SOCIETY. 73 



hundred and seventy thousand dollars to be spent in erecting 

 public buildings. The offer was accepted, and the capital was 

 located at Vallejo, but the Legislature went thither at 

 a time when there were no houses there, and they imme- 

 diately went away. Senor Vallejo did not pay the money 

 which he had offered, and finally the capital was established 

 at Sacramento, where it is likely to remain. The business of 

 Vallejo now depends chiefly upon the United States Navy- 

 yard and Dry-dock, on Mare Island. 



Benicia, on the north bank of the Strait of Carquinez or the 

 Silver Gate, may be regarded as a suburb of Vallejo, from 

 which it is six miles distant. The two towns are really twins 

 in interest, and each has decided advantages lacking to the 

 other. The Strait of Carquinez is the natural center for the 

 land and water travel of the State, but the water front of 

 Benicia is a swamp, and it has obstructed the progress of the 

 town. It was laid out in 1847 ; for a time it aspired to be the 

 great commercial city of the Coast, which aspiration it did not 

 abandon until as late as 1853. It was twice made the State capi- 

 tal, and twice deserted by the Legislature. The houses are 

 scattered about so far from each other that the town is called, 

 in sport, " The City of Magnificent Distances." A ferry-boat 

 crosses the strait to Carquinez about six or eight times every 

 day. The population, in 1870, was 1,656. 



Martinez, on the southern side of the Strait of Carquinez, 

 and nearly opposite Benicia, had a population of only 560 in 

 1870, but may become an important town under the influ- 

 ence of the Central Pacific Railroad, which will pass through 

 the town on its way from Stockton to Oakland, and will thus 

 bring much of the travel of the State to the strait. A wide 

 and shallow mud flat lies in front of Martinez, but west of the 

 town the channel is deep near the shore ; and as the railroad is 

 to follow the shore line, warehouses will be built between the 

 track and the channel, and there much of the wheat of the San 

 Joaquin Valley will probably be loaded for Europe. A steam- 



