324 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



SAN FRANCISCO BAY AND CITY. 



The first advantage necessary for building up an opulent and powerful 

 State, is, that its chief commercial city, its central business, shall be 

 located in a commanding position and in a healthful climate. Behold 

 then, the commercial centre of California, San Francisco, seated by a 

 gate, which is named the " Golden " by spontaneous agreement of man- 

 kind, from suggestion of the profit that goes through it, landward and 

 seaward. That gate is but a channel scooped out by Omnipotent power, 

 through the vast range of mountains, to make a way for the waters of 

 the ocean to roll through and spread themselves out into a deep broad 

 bay, the Bay of San Francisco. That bay is nothing but one vast har- 

 bor, and there, sheltered behind the protecting barriers of the moun- 

 tains, the navies of the world may ride at anchor. By such a bay, with 

 such a harbor, at such a gate and so sheltered, stands San Francisco — 

 the centre and outlet of commerce on the western side of this continent 

 — connected by rivers and inlets with hundreds of valleys that pour 

 down their streams of trade into it, reaching far up into the plains and 

 mountain passes, and laying them all under tribute, by the natural laws 

 of necessity and convenience; a city with no rival on thousands of miles 

 of sea coast, and prospectively the peer of any city on the globe. - 



CLIMATE AND TEMPERATURE. 



Think of a great commercial city with a climate of which it may be 

 said with truth that there is never a cold day and never a hot one — 

 where, but for mechanical and culinaiy purposes, fire is never an actual 

 necessity — where, through all the da}*s of the }'ear the open air is a 

 stimulating luxury, and all the nights are fitted for the most refreshing 

 and health-giving repose. Such is the climate of San Francisco, and the 

 advantage it affords to man in enabling him to toil without the enervation 

 of heat or the pinching power of cold, is incalculable. See with how 

 much less physical exhaustion business is transacted and labor per- 

 formed than in cities where the force of great heat or intense cold, by 

 imposing an immense tax upon all the physical energies of man, enfee- 

 bles him and shortens his existence. 



TEMFERATURE OF THE COUNTRY. 



Turn now from the city to the country. Think of a State with eight 

 hundred miles of sea coast; with a temperature in which the cereals 

 arrive at perfection, the fruits and flowers of the tropics thrive, and 

 all the garden vegetables of northern latitudes flourish. Calculate the 

 advantages of a country where flocks and herds require no expensive 

 guarding a 

 California. 



guarding against summer's heat or winter's cold. Such is the climate of 



VARIETY OF PRODUCTS. 



Look next beneath the ground, where Nature has stored up wealth in 

 exhaustless magazines of gold and silver. From the mines look abroad 



... 



upon the vintage, now at its height; in the warm districts the wine 

 already made, in the cooler valleys the wine presses now at work. Look 

 next at the fields, where the yellow stubble gives evidence that the har- 

 vest has been gathered. Count the ships that go out daily to waft the 

 surplus to the crowded inhabitants of the old world. We are so accus- 



