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I 120. Volume of Business. The commerce of California 

 is exceptionally active. No country of Europe, and no other 

 State in the New World, consumes so large a proportion of 

 foreign merchandise, or exports so much, relatively^ of its 

 agricultural and mineral products to foreign lands. The sum 

 of the annual exports ranges from $65,000,000 to $75,000,000, 

 and the cost of imports is the same. The value of the im- 

 ports from foreign countries is -about $20,000,000, and that 

 from other portions of the United States, about $30,000,000 ; 

 the freights and charges on imports are $5,000,000, the duties 

 exacted by the Federal Government, $8,000,000 ; and a con- 

 siderable sum is paid as interest on borrowed capital, and as 

 expenses of Californians traveling abroad. 



Among our exports are $20,000,000 of treasure, the produce 

 of our States and Territories; and the total annual product of 

 California for exportation, is from $45,000,000 to $55,000,000, 

 or about $85 to the person ; whereas $20 to the person is a 

 large sum in other States. 



The Pacific Slope of the United States has 1,292,000 square 

 miles, a present population of 831,059, and a coast line of 

 12,000 miles, whereas the coast line of our country on the 

 Atlantic side, is 4,000 miles, A large part of the area of the 

 Pacific side of our country is composed of desert, barren 

 mountain, and Arctic snow fields, but there is a fertile area 

 of not less than 300,000 square miles, with a capacity to 

 maintain a population of 50,000,000 people. 



San Francisco, in the amount of its foreign importations, is 

 the fourth city in the Union, being inferior to New York, 

 Boston, and Baltimore, and superior to Philadelphia and New 

 Orleans. 



Before 1868, San Francisco supplied all the exports of the 

 State, save a few cargoes of lumber from Humboldt Bay and 

 Santa Cruz ; about two-fifths of the wheat is now loaded at 

 Oakland and Vallejo. 



Among the exports of 1873, were wheat and flour, twen- 

 ty-one millions ; wool, seven and three-quarters ; wines, one ; 



