ness.

they employ fifty of the convicts in the different branches of the busiOver a million dollars worth of coffee and spices are prepared in San Francisco annually-about fifty men being employed at the business. A company has lately been formed in that city with a capital of $100,000 to carry on the manufacture of chiccory, a root that can be grown with facility in all parts of the State. There are now several mills engaged in grinding it, and it is calculated that, after supplying all home demands, the State will produce 1,000,000 pounds for export the present year. Over half a million pounds of maccarroni and vermicelli are made every year—the home made article being preferred to the foreign.

There are also two shops at which blacksmiths' bellows and similar utensils are made; two gold-beaters' shops; a large number of manufacturing jewelers; a factory for making buckskin gloves; soap-stone, starch, glue, soap-root hair, and straw works; several metallurgical works, whereat ores of all kinds are assayed and reduced, either on a large scale or in small quantities, as practical tests in prospecting mines; a number of large assaying establishments, where, besides the mere assaying and analysing of ores and metals, the latter are refined, parted and run into bars, preparing them for the uses of exchange and commerce; two or three companies engaged in laying down asphaltum sidewalks, roofs, etc.; also, others engaged in putting down the Nicolson pavement, with which large sections of the streets of San Francisco are now laid; fifteen factories where bags, sacks, etc, are made, mostly by sewing machines; two large shops where superior articles of cutlery are manufactured, the most of it being made to order; twelve extensive cooperages; two establishments for making fire-works, the products of which have been found so superior to all others as to have greatly diminished importations from China, at least for the consumption of our own people. In 1867, 12,000 feet of hose and $10,000 worth of leather belting were made, requiring 3,000 sides of leather. The hose manufactured here is found to greatly outwear that of Eastern make, owing mainly to the superior character of California leather.

Mouldings, stairs, doors, sash and blinds, boxes, looking-glasses and picture frames, show cases, etc., formerly nearly all imported, are now extensively manufactured in California-the greater portion being made in San Francisco. Early in 1868 a company was formed in that city for the purpose of engaging largely in the manufacture of doors, blinds, sash and mouldings, intending to start operations in the course of a few months. There are several mills in San Francisco where one

or more of the above branches is carried on-besides a number of smaller capacity located in different towns of the interior.

Works have been erected in Marysville, Yuba county, for the manufacture of pitch, rosin, and turpentine, the raw material being obtained by tapping the trees in the extensive pineries that exist along the foot-hills of that and adjacent counties. The quantity made last year reached but little over twenty thousand gallons, not much more than half the amount produced the preceding year, and scarcely one third of what it is expected will be turned out in 1868. The home made article is equal to the imported, and could be produced in almost any quantity and at less price than the Eastern, were it not for the cost of freight from the interior to San Francisco, the central market.

WORKS PROJECTED, OR IN PROGRESS.

The machinery for a silk factory has been imported into the State, and although its erection may be deferred for a time, owing to the silk growers preferring to sell their eggs rather than rear the worms for making the textile, there is, no doubt, but this mill will eventually be put up and run with profit.

Early in 1868 the Oakland Cotton Mill Company had taken preliminary measures for putting up in San Mateo county a mill for manufacturing fabrics from flax; and as some three or four hundred acres had that year been sown in the bay counties with the seed of this plant, besides a considerable area in the interior, it is very probable that the proposed mill will in good time be erected. As bags can be furnished from flax at about half the cost of burlap sacks, and as the construction of this mill will make a market for their lint, the farming community will, no doubt, extend to the project every possible encouragement.

The Natoma Water Company, an association directed by sagacious and energetic men, and possessed of ample means, having secured a franchise to all the water of the American river, are now engaged constructing a canal of sufficient capacity to carry the entire stream at ordinary stages, it having thus been appropriated and made available for propulsive purposes. The point selected for diverting the river is situated one mile and five-eighths above the town of Folsom, through which the canal is to extend, having a fall in this distance of one hundred and fifteen feet, whereby a three thousand horse power will be generated, with the river at its lowest stage, and nearly double that amount for more than one half the year-being, it is estimated, equiva

lent to that which propels the immense factories at Lowell. The canal of this company having nearly reached completion in the spring of 1868, the dam, a substantial structure to be built wholly of granite, was expected to be finished the following summer. It is their design to sell portions of the water power to such parties as may be desirous of using it for manufacturing purposes; and as this locality is central and accessible by railroad, besides being near the extensive granite quarries of Folsom, whence the best of building material can be easily obtained, there is every likelihood that a large and prosperous manufacturing town will ultimately grow up at this place.

In reference to the manufacturing interests of California, it may, in conclusion, be observed, that under the tendency to cheaper labor and capital, the growing confidence felt in the future of California, and the expectation of its rapid and permanent settlement, a variety of new branches are constantly being introduced, while many of the earlier established and more important are being extended. And, yet, so broad is this field that some important departments of manufactures have thus far been wholly overlooked or are but feebly represented, affording here many excellent openings for capital, skilled labor and well directed enterprise.

CHAPTER XII.

CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO.

Situation, Topography, etc.-Early Settlement and Subsequent Progress-Street Grades, Public Grounds, etc.--Improvement of Water Front-Style and Peculiarities of Buildings-Fear of Earthquakes, and its Effects-Churches, and Places of Public WorshipTheatres, and other Places of Amusement-Scientific, Social, Literary, and Eleemosynary Institutions-Number of Inhabitants-Diversity of Races, Ideas and Customs— Juvenile Population-Manufacturing Status, etc.-Educational System-Public Schools, Colleges, Seminaries and Private Institutions of Learning-Value of City PropertyMunicipal Income, Debt and Expenditures-Buildings, Improvements, etc.-Police and Fire Departments-Cemeteries, Public Gardens, Homestead Associations-City Railroads-Gas Works and Water Works-Markets-Banking Institutions and Insurance Companies-United States Branch Mint-Advantages of Position-Foreign Commerce and Domestic Trade-Bullion Products-Passenger Arrivals, etc.

SITUATION, TOPOGRAPHY, ETC.

The city and county of San Francisco embrace one municipality, the act of consolidation having taken effect July 1, 1856. The county comprises the northern end of a peninsula, about twenty-five miles long, formed by the bay of San Francisco on the east and the Pacific ocean on the west, its entire area covering a space of 26,861 acres, including the Presidio reservation, of 1,500 acres, belonging to the general government. The city occupies the extreme northern point of this peninsula, which is here about four miles wide, being covered for the most part with high hills and sandy knolls, separated by small valleys, ravines, and elevated plateaux, the bay being at most points bordered by extensive stretches of sand-beach and salt-marsh, or overlooked by high hills, terminating on the water side in steep bluffs and rocky headlands. The loftier of these hills, composed of solid earth and rock, vary from 250 to 400 feet in height, the sand-knolls being from 60 to 100 feet high. Owing to these inequalities, the grading of the streets has been expensive, and in places long delayed, it being, even in densely peopled localities, but partially completed.

EARLY SETTLEMENT AND SUBSEQUENT PROGRESS.

Prior to 1835 the present site of the city was wholly uninhabited, what few people there were in the neighborhood residing at the Presidio and the Mission Dolores. Vessels entering the harbor anchored off the Presidio, that being the "embarcadero" for the Mission, which was then the principal point of business. In the historical portion of this volume will be found a sketch of the early settlement of San Francisco, the name adopted for the town in 1847, it having previously been called Yerba Buena, the name still retained by the large island in the bay opposite the city.

Having already become an active village, with a population of several hundred, the growth of the place, greatly accelerated by the discovery of gold in 1848, expanded with unexampled rapidity on the arrival of the new immigration, a little more than one year thereafter. Its progress has since been steady and healthful, the establishment of manufactures, and the unbounded confidence felt in its future, having greatly hastened its growth during the past few years. But in its recent advancement it has by no means outstripped the requirements of its business and population, both of which have fully kept pace. with its growth. The city now covers an area more than double that occupied by it ten years ago, its population and local industries having increased in a ratio even greater than its territorial expansion.

STREET GRADES, PUBLIC GROUNDS, ETC.

It is unfortunate that the city was originally projected with so little regard to regularity, to the natural inequalities of surface and its future wants as relates to width of streets, reservation of grounds for parks, public buildings, etc.; owing to which, the inhabitants have already been subject to great inconvenience and expense in attempting to partially supply these omissions and remedy these defects. Not a street in the city conforms in its course to the cardinal points of the compass; the whole town standing askew-its grand plot being made of a patch-work of surveys executed at different times and apparently without object or system. In this manner many of the streets and blocks are cut by awkward angles for which there was no necessity, while a large number of the streets entering the main avenues from opposite directions strike the same at points widely separated, whereby their continuity has been destroyed-suggesting, in the miner's phrase, the occurrence of a "slide."