tuate the dull roar of the world traffic in 

 course below. 



A busy as well as a lively scene, it is 

 nevertheless merely a faint indication of 

 that which the future holds in store. On 

 the Oakland side half a dozen sea-walls 

 already thrust long stone fingers miles 

 into the bay, and between them powerful 

 suction dredges are filling in the flats. 

 Ten miles of water front are in course of 

 preparation for docks and wharves to 

 care for the increased trade, and there is 

 no limit. 



If necessary, a hundred miles of water 

 front could be developed around the bay, 

 with close connections between ship and 

 rail ; and some day it will be needed. 

 When the war is over and the stream of 

 European immigration is diverted from 

 the Atlantic seaboard through the canal 

 into the wide, empty spaces of the Pa- 

 cific coast ; when these begin to yield 

 corn, and olives, and oil, and wine in- 

 stead of chaparral ; when a thousand new 

 towns and cities shall multiply the de- 

 mand for manufactures ; when mills, 

 and mines, and factories, and new indus- 

 tries of a dozen sorts spring up all over 

 the land, and more and more lines of 

 steamships radiate from San Francisco 

 all over the western world ; then, wide 

 as are its waters, this beautiful harbor 

 will be black with shipping as a northern 

 lake on the return in spring of the water- 

 fowl. 



a world empire; 



A hundred ships will lie at anchor 

 where one now dots the shining expanse. 

 In these pleasant climes, where snow is a 

 phenomenon and there is no winter cold 

 to chill man's energies and consume his 

 summer earnings, where the earth yields 

 more abundantly and variously of her 

 fruits and grains, with the backwash 

 from the Orient lifting trade to its high- 

 est levels, will undoubtedly arise one of 

 the world's greatest commercial empires. 



It is wonderful as it stands today — 

 the more wonderful when one contem- 

 plates the complete ruin which over- 

 whelmed San Francisco less than ten 

 years ago. Sitting on a fire-swept hill- 

 top, in the midst of 27 square miles of 

 ruins, nine years ago, I penned the fol- 

 lowing dispatch for a New York peri- 

 odical : 



Photo by Pillsbury Picture Co. 

 THE ROAD WINDS AMONG THE GIANT 

 REDWOODS 



"Over the pine and the fir the sequoia pos- 

 sesses an inestimable advantage. It is inde- 

 structible by fire or insect plagues and, appar- 

 ently, has no diseases. It would seem that 

 they are destined to remain forever towering 

 monuments in California's list of glories" (see 

 text, page 73). 



81 



