404 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 
every part of the city, was three feet deep in every street ; in 
some places fifteen feet deep. Gardens were destroyed, fences 
carried away, domestic animals drowned, furniture ruined, 
and many of the people driven to take refuge in San Fran- 
cisco and other towns not afflicted by the general scourge. 
A long time will pass before the city will recover from the in- 
juries inflicted upon it by the flood of 1861-62. 
The assessed value of the taxable property of the city is 
about $7,000,000 ; the public debt of the city is $1,800,000. 
§ 275. Stockton.—Stockton is situated three miles eastward 
from the San Joaquin River, on the bank of a navigable tide- 
water slough, or creek (using the word in its British meaning), 
which is eighty feet wide and eight feet deep. The town site 
is in the midst of low, flat, tule land, which is intersected by 
numerous sloughs. The population is about six thousand. The 
town has a pleasant appearance. Many of the dwellings are 
neatly built and are surrounded by elegant gardens. Shade-trees 
are abundant. Fresh water is supplied to the city, for domestic 
purposes and for irrigating the gardens, by one hundred and 
fifty windmills, which pump it up through lead pipes, thrust 
down twenty feet deep into auger holes two inches wide. So 
abundant is the water in the soil at that depth, that there is no 
difficulty in obtaining itin thismanner. Stockton is nicknamed 
“The City of Windmills,” and indeed the name appears very ap- 
propriate to the traveller who approaches the town on a windy 
day, and at a distance sees little save a multitude of great arms 
revolving furiously above and among the trees and house-tops. 
Stockton is the debarking point for the travellers and mer- 
chandise on their way from San Francisco to all parts of the 
basin of the San Joaquin River, including the important 
mining counties of Mariposa, Tuolumne, and Calaveras. The 
entire population of the eight counties in the basin of the San 
Joaquin River is, according to the census of 1860, 60,837, 
scattered over an area of about 16,000 square miles. During 
the winter, at least in wet times, the roads leading out of 
Stockton are very muddy, but when the ground is dry, im- 
