion, and fostering 

 of our mining interests. Our bullion production, for the district, is a very 

 important item, amounting in 1880 to $4,308,785 of gold, and $609,212 of 

 silver bullion. But the idea is that we are no longer bound to that one 

 industry alone, and the old ways are left behind us. 



Of those who first came into our mountains and made our region known, 

 and who knew it only as a mining one', and who saw no other, higher, or 

 better possibilities for us, few remain; and those who do have, -with few 

 exceptions, fallen in with the progressive movement that has commenced; 

 and even the old industry has partaken of the spirit of progress that has 

 been infused into our district, and our mining is of a new, different, and 

 improved kind. 



The days when the miner roamed about with pick, shovel, and pan from 

 diggings to diggings, living his restless, transient mode of life, are no more. 

 The country has settled down into a stable, steady state, with its perma- 

 nent business communities, which are no longer dependent on the paying 

 condition of the diggings round about, and ready to move on as soon as 

 they are worked out. Those things remain alone in history; and the old 

 pioneer who, as by magic, started the white-winged vessels around the 

 Horn, and the long wagon trains and prairie schooners westward across the 

 continent, all crowded with their enthusiastic, eager loads of human freight, 

 bound for the land of gold, with fond hopes beating high as visions of the 

 fortunes awaiting them in the new El Dorado loomed up before them, like 

 the pillar of fire by night and of cloud by day before Moses and his people 

 of old, ever leading them on, has, within but a few weeks, passed from the 

 earthly scenes that made him famous, and is now peacefully resting near 

 the spot where his eyes first beheld the golden treasure. 



Thirty-seven years ago our fair State of California, then a part of territory 

 recently acquired by our Government, first had the eyes of the world turned 

 upon her, and the wild rush for her shores following upon the discovery of 

 gold, and the scenes of the succeeding years, have often been portrayed and 

 are well known. After the heat of that excitement had somewhat cooled, 

 and men could begin to think more calmly, and only then, were her agri- 

 cultural possibilities thought of; only then did the eyes of men turn to her 

 broad and fertile valleys and her gently rolling foothills; only then did 

 they perceive her unequaled, perfect climate, and' see the fortunes to be 

 obtained from her fruitful soil. This discovery again drew the attention of 

 the world to our State, and from that date began the rapid progress that 

 has so early in her history placed her in the front rank of the States. 



Extending from near the thirty-second to the forty-second parallel of 

 latitude, a distance of about 750 miles, with a mean breadth of 250 miles, 

 she has a territorial area of 156,591.5 square miles, or 100,218,560 acres; 

 an area as large as the New England States of Maine, New Hampshire, 

 Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, together with 

 the States of New York and Ohio, giving her importance in point of size, 

 while the statement of a few facts and figures will show her importance in 

 other respects. 



As a wheat producing State, California was first mentioned in the census 

 reports of 1860, at which time her percentage of the total production of the 

 United States was only three per cent. In the next decade, as the reports 

 of 1870 show, her production had increased to six per cent of the total 



