CALIFORNIA 



1064 



CALIFORNIA 



of the Orient and from many ports of the 

 United States, Western Canada and South 

 America. This chief seaport of the Pacific 

 coast has built up a large foreign trade a trade 

 amounting to between $80,000,000 and $100,000,- 

 000 annually. Just how much the Panama 

 Canal will do ultimately to increase this can- 

 not be predicted, but it is certain that the 

 routing of ships from Eastern United States 

 ports thus made possible, and the greater ease 

 with which the commerce of the Atlantic states 

 of South America may now reach these Western 

 ' ports, will be of constantly-increasing benefit. 

 Los Angeles and San Diego also have god har- 

 bors, that of the former city being at San 

 Pedro, but their commerce does not rival that 

 of San Francisco. There is a considerable 

 coastwise trade, and pleasure steamers do a 

 profitable business between the California ports 

 and those farther north. 



Of the inland waters, the Sacramento and 

 San Joaquin rivers alone are of importance 

 for transportation. The former is navigable 

 for 260 miles, the latter for 195. On the south- 

 eastern border is the Colorado, one of the 

 great rivers of America, which during all but 

 the driest part of the year is navigable for 

 about 300 miles. 



Railway connections with the other states 

 of the Union are furnished by two transconti- 

 nental lines, the Atchison, Topeka & Santa 

 Fe and the Southern Pacific, both of which 

 enter the state from the south, while through 

 its center runs a branch of the Southern Pa- 

 cific, which meets the Union Pacific at Ogden, 

 Utah. The Western Pacific extends from San 

 Francisco to Salt Lake City, where it joins 

 the Denver & Rio Grande. The Southern 

 Pacific also has lines extending from Los An- 

 geles to Portland, Ore., with numerous 

 branches, so now nearly all parts of the state 

 are in easy reach of railway transportation. 

 The total length of lines within the state is 

 over 8,000 miles. The trips from one end of 

 the state to the other afford a series of won- 

 derful views of ocean, gold-fruited orchards, 

 riots of flowers, grass-grown hills and towering, 

 wooded mountains which are nowhere to be 

 surpassed. 



California has been very progressive in the 

 construction of electric railways, and about 

 the large towns there is a network of these. 

 Indeed, the development is so rapid that it 

 is almost useless to give statistics. In 1913 

 there were over 1,600 miles of electric railways 

 in the state, the system that joins Los Angeles 



to the numerous beautiful towns in its vicinity 

 being especially complete. 



Population. In 1845 the white population of 

 California was but little above 5.000; in 1850 

 it was 92,600, and in 1860, 379,900, for gold had 

 been found. Percentage increase has never 

 again been as great as in those early days, but 

 the growth has been steady, until in 1914 the 

 population was estimated at 2,757,895. At the 

 last official census, in 1910, there were 15.2 

 inhabitants to the square mile about half that 

 of the United States as a whole. Somewhat 

 less than half the people live on farms or in 

 strictly rural communities, and the percentage 

 of city and town population is increasing much 

 more rapidly than that of the rural. There 

 were in the state in 1910, 36,248 Chinese, 41,356 

 Japanese, and 16,371 Indians; statistics show 

 that the Indians are increasing in number 

 rather than diminishing, as is the case in many 

 places. The Indians, peaceable and for the 

 most part self-supporting, live on reservations, 

 most of which are in the south, near the desert 

 country. Their most characteristic employ- 

 ment is basket-making, but many of them are 

 farmers on a small scale. As regards the Chi- 

 nese and Japanese, the decade between 1900 

 and 1910 saw a decrease of 9,505 in the number 

 of the former, and an increase of 31,205 in the 

 latter. 



Of incorporated towns having a population 

 of 4,000 or more, there were forty-three in 1910, 

 and in these lived about half of the people. 

 The chief cities are Sacramento, the capital; 

 San Francisco, the commercial metropolis; Los 

 Angeles, noteworthy by reason of its phenom- 

 enal growth, and now the largest city ; Oakland, 

 the chief railway terminal of the San Francisco 

 region ; Berkeley, a university town ; San Diego, 

 San Jose, Fresno, Stockton, Alameda, Santa 

 Rosa and Pasadena. All of these and others 

 are described in these volumes in their alpha- 

 betical order. 



Educational Institutions. The state main- 

 tains, one of the best public school systems in 

 the Union, and has always been known for the 

 high standards required of its teachers, as well 

 as for its liberal pay to teachers. In charge of 

 the system is a state board of education, with 

 a superintendent of public instruction at its 

 head, and funds are provided through a system 

 of state taxation. As in all states which are not 

 thickly populated, the rural school problem has 

 been difficult, but California has solved it quite 

 satisfactorily by means of its well-graded coun- 

 try schools for children of elementary school 



