transportation could not be devised. Market Street, a stately thoroughfare of which the residents are very proud, runs southwest from the bay and divides the older from the newer portion of the city. It finds an almost level way through the city, despite the hills, and on either side rise great buildings like the Palace Hotel, one of the most perfect buildings of its kind in the world, the Chronicle Building and many others. Here the crowds gather in the greatest numbers, and remind one somewhat of Broadway, New York. Among the new public buildings may be mentioned the City Hall, a fine structure that cost $4,000,000. There is also a branch of the United States Mint here. As natural in so progressive a city, San Francisco has many fine educational institutions, as well as numerous churches; the church buildings recently erected have shown a marked improvement in architectural design, and the same may be said of many of the new residences. Few cities are more delightfully or more healthfully located than San Francisco, facing as it does the beautiful harbor and the Golden Gate, and being built upon high dry ground. The scenery around it is most picturesque and inspiring. From homes overlooking the harbor, you can drive out through the Golden Gate Park, which is one of the most beautiful parks in the United States, and combines the picturesque splendors of tropical climes with the fragrance of the live-oak, fern, pine and cedar of the temperate zone; and thence through fields adorned with trees and flowers, shaded avenues and glens, lakes and fountains, you come directly to the bold surf where the waters of the Pacific are dashed against the rocks of the great cliffs, and where the seals are seen sporting in the foaming billows or basking in the sun upon the rocks, the whole giving one a picture vividly contrasting the wildness and grandeur of natural scenery with the art and culture of an enlightened community.

It was Andrew Jackson who said, "upon the success of our manufactures as a hand-maid of agriculture and commerce depends in great measure the prosperity of our country," and San Francisco has not been unmindful of this wise axiom, for its manufactures are yearly increasing in importance and variety. It has great foundries and immense flouring mills, and boasts the oldest cordage factory on the Pacific Coast. This factory was established in 1859, and now covers sixteen acres. The Union Iron Works have built several ships of war, including the "Charleston," "San Francisco" and "Monterey."

The great Midwinter Fair, opened on the first of January, 1894, was held in the Golden Gate Park-a most beautiful spot. There were three hundred buildings, said to have cost $1,500,000, in the grounds.

The fair was a decided success financially, and was of great benefit to the city in tiding it over the period of extreme dullness in trade and stimulating many branches of trade. Its benefits were not merely local, for it had a good influence that was felt along the entire coast.

It is as a commercial center that San Francisco is best known. Through the Golden Gate, or Chrysopylæ, come vessels from all parts of the world to anchor on the broad bosom of the harbor of San Francisco. This beautiful bay is seventy miles long, from ten to fifteen in width, and narrows to a channel only one mile wide at the entrance. In this harbor may be seen vessels from China, Hawaii, Japan, Australia and Panama. Huge Chinese junks, the queer feluccas of the Maltese and Greeks, and the great war ships of the United States, Great Britain, France, Russia and other powers, all help to lend variety to the beautiful scene.

At the upper end of the bay is located, on Mare Island, the United States Navy Yard, a most important and valuable national establishment, landlocked and well protected. Here we see floating on its waters the "Comanche," the "Swatara," the "Omaha" and the "Pensacola; also the wooden battle ship “Hartford," once the flag ship of the greatest Admiral of his time, Farragut, the sight of which almost prompts one to raise his hat in reverence for the heroic deeds of this ship of war and the skill of its indomitable commander who defied not only the destructive engines beneath the surface, but also the batteries on land and sea which sank part of his fleet and crashed through the rigging where he was lashed. There also is the "Miantonomah," one of the famous ships of the Monitor class.

At Hunter's Point is a great dry dock four hundred and fifty feet in length hewn out of the solid rock. San Francisco will naturally become the center of a great ship-building industry, not only because of its position, but because there is scarcely another place on the continent whose climate is so suitable for the purpose at all seasons of the year, and because in some respects the ship timber of that region is the finest in the world.

San Francisco is still ahead of any competitors on the Pacific Coast, though there are large towns of importance fast growing up which force her to look well to her laurels. It was the opinion of William H. Seward, that in the future the Pacific Ocean with its eighty millions of square miles, "will be the scene of man's greatest achievements." And if that be so, there are scarcely any limits to the great possibilities of San Francisco's

future, situated as it is on a harbor unequaled in that quarter of the world.

"Serene, indifferent of Fate

Thou sittest at the Western gate;
Upon thy heights so lately won

Still slant the banners of the sun;

Thou seest the white seas strike their tents

O, Warder of two continents!"

The people of the Pacific Coast, are as a rule most enterprising, intelligent and ambitious, and they are exceedingly generous and hospitable. It is a mistake to suppose that the West is crude or uncultivated. The strongest, most resolute, enterprising and ambitious of our men have gone West. They have either car

A SCENE IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.

the old homesteads and the Eastern centers of business and civilization, they have brought their children with them. In this way the youth have become familiar with our entire country, as well as with the section to which all are naturally most attached as being the place of their birth. As these children have grown up, and after passing through the primary and high schools, they have been sent East to complete their education at the great colleges of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Bowdoin, Wellesley, Smith, Vassar, and many other important educational institutions. Then, returning to their Western homes, they have in many cases made a tour of travel and observation, often passing out at the Golden Gate, or the Straits of Juan de Fuca, and making the round of the world. So we find the native population that has grown up on the Pacific slope as refined,

intelligent, and quite as well informed, especially concerning their own country, as those of the Eastern States.

The long and interesting journey across the continent has been completed; a journey fraught with many vicissitudes and many interesting incidents. It has witnessed many historic scenes. It has had many dark hours of great anxiety and uncertainty, mingled with forebodings of evil for the future condition of our country. It has witnessed the terrible ordeals and sacrifices of war, as well as the fascination and exhilaration of victory and the restoration of perpetual peace. It has known the disappearance of the cause of disaffection and hostility, and the reunion of the elements in a stronger, more perfect, purer, grander, nobler bond of union. It has seen the building up of waste places, and the restoration of fraternal feeling; the return of the most generous magnanimity and the most bountiful charity. It has beheld the transformation of the wild wastes and the desolate, unproductive regions of our country to the scenes of vast industries, progressive civilization and universal prosperity. It has followed the gradual march of civilization toward the western horizon. Westward the course of empire has taken its way, and the center of population now creeps Westward to the region beyond the Mississippi. What the future destiny of that great Western portion of our continent shall be, no one can foretell or prophesy. No one can forecast what great interests, local and national, will center around the Mediterranean of the Pacific slope, the Hudson of the West, and the Golden Gate of California; or what proportions the commerce of these great Pacific States may assume; or what naval battles shall yet be fought for the defense or possession of that great coast.

With much reluctance I bid my Western friends and their most interesting country adieu. I hope that I may again visit that coast, going by quite a different route than by those seven railway lines by which I have been accustomed to cross and recross the continent. I trust that great enterprise will be soon undertaken and speedily completed that shall divide the great isthmus, yet unite in still stronger bonds of interest and friendship the two great geographic divisions of our country.

Should the readers of these pages find themselves any better informed concerning our Western country and people than before reading them, and should they find enough in them to kindle a patriotic emotion or awaken a becoming pride concerning their own great country, my efforts and ambition will have been amply rewarded; and I wish every happiness and prosperity to attend my compagnons de voyage from New England to the Golden Gate.