The increasing demand for minting facilities on the Pacific coast has induced the federal government, within a few years, to establish a branch mint, in 1864, at Denver, Colorado; one at Carson City, Nevada, in 1869; and one now (1872) in course of erection at Dalles, on the Columbia river, Oregon.

NAVY YARD.

At Mare island, twenty-eight miles from San Francisco by steamer, and in the direction of Sacramento from San Francisco, the federal government has established the most extensive navy yard in the republic. Thirty acres of land, on Mare island, with an extensive water-front, is owned by the United States: upon this are erected large and substantial brick buildings, for all the purposes of the yard. There is an excellent drydock at these works, where all the repairing of the Pacific squadron is done. The works and grounds here have been projected upon a scale adequate to the growing interests of the Pacific side of the republic.

COMMERCE.

In preceding chapters will be found statements of the commercial transactions of California under Spanish, Mexican, and early American rule. The internal improvements constantly going on in the State, in building railroads, factories, and the varied local industries, together with the establishment of steam communication to all parts of the Pacific coast, the Pacific islands, Asia, and Australia, are fast giving California a prominent commercial position.

In the early history of the State, when gold was the only export, and every article of food and consumption

had to be imported, and all the gold was sent out of the country, exports presented very formidable figures.

California, in 1853, yielded sixty-five million dollars in gold, and exported fifty-seven million dollars; only two million dollars of which were merchandise. California now yields annually but about twenty-five million dollars in gold. There were over thirty-two million dollars in gold shipped from San Francisco in 1870; but a great portion of this found its way from the adjoining Pacific States and Territories to California, which latter State cannot be credited with more than sixteen million dollars export of gold of her own production, although her product was twenty-five million dollars.

The following table exhibits the annual exports of merchandise and treasure, from the port of San Francisco, from 1848 to and including the year 1871:

Totals, $207,978,300 $985,491,866 $1,193,470,166

The exports overland, since 1870, not being included here, makes the amounts appear small. It will be seen by the foregoing how steadily the export of gold has decreased, and how steadily the export of merchandise has increased. It may still seem strange to the reader that the aggregate exports of California have decreased since 1853. In that year the aggregate export of the State was $56,965,000, against $50,752,881 in 1870a decrease of $6,212,191 per annum in sixteen years; but it must be remembered that the gold product of the State is forty million dollars less per annum now than it was sixteen years ago; and that the mechanical and agricultural industries of the country have to make up this deficit. Besides, the growth in and development of wealth represented in farms, orchards, vineyards, cities, schools, and the aggregate of real and personal property in the State had no existence in 1853, as compared with the present wealth of the State already alluded to. Nor is the wealth of California, as it is to-day, so easily produced as in the times when the gold-fields yielded their first and richest harvest. The exports of the early period when almost every thing produced in the State was shipped out of it, and when there were no local industries in the country, if compared with the exports of the present time, will not convey a correct idea of the wealth or prosperity of California.

If the agricultural and mechanical productions of California be compared with the yield of gold in the

palmiest days of the State, it will be found that these branches of industry are fast gaining on the richest yields of the State, and completely eclipsing the gold product of to-day.

The agricultural productions of California are estimated at thirty million dollars for the year 1872, and the value of manufactured articles in the State for the same period at thirty-one million dollars, making an aggregate of sixty-one million dollars per annum—a larger sum than has been produced from the mines of California in any one year since the discovery of gold, except the year 1853, and thirty-six million dollars greater than the gold product of the State at the present period. Adding the agricultural, mechanical, and gold products of 1872, we have an aggregate of eighty-one million dollars, or twenty-one million dollars more than the annual yield of gold in any year since 1848. If we add to these productions the real estate and personal property of California, valued at three hundred million dollars, some idea of the increasing wealth of the State may be had.

The tonnage entry of the port of San Francisco, for the year 1871, was 3,519 vessels of all classes, including the coasting fleets, and aggregating one million tons. Of the one hundred million pounds of tea finding its way from China and Japan into the United States annually, twenty-two million pounds enter the port of San Francisco, and is transported East by rail.

The completion of the Pacific and Atlantic railroad in 1869 has wrought great changes in the commercial affairs of California, in placing the merchants of the State in constant and speedy communication with the great manufacturing centres of the Atlantic States and

Europe; relieving importers, to a degree, of the tedious and uncertain voyages by the Isthmus of Panama and Cape Horn, and placing the public beyond the reach of the monopolist, whose fortune depends upon the dangers of the seas and the winds that baffle the mariner.

Another change wrought in the commercial affairs of the State is diversion of trade from San Francisco. Previous to the completion of the railroad, San Francisco was the only outlet in the State. Every person leaving the coast, either for Europe or the Atlantic States, was obliged to come first to San Francisco; so all the merchandise, intended for the State, had also to enter San Francisco. Now persons in the interior take the cars at their homes along the road; so the interior merchants, from the Bay of San Francisco to Utah, order their goods overland, having them dropped at the stations along the road, much to the detriment of San Francisco, which, owing to the causes here mentioned, has great cause, at least for the present, to regret the completion of a road, which, while it redounds vastly to the benefit of the State, has temporarily prostrated the business of the merchants of San Francisco.

Among the articles of export of the State, in 1871, were seven hundred and fifty thousand gallons of wine and eighty thousand gallons of brandy, a great portion of which went East to all parts of the Atlantic States by rail.