FIRST PROTESTANT CHURCH IN SAN FRANCISCO-1849. (First Presbyterian Church.)

GENERAL VIEW OF THE QUICKSILVER WORKS AT NEW ALMADEN. (Santa Clara County, California.)

noblest of the race. Gold everywhere has its acknowledged dignity and power in the affairs of mankind, and in no part of the globe has the tricks, fickle gildings, and strange metamorphoses of this tyrant been more felt than in the new communities of the Pacific coast.

The feverish excitement of the early days of goldmining in California have, to great extent, passed away. The cool brow and steady hand of agriculture silently lift the laurels of peace and plenty over the deserted camp of the early gold-hunter; roving bands of bearded pilgrims have settled down to ordered employments and new social life as the heads of happy families, blessed with the smiles of innocent youth; the noisy din of the early mining-camp is turned to social order, where the gentle influence of woman and the wise counsels of man mould a new order in the directions of purity and progress.

In California, the easy, genial sociability of the people must not be confounded with gross and vulgar familiarity; on the contrary, a more polite, courteous, and dignified people are not to be found in America. As a rule, individuality asserts its dominion with greater ease and less display than in any other land. The dignity of labor has here raised higher its monument than elsewhere. Architects from every hemisphere have added to its column; and toilers from every sphere of life have placed a stone in its concrete structure and bowed before its majesty.

In San Francisco, and in every town throughout the Pacific coast, order, law, safety of person and property are established and maintained; and ample facilities for the enjoyment of life. cultivation of the intellect, and

religious worship afforded. The population is as firmly rooted to the soil as is the people of any part of the globe; and the institutions of the country are founded upon broad, comprehensive, and equitable principles, shorn of the narrow proscriptions of bigots and fanatics, so often found in many of the older settled parts of the world. The recognized elements of regulated society have, in every section of the coast, usurped the disordered and unsettled customs of earlier periods, and the new societies of to-day count in their composition a vast number of the most thoughtful and progressive people of the republic. Every town and village on the Pacific coast has now its churches, schools, libraries, newspapers, societies, and active, intelligent men and women: persons thoroughly imbued with the necessity of utilizing the material of youth to the growing importance of the age.

Whoever doubts the intelligence of the people of the Pacific coast, let him turn to the chapters on education and schools in this volume; let him also see the circulation of newspapers, and know that in its newspaper press California is at the head of every community in the world. No part of progressive New England nor of America issues from the newspaper press, in proportion to population, as does the Golden State. California, with her population of but 560,247, a large percentage of whom do not read the English language, (Chinese,) maintains 223 newspapers and periodicals, 40 of which are dailies and 183 weekly and other publications.

New York, with a population of 4,382,759, eight times that of California, issues but 657 papers of all classes, 89 only of which are daily; whereas if this State maintained a newspaper press equal to that of California, in

proportion to her population, it would be 1,820 instead of 657.

Massachusetts, with a population of 1,457,351, and the accumulated learning of centuries, has but 186 newspapers, only 21 of which are daily, while California has 40 of this latter class. It will be seen that even Massachusetts is far behind California, maintaining only a little over one-fourth as many newspapers as the latter in proportion to her population.

The State of Maine, with a population as large as that of California, has but 54 newspapers, only six of which are daily, against 40 dailies in California.

There are only two States in the whole Union having more daily newspapers than California: New York, with 89, and Pennsylvania, with 61; while California has 40. The Golden State stands fifth in the list of all the States in the aggregated number of newspapers, as follows: New York, 657; Pennsylvania, 471; Illinois, 409; Ohio, 331; California, 223. Delaware, with one-quarter the population of California, has but one daily newspaper; and Florida, with one-third, has but the same—a solitary daily paper. The whole number of newspapers published on the Pacific coast is 305, of which California has 223, there being 88 of every description in the city of San Francisco alone; the remainder being divided as follows: Oregon, 32; Nevada, 12; Washington Territory, 15; Idaho, 6; Utah, 9; Arizona, 2; Alaska, 1; and British Columbia, 5.

California has a newspaper for every 2,500 of her people. The aggregate number of newspapers in the republic is 6,100, and the population 38,555,983; this is but one paper to each 7,000, and if the number throughout the Union was in proportion to the number