214 Transactions of the 



We have now a cheap process for preserving this wood from rot, and 

 therefore making it as durable and even more desirable than iron. Ship 

 building should at once become a leading industry. We have now just 

 begun to realize something of that Oriental trade to which we have been 

 looking forward for a long time, expecting it to add largely to our 

 wealth, and give an impetus to all our industries. Within the last thirty 

 days there have been received from China and Japan more than two 

 million nine hundred and forty thousand dollars worth of merchandise 

 for transition across the continent. This is but the beginning of a trade 

 which will revolutionize the old currents of commerce. Within a few 

 years San Francisco ought to become the emporium for the exchange of 

 Oriental products and the monetary exchanges of the world. Her 

 position commands both these, and she will some day attain to this com- 

 mercial and monetary greatness. It depends upon us to say how soon 

 that day will be reached. 



We have great interests confided to our care. Let us remember that 

 in activity there is life, and that indolence is mental and physical death. 



We should be duly thankful that the great disposer of events has cast 

 our lot in this favored land, with its genial climate, its grand scenery, 

 its limitless productions, and its possible future, more grand, more 

 glorious than any spot of earth upon which the sun shines. Let it be 

 the ambition of each of us to see who shall be entitled to have his name 

 written highest among those who have advanced the great interests of 

 the commonwealth. 



