174 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



mitted that the cars cannot be brought into San Francisco 

 with a profit, by rail, but they may be brought across the Bay 

 in large ferry-boats ; and one has been built to carry twenty 

 cars at a load, and it is supposed that this may accommodate 

 the business. If, however, it be necessary, for heavy freight, 

 that the cars should meet the ships at deep water, without the 

 intervention of a ferry-boat, then an important rail terminus 

 may be either at Oakland, (after an artificial harbor shall be 

 made there) at Vallejo, where nature has provided a good 

 harbor, a good upland site for a city, and good water front 

 for more than half a mile, at Benicia, at Martinez, or Sauce- 

 lito. The last place has many advantages of position, but its 

 site is composed of high, steep hills. Oakland is 144 miles 

 from Sacramento, by Stockton, Bantas, and Martinez, the level 

 route ; and Vallejo is 60 miles in distance, and ten miles more 

 by difficulty of grade (having an elevation of 200 feet to pass) 

 from Sacramento. Freight can be carried from Sacramento 

 to the ship at Vallejo for one-half the price to Oakland. 

 Saucelito might be reached from Vallejo by a road thirty 

 miles long, but there is no present probability of its construc- 

 tion. The completion of the railroad from Bantas, by way of 

 Martinez, to Oakland, would make a concentration of chan- 

 nels of communication at Carquinez Straits, or the Silver Gate 

 of California, requiring every car or ship, going and coming 

 between the great Sacramento-San Joaquin Basin and the sea, 

 to pass that point. 



128. Ocean Steamers. All the ocean steamers of Califor- 

 nia ply from San Francisco. The following is a brief schedule 

 of their routes and times of departure : 



Twice a month for Panama ; there connecting by the Isth- 

 mus Railroad with New York, and touching on the Pacific 

 side, on her southward course, at San Diego, Mazatlan, Man- 

 zanillo, and Acapulco. At the last-named port, one steamer 

 each month connects with a branch steamer for various Central 

 American ports. 



