208 



CALIFORNIA. 



CHEMISTRY. 



the lodes in Del Norte county from 25 to 80 

 per cent of pure copper. The recently opened 

 quicksilver mines are also yielding largely. 



Agricultural Products. The richness of the 

 virgin soil of California is such that all trees, 

 shrubs and grains which can withstand the 

 long dry season by sending their roots down- 

 ward below the hard crust which forms on 

 the surface in the summer months, yield most 

 profusely, and the fruits and root crops are of 

 such dimensions as are entirely unknown else- 

 where. A pear grown in the orchard of E. L. 

 Beard, Esq., at San Jose Mission, in the sum- 

 mer and autumn of 1862, was exhibited in New 

 York city in January and February, 1863. It 

 was twenty inches in circumference one way, 

 and sixteen inches the other, and weighed on 

 its arrival three pounds seven ounces. Other 

 fruits attain to similar gigantic dimensions, and 

 yet retain their fine flavor. The potatoes, 

 beets, turnips and other root crops are of ex- 

 traordinary size and excellence. The wheat of 

 California contains a very large amount of glu- 

 ten, rendering it more nutritious than that of 

 the wheat growing States east of the Rocky 

 Mountains, and requiring a different treatment 

 to make bread from it. The grape is largely 

 cultivated, and the California wines are attain- 

 ing a good reputation in the eastern markets. 

 Cotton has been tested, but is not likely to 

 prove a profitable crop, as it does not well en- 

 dure the drought, and requires, especially at 

 the time of the opening of the boll, an amount 

 of moisture rarely present at that season in the 

 California atmosphere. 



The amount of treasure received at San 

 Francisco in 1862 was $49,375,462, and the 

 amount shipped from that port $42,561,761. 

 The exports of California produce, other than 

 treasure, from the same port during the year 

 amounted to $6,211,788, which included wheat 

 and flour, equivalent to over 400,000 barrels 

 of flour and 22,615 bales of wool. The entire 

 value of the produce of the vineyards of the 

 State was given at $5,050,000. The amount of 

 quicksilver produced exceeded two millions of 

 dollars. During the year the tonnage of ves- 

 sels which arrived at the port of San Francisco 

 was 634,670 tons, and 497,345 tons were cleared 

 from the port in the same time. The freight 

 money paid on the cargoes of foreign and east- 

 ern ships was $3,496,978. During the year 

 27,861 persons arrived in San Francisco by sea, 

 of whom 8,188 were Chinese, and 11,711 left 

 the country, of whom 2,795 Were Chinese. The 

 net gain of the population by seaward immi- 

 gration at that port was, consequently, 16,150. 



The population of the city of San Francisco, 

 stated in the census of 1860 as 56,802, has 

 greatly increased since that time. A census 

 taken in the autumn of 1862 gives the whole 

 population of the city as 91,825. Of these 

 32,000 were males over twenty-one, and 17,500 

 females over eighteen. The number of Chinese 

 was 3,250 ; of other foreigners 4,200, and of 

 colored persons 1,875. 



CANNING, Right Hon. CHARLES JOHN, Earl, 

 K. G., an English statesman and late viceroy 

 of India, born Dec. 14, 1812, at Gloucester 

 Lodge, Brompton, died in Grosvenor Square, 

 London, June 17, 1862. Earl Canning was the 

 youngest child and only surviving son of the 

 distinguished statesman Right Hon. George 

 Canning, and was educated at. Christ Church, 

 Oxford, where he obtained in 1833 the high 

 honor of first class in classics and second class 

 in mathematics. He was elected to the House 

 of Commons for Warwick in August, 1836, and 

 on the death of his mother in March, 1837, 

 was transferred to the House of Lords as Vis- 

 count Canning. In 1841, he was appointed 

 under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs 

 under the late Earl of Aberdeen in the Peel 

 administration, and in January, 1842, was made 

 Commissioner of Woods, &c. At the breaking 

 up of that administration, in July, 1846, he re- 

 tired from office, and was not a member of the 

 cabinet again till 1858, when he accepted the 

 office of postmaster general, in the Aberdeen 

 administration. In July, 1855, he was selected 

 as successor to the late Marquis Dalhousie as 

 governor general of India. In little more than 

 a year after his arrival in India, the mutiny 

 broke out, and his energy and statesmanship 

 were severely tested. Some of his measures 

 were at the time severely censured, and one 

 (the attempted confiscation of the lands of the 

 talookdars of Oude) was vetoed by the home 

 government. He, however, proceeded to carry 

 out his plan for the pacification of India in a 

 conciliatory spirit, and accomplished it with 

 such success that in April, 1859, he received 

 the thanks of both houses of parliament for 

 his eminent civil services during the mutiny, 

 and the queen, in token of her approbation, 

 made him an extra civil grand cross of the 

 order of the Bath, and in May, 1859, created 

 him an earl, and in May, 1862, conferred upon 

 him the order of the Garter. His countess, 

 eldest daughter of the late Lord Stuart de Rothe- 

 say, died in Calcutta, Nov. 18, 1861, and leav- 

 ing no issue the title became extinct. 



CHEMISTRY. The recent progress of this 

 science, and mainly for the past year, in certain 

 leading features both of theory and practice, is 

 presented under the following subdivisions : 



I. ELEMENTS. Caesium. This new metal, and 

 base of a new alkali, was discovered in 1860 

 by Professors Bunsen and Kirchhoff, of Ger- 

 many, and through the accident of detecting in 

 the spectrum of certain potassium compounds, 

 on which they were experimenting, two bright 

 blue lines or a double blue line not before ob- 

 served, and situated near to that line of the 

 strontium spectrum which has been marked S. 

 (See SPECTRUM OBSERVATIONS.) The oxide of 

 this metal appears very constantly to accompany 

 in minerals and mineral waters those of potassi- 

 um and rubidium. The associated alkalies, in so- 

 lution, can be precipitated by bichloride of pla- 

 tinum ; then separating the parts of the precipi- 

 tate soluble in boiling water, and converting 



