fire. The first took place on the night of the 24th of December, 1849, the same night the first fire occurred at San Francisco. By this fire property was destroyed to the amount of a quarter of a million of dollars. Stockton was again visited by conflagration, on the 12th of May, 1851. Both of these fires were believed to be the work of incendiaries. VALLEJO is a city yet in embryo. It is the site where the seat of government has been permanently located. Vallejo has a water front of about seven miles in extent affording a secure anchorage for vessels of the largest size. It is bounded on the west by Napa bay, on the opposite side of which is Mare island, recommended by the naval commissioners as the best location for the great Pacific navy-yard. Although Vallejo is but in its infancy, yet many buildings have been put up, and many others are in process of construction. The statehouse, in course of erection, is a substantial building, one hundred feet long by thirty broad, and two stories high. The senate-chamber is in the upper story and the assembly-hall in the lower one, one immediately above the of of Suissin bay, backed by a range barren mountains. The anchorage is good, but it will never be a large town. SAN DIEGO is a seaport at the southern extremity of the state of California. It is situated at the foot of a high hill, on a sand flat, two miles wide, reaching from the head of San Diego bay, to False bay. A high promontory, of nearly the same width, runs into the sea four or five miles, and is connected by the flat with the main land. The bay is a narrow arm of the sea, indenting the land some four or five miles, and having twenty feet of water at the lowest tide. San Diego is considered one of the best harbors on the Pacific coast. Before California came into the possession of the United States, the principal trade of San Diego was hides, which were collected there for exportation. Near San Diego, and within a day's march of the Pacific ocean, at the head of the gulf of California, ancient ruins have been discovered, which will interest the antiquary as much, perhaps, as the discovery of gold, has thousands of others. Portions of temples, dwellings, lofty stone pyramids (seven of these within a mile square), and massive gran other. The fine climate and healthy and oth-ite rings or circular walls, round veneraerwise advantageous location of the new capital, and the natural resources of the surrounding country, will render Vallejo a most attractive spot. ble trees, columns and blocks of hieroglyphics, all speak of some ancient race of men, now for ever gone, their history actually unknown to any of the existing families of mankind. In some points, these ruins resemble the recently discovered cities of Palenque, &c., near the Atlantic or Mexican gulf coast; in oth BENICIA, once thought to be a rival to San Francisco, is situated on the straits of Carquinez, thirty-five miles from the ocean. It is a very pretty place. The situation is well-chosen, the land grad-ers, the ruins of ancient Egypt; in othually sloping back from the water, with ample space for the spread of the town. The anchorage is excellent, vessels of the largest size being able to lic so near shore as to land their cargoes without lightering. The back country, including the Napa and Sonoma valleys, is one of the finest agricultural districts of California. Notwithstanding these advantages, Benicia must always remain inferior, in commercial importance, to both San Francisco and Sacramento city. NEW-YORK OF THE PACIFIC, with its awkward but aspiring name, is located on a level plain on the southern shore ers, again, the monuments of Phoenicia, There are many other towns and cities in California, but they are increasing so rapidly in numbers, extent, and population, that it is futile to attempt to describe them even had we room. Prob ably a week does not pass without witnessing the foundation of some new town or future city. Some idea may be formed of the extent of settlement in California, from the following list of postoffices already established, with the names of the towns and counties in which they are located. Those in italic are county-seats: in these hills is talcose slate; the superstratum, sometimes penetrating to a great depth, is quartz. This, however, does not cover the entire face of the country, but extends in large bodies in various directions-is found in masses and small fragments on the surface, and seen along the ravines, and in the mountains overhanging the rivers, and in the hill sides in its original beds. It crops ......Nevada out in the valleys and on the tops of the Auburn,........... Placer Nicolaus,. ........Sutter hills, and forms a striking feature of the OFFICES. Antioch, Benicia, Bidwell's Bar,.. Chico, COUNTIES. OFFICES. COUNTIES. ....... Solano Oak Spring,.....Tuolumne ...... Yuba Santa Clara,....Santa Clara Yolo Santa Cruz,.....Santa Cruz Knight's Ferry,.San Joaquin Shasta, ...Sonoma ...Butte Park's Bar,.. Yuba entire country over which it extends. Trinity Placerville,......El Dorado From innumerable evidence and indica.Butte Quartzburg, ...Mariposa Colusi Rough and Ready,..Nevada tions, it has come to be the universally Coloma,.........El Dorado San Francisco,.S. Francisco Dobbin's Branch, .....Yuba Sacramento,....Sacramento admitted opinion among the miners and Double Springs,..Calaveras Salmon Falls,....El Dorado intelligent men who have examined this Downieville,.. Foster's Bar, Yuba San Jose,....... Santa Clara region, that the gold, whether in detached Fremont, Georgetown, ....El Dorado San Juan, Monterey particles and in pieces, or in veins, was Goodyear's Bar, Yuba San Luis Obispo, S. L. Obispo created in combination with the quartz. Hamilton, .......Butte Santa Barbara, Sta. Barbara Jackson, ...Calaveras San Diego, ......San Diego Gold is not found on the surface of the ......Shasta Shasta country, presenting the appearance of Tuolumne having been thrown up and scattered in all directions by volcanic action. It is Trinity only found in particular localities, and attended by peculiar circumstances and indications. It is found in the bars and shoals of the rivers, in ravines, and in what are called the dry-diggings, and in all these localities is accessible to any man who has the strength to use a pan or washer, a spade and pickaxe. Los Angeles,...Los Angeles Sonora, Louisville,.......El Dorado Staple's Ranch,... Calaveras Mariposa, ..Mariposa, Stockton,.. Martinez,.....Contra Costa Trinidad,. Marysville, Yuba VALLEJO,. Mokelumne Hill, .Calaveras Vernon, Monroeville, Moon's Ranch,. .San Joaquin ........Solano .Sutter Colusi Volcano, Calaveras ....Colusi Weaverville,. .......Trinity Monterey Wood's Diggins, . Tuolumne Mormon Island, Sacramento Yuba City,,... ...Yuba Monterey, Napa, ...Napa MINERAL WEALTH OF CALIFORNIA.The gold region of California is about six hundred miles long, and eighty miles broad, following the line of the Sierra Nevada. It embraces within its limits those entensive ranges of hills which rise on the eastern border of the plain of the Sacramento and San Joaquin, and extending eastwardly from fifty to sixty miles, they attain an elevation of about four thousand feet, and terminate at the base of the main ridge of the Sierra Nevada. There are numerous streams which have their sources in the springs of the Sierra, and receive the water from its melting snows, and that which falls in rain during the wet season. These streams form rivers, which have cut their channels through the ranges of foot hills westwardly to the plain, and disembogue into the Sacramento and San Joaquin. These rivers are from ten to fifteen, and probably some of them twenty miles apart. The principal formation or substratum The rivers, in forming their channels, or breaking their way through the hills, have come in contact with the quartz containing the gold veins, and by constant attrition cut the gold into fine flakes and dust, and it is found among the sand and gravel of their beds at those places where the swiftness of the current reduces it, in the dry season, to the narrowest possible limits, and where a wide margin is, consequently, left on each side, over which the water rushes, during the wet season, with great force. water, retains, in a great degree, its original conformation. In the dry season these channels are mostly without water, and gold is found in the beds and margins of many of them These diggings, in some places, spread in large quantities, but in a much coarser over valleys of considerable extent, which state than in the rivers; owing, undoubt- have the appearance of alluvion, formed edly, to the moderate flow and tempo- by washings from the adjoining hills, of rary continuance of the current, which decomposed quartz and slate earth, and has reduced it to smooth shapes, not un-vegetable matter. like pebbles, but had not sufficient force to reduce it to flakes or dust. Rounded water-worn Pebble of Gold with Quartz. The dry-diggings are places where quartz containing gold has cropped out, and been disintegrated, crumbled to fragments, pebbles, and dust, by the action of water and the atmosphere. The gold has been left as it was made, in all imaginable shapes; in pieces of all sizes, and from one in to several p s in The evitences it it creed in combination with quartz we too and striking to limit o doubt They are four in combination in large quantities. 4 A very large proportion of u.. pieces of god found in these situations have moke or less quartz adhering to them. it may specimens they are so combined they can not be separated without reducing the whose mass to powder and subje ing it to the action of quicksilver. This gold, not having been exposed to the a trition of a strong current of In addition to these facts, several veinmines have been taken, showing the minute connexion between the gold and the rock, and indicating a value hitherto unknown in gold-mining. These veins do not present the appearance of places where gold may have been lodged by some violent eruption. It is combined with the quartz, in all imaginable forms and degrees of rich ness. That The rivers present very striking and, it would seem, conclusive evidence respecting the quantity of gold remaining undiscovered in the quartz veins. It is not probable that the gold in the dry diggings, and that in the rivers-the former in lumps, the latter in dust-was created by different processes. which is found in the rivers has undoubtedly been cut or worn from the veins in the rock, with which their currents have come in contact. All of them appear to be equally rich. This is shown by the fact that a laboring man may collect nearly as much in one river as he can in another. They intersect and cut through the gold region, running from east to west, at irregular distances of fifteen to twenty, and perhaps some of them thirty miles apart. Hence it appears that the gold veins are equally rich in all parts of that most remarkable section of country. Were it wanting, there are further proofs of this in the ravines and dry diggings, which uniformly confirm what nature so plainly shows in the rivers. It is now a well-demonstrated fact that the gold found in the beds of the streams has been cut or worn from the veins in the quartz through which they have forced their way, and considering that they are all rich, and are said to be nearly equally productive, we may form some idea of the vast amount of treasure remaining undisturbed in the veins which |