SOCIETY. 69 



made to organize companies to undertake the work ; but capi- 

 talists would not take hold without a promise from the Rail- 

 road Company that it would make Oakland the main terminus 

 of all its roads. At present, a proposition is under considera- 

 tion to get a Federal appropriation to make the harbor ; and 

 as Congress has been accustomed to improve harbors not so 

 good by nature, nor so favorably situated for business as this, 

 the measure might pass, especially with such powerful lobby 

 influences as could be brought to bear in favor of the project. 

 Congress has ordered a survey of the creek, and a favorable 

 report has been made on the practicability of the project. 



> 46. San Jose and Santa Clara.^ San Jose, fifty miles 

 southward from San Francisco, the chief town of the rich 

 Santa Clara Valley, had a population of 9,089 in 1870, and 

 cast 1,657 votes in 1872. The town was laid out about the 

 beginning of the century, and some of the houses are of adobe, 

 and were built before the American conquest. The streets 

 are lined with shade-trees, the gardens filled with beautiful 

 ornamental trees, fruit-trees, and flowers, and the dwellings 

 are elegant. There are eleven hundred acres of orchard in 

 the vicinity. Artesian wells are numerous, and are of great 

 value. One of the boasts of San Jose is the " Alam.".la," 

 an avenue three miles long, reaching to Santa Clara, lined 

 with willow and cottonwood trees. The trees stand close 

 together, and are of large size, so that they form a dense 

 shade, and between runs a horse railroad, and also a turn- 

 pike. 



Santa Clara, three miles westward of San Jose", and con- 

 nected with it by the Alameda, is a new town, and nearly all 

 the houses are of wood. The principal building is the old 

 mission church, erected in 1822. It is now used as part of a 

 Jesuit College. The mission of Santa Clara was founded in 

 1777, and a church was built on the bank of the Guadalupe 

 Creek, at a place called " Socoistika," the Indian name of the 

 laurel-trees which grew there. Two years later this building 



