244 GUIDEBOOK OF THE WESTERN UNITED STATES 
Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego had a value of $377 392,437 in 
1929, and the annual imports amount to nearly $300,000,000, of 
which more than half passes through San Francisco. There are in the 
State four great universities—the University of California (enroll- 
ment 19,000), Leland Stanford Junior University (4,600), the Univer- 
sity of Southern California, and the California. Institute of Tech- 
nology—besides many smaller collegiate institutions. 
The recorded history of California began in 1542, when Juan 
Rodriguez Cabrillo explored the southern coast. Sir Francis Drake, 
who landed on California soil in 1579 to repair his ships, named the 
place New Albion, but later the name California was applied. It is 
claimed that this name was derived from Califa, queen of the Amazons, 
used by Montalvo in a romance, but also that it was taken from the 
name given by Cortez to the south end of Lower California and 
meaning fiery furnace. Until Padre Kino’s explorations in 1700 and 
1701, California was supposed to be an island. In 1602-3 Sebastian 
Viscaino discovered the sites of San Diego and Monterey. From 
1769 to 1823 21 missions were established in California under the 
direction of the Franciscan friar Junipero Serra and other missionaries 
of his order, and most of them still remain, although some are in ruins. 
The first overland caravans to California began in 1827, and the dis- 
covery of gold by J. W. Marshall at Sutter’s mill in 1848 brought a 
large influx of gold seekers and settlers.®® 
California was formerly a part of Mexico, but many citizens of Cali- 
fornia were Americans and strongly desirous of entering the Union, 
especially as trouble with Mexico increased. On July 7, 1846, the 
American flag was raised in Monterey, and the annexation of Califor- 
nia proclaimed. The treaty of Cahuenga, negotiated by Gen. John 
C. Frémont and the Mexican commander, Andrés Pico, and signed 
on January 13, 1847, ended hostilities, and in 1850 California was 
admitted to the Union as the thirty-first State. The official State 
flower is the California poppy (Esechscholtzia californica), and the 
State’s motto, “Eureka,” means “I have found “.” 
On leaving Yuma the railroad crosses the Colorado River on a_ 
long bridge (see p. 236) and curves around to the northwest to traverse 
the alluvial plain of the river, here nearly 5 miles wide. This land is 
included in the Yuma Indian Reservation, 8,350 acres in all, which is 
supplied with water for irrigation by a canal from the Laguna Dam, 
10 miles above Yuma. (See p. 238.) This canal, crossed not far 
beyond the river bridge, was one of the early irrigation projects of 
_ the United States Bureau of Reclamation, having been completed in 
_ 1909. About 1,500 acres is under cultivation, yielding crops of various 
__ kinds, notably cotton, which thrives on the rich sandy soil. Much 
_% The first discovery of gold was | Angeles, in 1842, but it had little eco- 
in Placerita Canyon, near Los | nomic importance. 
