MANUFACTURES, ETC. 187 



137. Navy Yard. The only navy yard established by 

 the American Government on the Pacific Coast, is at Mare 

 Island, twenty miles northeastward from San Francisco, and 

 it is destined to occupy a prominent place in the manufactur- 

 ing industry of California. The site is excellent in nearly 

 every respect, and it will probably become the most impor- 

 tant navy yard of the country. The work on the Atlantic 

 side is divided up between seven yards, and not one of them 

 is fitted up properly. The report of the Secretary of the 

 Navy for 1870 contains a report of Admiral Porter, who said: 



" Mare Island is destined in time of war to be the most im- 

 portant of our dock-yards, and I therefore beg leave to invite 

 your particular attention to it. It is evident that in the future 

 all of our ships in the Pacific will have to depend upon the 

 Mare Island Navy Yard for repairs. The passage around 

 Cape Horn, at the end of a three years' cruise, should not be 

 attempted, and it will be found much more economical to fit 

 out vessels for China, in California, by which they avoid the 

 Jong passage around the Cape of Good Hope, via Brazil, or 

 the troublesome and expensive one through the Suez Canal. 

 By the Cape of Good Hope route, the passage from New York 

 to Hong Kong cannot be made in less than one hundred and 

 ten days, or by way of the Suez Canal in less than sixty-five 

 days, while the voyage from San Francisco to the same point 

 can be performed in twenty-eight days. This is at once an 

 argument in favor of fitting vessels out at Mare Island for all 

 parts of the Pacific and for the Asiatic coast. The argu- 

 ment holds good also for laying the vessels up there, and they 

 can reach California from the China seas quicker than they 

 can the Eastern coast of America, to say nothing of the -wear 

 and tear of the longer voyage, and the anxiety of coming on 

 our stormy coast in the winter, which they will escape. Sev- 

 eral of the European powers are making preparations to es- 

 tablish repairing stations in the East, if they have not already 

 done so ; while we need not go to such an expense if we pro- 



