CALIFORNIA, one of the Pacific Coast states of
the United
States of
America,
physically one of the most remarkable, economically one of the more
independent, and in history and social life one of the most
interesting of the Union. It is bounded N. by
Oregon, E. by
Nevada and
Arizona, from which last it is separated by the
Colorado
river, and S. by the Mexican province of
Lower
California. The length of its medial line N. and S. is about
780 m., its breadth varies from 150 to 350 m., and its total area
is 158,297 sq. m., of which 2205 are water surface. In size it
ranks second among the states of the Union. The coast is bold and
rugged and with very few good harbours;
San Diego and
San Francisco bays being exceptions. The
coast line is more than 1000 m. long. There are eight coast
islands, all of inconsiderable size, and none of them as yet in any
way important.
Physiography
The physiography of the state is simple; its main features are
few and bold: a mountain fringe along the ocean, another mountain
system along the east border, between them - closed in at both ends
by their junction - a splendid valley of imperial extent, and
outside all this a great area of barren, arid lands, belonging
partly to the
Great
Basin and partly to the Open Basin region.
Along the Pacific, and some 20-40 m. in width, runs the mass of
the Coast Range, made up of numerous indistinct chains - most of
which have localized individual names - that are broken down into
innumerable ridges and spurs, and small valleys drained by short
streams of rapid fall. The range is cut by numerous
fault lines, some of which betray
evidence of recent activity; it is probable that movements along
these faults cause the
earthquake tremors to which the region is
subject, all of which seem to be tectonic. The altitudes of the
Coast Range vary from about 2000 to 8000 ft.; in the neighbourhood
of San Francisco Bay the culminating peaks are about 4000 ft. in
height (Mount Diablo, 3856 ft.; Mount St
Helena, 4343 ft.), and to the north and south
the elevation of the ranges increases. In the east part of the
state is the magnificent
Sierra Nevada, a great block of the
earth's crust, faulted along its eastern side and tilted up so as
to have a gentle back slope to the west and a steep fault
escarpment facing east, the finest mountain system of the United
States. The Sierra proper, from Lassen's Peak to Tehachapi Pass in
Kern county, is about 430 m. long (from Mt. Shasta in Siskiyou
county to Mt. San Jacinto in Riverside county, more than 600 m.).
It narrows to the north and the
altitude declines in the same direction. Far
higher and grander than the Coast Range, the Sierra is much less
complicated, being indeed essentially one chain of great simplicity
of structure. It is only here and there that a double line of
principal summits exists. The slope is everywhere long and gradual
on the west, averaging about 200 ft. to the mile. Precipitous
gorges or canyons often from 2000 to 5000 ft. in depth become a
more and more marked feature of the range as one proceeds
northward; over great portions of it they average probably not more
than 20 m. apart. Where the volcanic formations were spread
uniformly over the flanks of the mountains, the contrast between
the canyons and the plain-like region of gentle slope in which they
have been excavated is especially marked and characteristic. The
eastern slope is very precipitous, due to a great fault which drops
the rocks of the Great Basin region abruptly downward several
thousand feet. Rare passes cross the chain, opening at the foot of
the mountains on east and on the west high on their flanks,
7000-10,000 ft. above the sea. Between 36° 20' and 38° the lowest
gap of any kind is above 9000 ft.,
and the average height of those actually used is probably not less
than 11,000 ft. The Kearsarge, most used of all, is still higher.
Very few in the entire Sierra are passable by vehicles. Some forty
peaks are catalogued between 5000 and 8000 ft., and there are
eleven above 14,000. The highest portion of the system is between
the
parallels of 36° 30'
and 37° 30'; here the passes are about 12,000 ft. in elevation, and
the peaks range from 13,000 ft. upward, Mount Whitney, 14,502 ft.,
being the highest summit of the United States, excluding
Alaska. From this peak northward
there is a gradual decline, until at the point where the Central
Pacific crosses in lat. 39° 20' the elevation is only 7000 ft.
Of
the mountain
scenery the
granite
pinnacles and domes of the highest Sierra opposite Owen's Lake -
where there is a drop eastward into the valley of about io,000 ft.
in 10 m. the snowy volcanic
cone
of Mt Shasta, rising io,000 ft. above the adjacent plains; and the
lovely valleys of the Coast Range, and the south
fork of the King river - all these have their
charms; but most beautiful of all is the unique scenery of the
Yosemite Valley (q.v.). Much
of the ruggedness and beauty of the mountains is due to the erosive
action of many alpine glaciers that once existed on the higher
summits, and which have left behind their evidences in valleys and
amphitheatres with towering walls, polished rock-expanses, glacial
lakes and meadows and tumbling waterfalls. Remnants of these
glaciers are still to be seen, - as notably on Mt. Shasta, - though
shrunk to small dimensions. Glacial action may be studied well as
far south as 36°. The canyons are largely the work of rivers,
modified by glaciers that ran through them after the rivers had
formed them. All of the Sierra lakes and ponds are of glacial
origin and there are some thousands of them. The lower lake line is
about 8000 ft.; it is lower to the north than to the south, owing
to the different climate, and the different period of glacial
retrogression. Of these lakes some are fresh, and some - as those
of the north-east counties -
alkali. The finest of all is Tahoe, 6225 ft.
above the sea, lying between the true Sierras and the Basin Ranges,
with peaks on several sides rising 4000-5000 ft. above it. It is
1500 ft. deep and its waters are of extraordinary purity
(containing only three grains of solid matter to the gallon). Clear
Lake, in the Coast Range, is another beautiful
sheet of water. It is estimated by
John Muir that on an
average " perhaps more than a mile " of degradation took place in
the last
glacial
period; but with regard to the whole subject of glacial action
in California as in other fields, there is considerable difference
of opinion. The same authority counted 65 small residual glaciers
between 36° 30' and 39°; two-thirds of them lie between 37° and
38°, on some of the highest peaks in the district of the San
Joaquin, Merced, Tuolumne and Owen's rivers. They do not descend,
on an average, below 11,000 ft.; the largest of all, on Mt. Shasta,
descends to 9500 ft. above the sea.
Volcanic action has likewise left abundant traces, especially in
the northern half of the range, whereas the evidences of glacial
action are most perfect (though not most abundant) in the south.
Lava covers most of the northern half
of the range, and there are many craters and
ash-cones, some recent and of perfect form. Of
these the most remarkable is Mt. Shasta. In Owen's Valley is a fine
group of extinct or dormant volcanoes.
Among the other indications of great geological disturbances on
the Pacific Coast may also be mentioned the earthquakes to which
California like the rest of the coast is liable. From 1850 to 1887
almost Boo were catalogued by Professor E. H. Holden for
California, Oregon and
Washington. They occur in all seasons,
scores of slight tremors being recorded every year by the Weather
Bureau; but they are of no
importance, and even of these the number affecting any particular
locality is small. From 1769 to 1887 there were io " destructive "
and 24 other " extremely severe " shocks according to the Rossi
Forel nomenclatural scale of intensity. In 1812 great destruction
was wrought by an earthquake that affected all the southern part of
the state; in 1865 the region about San Francisco was violently
disturbed; in 1872 the whole Sierra and the state of Nevada were
violently shaken; and in 1906 San Francisco (q.v.) was in large
part destroyed by a
shock that
caused great damage elsewhere in the state.
North of 40° N. lat. the Coast Range and Sierra systems unite,
forming a country extremely rough. The eastern half of this area is
covered chiefly with volcanic plains, very dry and barren, lying
between precipitous, although not very lofty, ranges; the western
half is magnificently timbered, and toward the coast excessively
wet. Between 35° and 36° N. lat. the Sierra at its southern end
turns westward toward the coast as the Tehachapi Range. The valley
is thus closed to the north and south, and is surrounded by a
mountain wall, which is broken down in but a single place, the gap
behind the Golden
Gate at San
Francisco. Through this passes the entire drainage of the interior.
The length of the valley is about 450 m., its breadth averages
about 40 m. if the lower foothills be included, so that the entire
area is about 18,000 sq. m. The drainage basin measured from the
water-partings of the enclosing mountains is some three times as
great. From the mouth of the
Sacramento to Redding, at the northern head
of the valley, the rise is 552 ft. in 192 m., and from the mouth of
the San Joaquin southward to Kern lake it is 282 ft. in 260 m.
Two great rivers drain this central basin, - the San Joaquin,
whose valley comprises more than three-fifths of the entire basin,
and the Sacramento, whose valley comprises the remainder. The San
Joaquin is a very crooked stream flowing through a low mud-plain,
with tule
banks; the Sacramento
is much less meandering, and its immediate basin, which is of sandy
loam, is higher and more
attractive than that of the San Joaquin. The eastward flanks of the
Coast Range are very scantily forested, and they furnish not a
single stream permanent enough to reach either the Sacramento or
San Joaquin throughout the dry season. On the eastern side of both
rivers are various important tributaries, fed by the more abundant
rains and melting snows of the western flank of the Sierra; but
these streams also shrink greatly in the dry season. The
Feather, emptying into the
Sacramento river about 20 m. N. of the city of Sacramento, is the
most important tributary of the Sacramento river. A striking
feature of the Sacramento system is that for zoo m. north of the
Feather it does not receive a single tributary of any importance,
though walled in by high mountains. Another peculiar and very
general feature of the drainage system of the state is the presence
of numerous so-called river " sinks," where the waters disappear,
either directly by evaporation or (as in Death Valley) after
flowing for a time beneath the surface. These " sinks " are
therefore not the true sinks of
limestone regions. The popular name is
applied to Owen's lake, at the end of Owen's river; to Mono lake,
into which flow various streams rising in the Sierra between Mount
Dana and
Castle Peak; and to
Death Valley, which contains the " sink " of the Amargosa river,
and evidently was once an extensive lake, although now only a
mud-flat in ordinary winters, and a dry, alkaline,
desert plain in summer. All these
lakes, and the other mountain lakes before referred to, show by the
terraces about them that the water stood during the glacial period
much higher than it does now. Tulare lake, which with Buena Vista
lake and Kern lake receives the drainage of the southern Sierra,
shows extreme local variations of shore-line, and is generally
believed to have shrunk extremely since 1850, though of this no
adequate proof yet exists. In 1900 it was about 200 sq. m. in area.
In wet seasons it overflows its banks and becomes greatly extended
in area, discharging its surplus waters into the San Joaquin; but
in dry seasons the evaporation is so great that there is no such
discharge. The drainage of Lassen, Siskiyou and
Modoc counties has no outlet to the sea and is
collected in a number of great alkaline lakes.
Finally along the sea below Pt. Conception are fertile coastal
plains of considerable extent, separated from the interior deserts
by various mountain ranges from 5000 to 7000 ft. high, and with
peaks much higher (San Bernardino, 11,600; San Jacinto, 10,800;
San Antonio, 10,140).
Unlike the northern Sierra, the ranges of Southern California are
broken down in a number of places. It is over these passes -
Soledad, 2822 ft., Cajon, San Gorgonio, 2560 ft. - that the
railways cross to the coast.
That part of California which lies to the south and east of the
southern inosculation of the Coast Range and the Sierra comprises
an area of fully 50,000 sq. m., and belongs to the Basin Range
region. For the most part it is excessively dry and barren. The
Mohave desert - embracing Kern,
Los Angeles and
San Bernardino -
as also a large part of San Diego, Imperial and Riverside counties,
belong to the " Great Basin," while a narrow
strip along the Colorado river is in the " Open
Basin Region." They have no drainage to the sea, save fitfully for
slight areas through the Colorado river. The Mohave desert is about
2000 ft. above the sea in general altitude. The southern part of
the Great Basin region is vaguely designated the
Colorado desert. In San
Diego, Imperial and Riverside counties a number of creeks or
so-called rivers, with beds that are normally dry, flow centrally
toward the desert of Salton Sink or " Sea "; this is the lowest
part of a large area that is depressed below the level of the sea,
- at Salton 263 ft., and 275 ft. at the lowest point. In 1900 the
Colorado river (q.v.) was tapped south of the Mexican boundary for
water wherewith to irrigate land in the Imperial Valley along the
Southern Pacific railway, adjoining Salton Sea. The river enlarged
the canal, and finding a steeper gradient than that to its mouth,
was diverted into the Colorado desert, flooding Salton Sea; 1 and
when the break in this river was closed for the second time in
February 1907, though much of its water still escaped through minor
channels and by seepage, a lake more than 400 sq. m. in area was
left. A permanent 60 ft.
masonry dam was
completed in July 1907. The region to the east of the Sierra,
likewise in the Great Basin province, between the
crest of that range and the Nevada boundary, is
very mountainous. Owen's river runs through it from north to south
for some 180 m. Near Owen's lake the scenery is extremely grand.
The valley here is very narrow, and on either side the mountains
rise from 7000 to io,000 ft. above the lake and river. The Inyo
range, on the east, is quite bare of
timber, and its summits are only occasionally
whitened with
snow for a few days
during the winter, as almost all precipitation is cut off by the
higher ranges to the westward. Still further to the east some 40 m.
from the lake is Death Valley (including Lost or
Mesquite Valley) - the name a
reminder of the fate of a party of " forty-niners " who perished
here, by thirst or by
starvation and exposure. Death Valley, some
50 m. long and on an average 20-25 m. broad from the crests of the
inclosing mountain ranges (or 5-10 m. at their base), constitutes
an independent drainage basin. It is below sea level, - in one
place supposedly (1902) 4 80 ft. - and altogether is one of the
most remarkable physical features of California. The mountains
about it are high and bare and brilliant with varied colours. The
Amargosa river, entering the valley from Nevada, disappears in the
salty basin. Enormous quantities of
borax, already exploited, and of nitrate of soda,
are known to be present in the surrounding country, the former as
almost pure borate of
lime in
Tertiary lake sediments.
The physiography of the state is the evident
determinant of its
climate,
fauna and
flora. California has the highest
land and the lowest land of the United States, the greatest variety
of temperature and rainfall, and of products of the soil.
Climate
The climate is very different from that of the
Atlantic coast; and indeed
very different from that of any part of the country save that
bordering California. Amid great variations of local weather there
are some peculiar features that obtain all over the state. In the
first place, the climate of the entire Pacific Coast is milder and
more uniform in temperature than that of the states in
corresponding
latitude
east of the mountains. Thus we have to go north as far as
Sitka in 57° N. lat. to find the
same mean yearly temperature as that of
Halifax,
Nova Scotia, in latitude 44° 39'. And going
south along the coast, we find the mean temperature of San Diego 6°
or 7° less than that of
Vicksburg, Miss., or Charleston, S.C. The
quantity of total annual heat supply at Puget
Sound exceeds that at
Philadelphia,
Pittsburg,
Cleveland or
Omaha, all more than In December 1904 Salton Sea
was dry; in February 1906 it was. occupied by a lake 60 m.
long.
500 m. farther south; Cape Flattery, exposed the year round to
cold ocean fogs, receives more heat than
Eastport,
Maine, which is 3° farther south and has a warmer
summer. In the second place, the means of winter and summer are
much nearer the mean of the year in California than in the east.
This condition of things is not so marked as one goes inward from
the coast; yet everywhere save in the high mountains the winters
are comparatively mild. In the third place, the division of the
year into two seasons - a wet one and a dry (and extremely dusty)
one - marks this portion of the Pacific Coast in the most decided
manner, and this natural climatic area coincides almost exactly in
its extension with that of California; being truly characteristic
neither of Lower California nor of the greater part of Oregon,
though more so of Nevada and Arizona. And finally, in the fourth
place, except on the coast the disagreeableness of the heat of
summer is greatly lessened by the dryness of the
air and the consequent rapidity of evaporation.
Among the peculiarities of Californian climate it is not one of the
least striking that as one leaves the Sacramento or San Joaquin
plains and travels into the mountains it becomes warmer, at least
for the first 2000 or 3000 ft. of ascent.
Along both the Coast Range and the Sierra considerable rainfall
is certain, although, owing to the slight snow accumulations of the
former, its streams are decidedly variable. A heavy
rain-
belt, with a
normal fall of more than 40 in., covers all the northern half of
the Sierra and the north-west counties; shading off from this is
the region of 10-20 in. fall, which covers all the rest of the
state save Inyo, Kern and San Bernardino counties, Imperial county
and the eastern portion of Riverside county; the precipitation of
this belt is from o to 10 in. In excessively dry years the limits
of this last division may include all of the state below
Fresno and the entire Central
Valley as well. In the mountains the precipitation increases with
the altitude; above 6000 or 7000 ft. it is almost wholly in the
form of snow; and this snow, melting in summer, is of immense
importance to the state, supplying water once for placer
mining and now for
irrigation. The
north-west counties are extremely wet; many localities here have
normal rainfalls of 60-70 in. and even higher annually, while in
extreme seasons as much as 125 in. falls. Along the entire Pacific
Coast, but particularly N. of San Francisco, there is a night
fog from May to September. It extends
but a few miles inland, but within this belt is virtually a
prolongation of the rainy season and has a marked effect on
vegetation. Below San Francisco the precipitation decreases along
the coast, until at San Diego it is only about io in. The
south-east counties are the driest portions of the United States.
At Ogilby,
Volcano, Indio
and other stations on the Southern Pacific line the normal annual
precipitation is from 1.5 to 2.5 in.; and there are localities near
Owen's lake, even on its very edge, that are almost dry. For days
in succession when it storms along the Southern California coasts
and dense rain clouds blow landwards to the mountains, leaving snow
or rain on their summits, it has been observed that within a few
miles beyond the ridge the contact of the desert air dissipates the
remaining moisture of the clouds into light misty masses, like a
steam escape in cold air. The
extreme heat of the south-east is tempered by the extremely low
humidity characteristic of the Great Basin, which in the interior
of the two southernmost counties is very low. The humidity of
places such as Fresno, Sacramento and Red
Bluff in the valley varies from 48 to 58. Many
places in northern, southern, central, mountain and southern
coastal California normally have more than 200 perfectly clear days
in a year; and many in the mountains and in the south, even on the
coast, have more than 250. The extreme variability in the amount of
rainfall is remarkable.' The effects of a season of drought on the
dry portions of the state need not be adverted to; and as there is
no rain or snow of any consequence on the mountains during summer,
a succession of dry seasons may almost bare the ranges of the
accumulated stock 1 During the interval from 1850 to 1872 the
yearly rainfall at San Francisco ranged from 11.37 to 49.27 in.;
from 1850 to 1904 the average was 22.74, and the probable annual
variation 4 in.
of previous winter snows, thus making worse what is already
bad.
The Colorado desert (together with the lower Gila Valley of
Arizona) is the hottest part of the United States. Along the line
of the Southern Pacific the yearly extreme is frequently from 124°
to 129° F. (i.e. in the shade, which is almost if not quite the
greatest heat ever actually recorded in any part of the world). At
the other extreme, temperatures of - 20° to - 36° are recorded
yearly on the Central (Southern) Pacific line near Lake Tahoe. The
normal annual means of the coldest localities of the state are from
37° to 44° F.; the monthly means from 20° to 65° F. The normal
annual means on Indio,
Mammoth Tanks, Salton and Volcano Springs are
from 73.9° to 78.4 F.; the monthly means from 52.8° to 101.3°
(frequently 95° to 98°). The normal trend of the annual isotherms
of the state is very simple: a low line of about 40° circles the
angle in the Nevada boundary line; 50° normally follows the
northern Sierra across the Oregon border; lines of higher
temperature enclose the Great Valley; and lines of still higher
temperature - usually 60° to 70°, in hotter years 60° to 75° - run
transversely across the southern quarter of the state.
Another weather factor is the winds, which are extremely regular
in their movements. There are brisk diurnal sea-breezes, and
seasonal trades and
counter-trades. Along the coast an on-shore
breeze blows every summer day; in
the evening it is replaced by a night-fog, and the cooler air draws
down the mountain sides in opposition to its movement during the
day. In the upper air a dry off-shore wind from the Rocky Mountain
plateau prevails throughout the summer; and in winter an onshore
rain wind. The last is the counter-trade, the all-year wind of
Alaska and Oregon; it prevails in winter even off Southern
California.
There is the widest and most startling variety of local
climates. At Truckee, for example, lying about 5800 ft. above the
sea near Lake Tahoe, the lowest temperature of the year may be-25°
F. or colder, when 70 m. westward at Rocklin, which lies in the
foothills about 250 ft. above the sea, the
mercury does not fall below 28°. Snow never
falls at Rocklin, but falls in large quantity at Truckee;
ice is the
crop of the one, oranges of the other, at the same
time. There are points in Southern California where one may
actually look from sea to desert and from snow to orange groves.
Distance from the ocean, situation with reference to the mountain
ranges, and altitude are all important determinants of these
climatic differences; but of these the last seems to be most
important. At any rate it may be said that generally speaking the
maximum, minimum and mean temperatures of points of approximately
equal altitude are respectively but slightly different in northern
or southern California.2 Death Valley surpasses for combined heat
and aridity any meteorological stations on earth where regular
observations are taken, although for extremes of heat it is
exceeded by places in the Colorado desert. The minimum daily
temperature in summer is rarely below 70° F. and often above 90° F.
(in the shade), while the maximum may for days in succession be as
high as 120° F. A record of 6 months (1891) showed an average daily
relative humidity of 30 6 in the morning and 15.6 in the evening,
and the humidity sometimes falls to 5. Yet the surrounding country
is not devoid of vegetation. The hills are very fertile when
irrigated, and the wet season develops a variety of perennial
herbs, shrubs and annuals.
Fauna
California embraces areas of every life-zone of
North America: of
the boreal, the Hudsonian and Canadian subzones; of the transition,
the humid Pacific subzone; of the upper austral, the arid or upper
Sonoran subzone; of the lower austral, the arid or lower Sonoran;
of the tropical, the " dilute arid " subzone. As will be inferred
from the above The means for Los Angeles and Red Bluff, of Redding
and Fresno, of San Diego and Sacramento, of San Francisco or
Monterey and Independence,
are respectively about the same; and all of them lie between 56°
and 63° F. The places mentioned are scattered over 31° of
longitude and 61° of
latitude.
account of temperature, summer is longer in the north, and
localities in the Valley have more hours of heat than do those of
south California. Hence that climatic characteristic of the entire
Pacific Coast - already referred to and which is of extreme
importance in determining the life-zones of California - the great
amount of total annual heat supply at comparatively high latitudes.
A low summer temperature enables northern species to push far
southward, while the high heat total of the year enables southern
species to push far north. The resultant intermingling of forms is
very marked and characteristic of the Pacific Coast states. The
distribution of life-zones is primarily a matter of altitude and
corresponds to that of the isotherms. The mountain
goat and mountain
sheep live in the Sierran upper-land, though long
ago well-nigh exterminated. The
Douglas red
squirrel is ubiquitous in the Sierran forests
and their most conspicuous inhabitant. White-tailed
deer and especially black-tails are found on the
high Sierra; the
mule deer, too,
although its
habitat is now
mainly east of the range, on the plateau, is also met with.
Grizzly, black,
cinnamon
and brown bears are all Californian species once common and to-day
rare. When Americans began to rule in California
elk and
antelope herded in great numbers in the Great
Valley; the former may to-day sometimes be seen, possibly, in the
northern forests, and the latter occasionally cross into the state
from Nevada. The sage-
hen is
abundant on the eastern flank of the Sierra.
Grouse,
quail, crows and woodpeckers (
Melanerpes
formicivorus) furnish species characteristic of the state.
There are various species of ground-squirrels and gophers, which
are very abundant. Noteworthy in the animal life of the lower
Sonoran and tropic region are a variety of
snakes and lizards, desert rats and mice; and,
among birds, the
cactus wren, desert thrasher, desert
sparrow,
Texas night-
hawk,
mocking-bird and ground
cuckoo or road runner (
Geococcyx
Californianus). The California
vulture, the largest flying
bird in North America and fully as large as the
Andean
condor, is not limited
to California but is fairly common there. In the
zoology and
botany of California as of the rest of the
Pacific Coast, the distinctions between the upper austral and humid
transition zones are largely obliterated; and as one passes
southward into the arid lands, life forms of both these zones
intermingle with those of the arid transition.
Fish are abundant. The United
States fish commission, and an active state commission established
in 1869, have done much to preserve and increase this source of
food. In 1890 it was estimated that the yield of the 7000 m. of
coast of the three Pacific states was about two-thirds that of New
England's 500 m., - about $10,000,000 annually, or 23,000,000 lb in
1890. Since then the output has greatly increased in all three
Pacific states. Of the total, California in 1904 yielded between a
quarter and a third. A third of her fish comes from the Sacramento
river. Some 230more or less - marine food fishes are to be found in
the market at San Francisco. The exports of fish from that port
from 1892-1899 were valued at from $2,000,000 to $2,500,000
annually. Native oysters are small and of peculiar flavour; eastern
varieties also are fattened, but not bred in California waters.
Shrimp are abundant; the shrimp
fishers are Chinese and fourfifths of the catch is exported to
China.
Sturgeon were once the cheapest fish after
salmon; to-day, despite all
efforts to increase the supply, they are the dearest. Salmon, once
threatened with extinction, have been saved, maintained in good
supply, and indeed have probably regained their pristine abundance.
Shad and striped
bass are both very abundant and cheap. Black bass,
flounders, terrapin, sea-turtles,
perch,
turbot, sole and catfish are also common. Great
herds of
seals once lay like
toll-gatherers off the Golden Gate
and other bays of the coast, taking a large share of the salmon and
other fish; but they are no longer common. The sea-lions sometimes
raid the rivers for loo m. inland.
They have greatly increased since
hunting them for their hides and oil ceased to
be profitable, and thousands sometimes gather on the Farallones,
off the Golden Gate.
Flora
Inclusiveness of range in the distribution of
vegetable life is perhaps
more suggestive than the distribution of animal species. The
variation is from
dwarf mountain
pine to
giant cactus and dates. The humid transition belt
is the habitat of California's magnificent forests.
Nut pine,
juniper and true sage-
brush (
Artemisia tridentata) characterize the
upper Sonoran, - although the latter grows equally in the
transition zone. Cereals,
orchard fruits and alfalfa are of primary
importance in the upper and of secondary importance in the lower
Sonoran. In the arid portions of this and the tropic areas the
indigenous plants are creosote, mesquite and alfileria bushes,
desert acacias, paloverdes, alkali-
heath,
salt grass,
agaves, yuccas (especially the Spanish-
bayonet and Joshua tree) and cactuses. Among
exotics the Australian saltbush spreads successfully over the worst
alkali land. The introduction of other exotics into these zones, -
made humid by irrigation, which converts them, the one into true
austro-riparian the other into true humid tropical, has
revolutionized the agricultural, and indeed the whole, economy of
California. At the two ends of Cajon Pass, only four or five
kilometres apart, are the two utterly distinct floras of the Mohave
desert and the San Bernardino valley. Despite the presence of the
pass, plants do not spread, so great is the difference of climatic
conditions. On the desert the same plant will vary in different
years from 4 in. to 10 ft. in height when equally mature, according
to the rainfall and other conditions of growth. Many mature plants
are not taller than 0.4 to o 8 in. The
tree yucca
often attains a height of 20 to 25 ft., and a diameter of 1.5 ft.
About 600 species of plants were catalogued in desert California in
1891 by a government botanical party. The flora of the coast
islands of California is very interesting. On
Santa Cruz Professor
Joseph Le Conte
found 248 species, nearly all of which are distinctively
Californian, 48 being peculiar to the surrounding islands and 28
peculiar to Southern California. Various other things indicate a
separation of the islands from the mainland in
quaternary times; since
which, owing to the later southward movement on the continent of
northern forms in glacial times, there has been a struggle for
existence on the mainland from which the islands have largely
escaped.
Forests
The forests and agricultural crops of the state demand
particular notice. In 1900 the woodland was estimated by the United
States
census at 22% of the
state's area, and the total stand at 200,000 million ft. of timber.
The variety of forest trees is not great, but some of the
California trees are unique, and the forests of the state are, with
those of Oregon and Washington, perhaps the most magnificent of the
world. At least the coniferous forests which make up nine-tenths of
California's woodland surpass all others known in number of species
and in the size and beauty of the trees. Forty-six species occur,
namely, 32 species of
pitch
trees (18 pines), 12 species of the cypresses and their allies (2
sequoia), and 2 species of
yews or their allies. Peculiar to California are the two species of
sequoia (q.v.), - the redwood (
S. sempervirens), and the
big-tree (
S. gigantea), remnants of an earlier age when
they were common in other parts of the world. The redwood grows
only in a narrow strip on the Coast Range from Southern Oregon
(where there are not more than loco acres) down nearly to the
Golden Gate, in a habitat of heavy rains and heavy fogs. They cover
an area of about 2000 sq. m. almost unmixed with other species. One
fine
grove stands S. of San
Francisco near Santa Cruz. These noble trees attain very often a
height of more than 300 ft., frequently of 350 and even more, and a
butt diameter of more than 15 to
20 ft., with clean, straight fluted trunks rising 200 ft. below the
lowest branches. They grow in the densest timber stand known.
Single acres have yielded ,500,000 ft. B.M. of
lumber, and single trees have cut as high as
100,000 ft. The total stand in 1900 was estimated by the United
States census as 75,000,000,000 ft., and the ordinary stand per
acre varies
from 25,000 to 150,000 ft., averaging probably 60,000 ft. The
redwood is being rapidly used for lumber. There is nowhere any
considerable young growth from
seed, although this mode of
reproduction is not
(as often stated) unknown; the tree will reproduce itself more than
once from the stump (hence its name). In
thirty
years a tree has been known to grow to a height of 80 ft. and a
diameter of 16 in. The wood contains no pitch and much water, and
in a green condition will not burn. To this fact it owes its
immunity from the forest
fires which wreak frightful havoc among the surrounding forests. As
the redwood is limited to the Coast Range, so the big tree is
limited wholly to the Sierra Nevada. Unlike the redwood the big
tree occurs in scattered groves (ten in all) among other species.
Its habitat extends some 200 m., from latitude 36° to 39°, nowhere
descending much below an altitude of 5000 ft., nor rising above
8000 ft. The most northerly grove and the nearest to San Francisco
is the Calaveras Grove near
Stockton; the Mariposa Grove just south of the
Yosemite
National Park, is a state
reservation and easily
accessible to tourists. The noblest groves are near Visalia, and
are held as a national park. The average height is about 275 ft.,
and the diameter near the ground 20 ft.; various individuals stand
over 300 ft., and a diameter of 25 ft. is not rare. One tree
measures 35.7 ft. inside the bark 4 ft. above the ground, 10 ft. at
200 ft. above the ground, and is 325 ft. tall. Specimens have been
cut down that were estimated to be 1300 and even 2200 years old;
many trees standing are presumably 2500 years old. It is the
opinion of John Muir that the big tree would normally live 5000
years or more; that the California groves are still in their prime;
that, contrary to general ideas, the big tree was never more widely
distributed than now, at least not within the past 8000 or io,000
years; that it is not a decaying species, but that on the contrary
" no tree of all the forest is more enduringly established in
concord with climate and soil,"
growing like the mountain pine even on granite, and in little
danger save from the greed of the lumberman; but other excellent
authorities consider it as hardly holding its own, especially in
the north. Three main wood belts cover the flanks of the Sierra:
the lower or main pine belt, the
silver fir belt,
and the upper pine belt. The
sugar pine, the yellow or silver pine and the
Douglas
spruce (considerably
smaller than in Oregon and Washington), are rivals in stature and
nobility, all attaining
200 ft. or more when full grown; and the
incense cedar reaches a height of 150 ft. In this belt
and the following one of firs the big tree also grows. The white
silver fir (
abies coucola) and the silver or red fir
(
ab. magnifica), standing 200 to 250 ft., make up almost
wholly the main forest belt from 5000 to 9000 ft. for some 450 m.
Above the firs come the tamarack, constituting the bulk of the
lower Alpine forest; the hardy long-lived mountain pine; the red
cedar or juniper, growing even on the baldest rocks; the beautiful
hemlock spruce; the still
higher white pine, nut pine,
needle pine; and finally, at io,000 to 12,000
ft., the dwarf pine, which grows in a tangle on the earth over
which one walks, and may not show for a century's growth more than
a foot of height or an
inch of
girth. The Nevada slope of the mountains below 7 500 ft. is covered
with the nut pine down to the sage plains. Its nuts are gathered in
enormous amounts by the Indians for food; and it is estimated that
the yearly
harvest of these
nuts exceeds in bulk that of all the cereals of California (John
Muir). On the Sierra the underbrush is characterized by the pungent
manzanita, the California buckeye and the chamiso; the last two
growing equally abundantly on the Coast Range. The chamiso and the
manzanita, with a variety of shrubby oaks and thorny plants, often
grow together in a dense and sometimes quite impenetrable
undergrowth, forming what is known as " chaparral "; if the chamiso
occurs alone the thicket is a " chamisal." The
elm, the
hickory, the
beech, the
chestnut, and many others of the most
characteristic and useful trees of the eastern states were
originally entirely wanting in California. Oaks are abundant; they
are especially characteristic of the Great Valley, where they grow
in magnificent groves. Up to May 1908 national forest reserves
amounted to 25,605,700 acres. The redwoods are almost wholly
unprotected by law, and the big trees very inadequately protected.
One of the noblest redwood areas (that of Santa Cruz county) is a
state reservation (created in 1901). Even within reservations
almost all the merchantable timber is owned by private individuals.
In addition to native trees many others - especially ornamental
species - have been successfully introduced from various parts of
the world.
Soil
Sand and loams in great
variety, grading from mere sand to
adobe, make up the soils of the state. The plains
of the north-east counties are volcanic, and those of the
south-east sandy. It is impossible to say with accuracy what part
of the state may properly be classed as tillable. The total
farm acreage in 1900 was 28,828,951
acres, of which 41.5% were improved; since 1880 the absolute amount
of improved land has remained practically constant, despite the
extraordinary progress of the state in these years. Much land is
too rough, too elevated or too arid ever to be made agriculturally
available; but irrigation, and the work of the state and national
agricultural bureaus in introducing new plants and promoting
scientific farming, have accomplished much that once seemed
impossible. The peculiarities of the climate, especially its
division into two seasons, make Californian (and Southern Arizona)
agriculture very
different from that of the rest of the country. During the winter
no shelter is necessary for live-stock, nor, during summer, for the
grains that are harvested in June and July, and may lie for weeks
or months in the field. The mild, wet winter is the season of
planting and growth, and so throughout the year there is a
succession of crops. The dangers of drought in the long dry seasons
particularly increase the uncertainties of agriculture in regions
naturally arid. Irrigation was introduced in Southern California
before 1780, but its use was desultory and its spread slow till
after 1850. In 1900 almost 1,500,000 acres were irrigated - an
increase of 46% since 1890. About half of this total was in San
Joaquin Valley. California has the greatest area of irrigated land
of any state in the Union, and offers the most complete utilization
of resources. In the south
artesian wells, and in the Great Valley
the rivers of the Sierra slope, are the main source of
water-supply. On
nearly all lands irrigated some crops will grow in ordinary seasons
without irrigation, but it is this that makes possible selection of
crops; practically indispensable for all field and orchard culture
in the south, save for a few moist coastal areas, it everywhere
increases the yield of all crops and is practised generally all
over the state. Of the acreage devoted to alfalfa in 1899, 76.2%
was irrigated; of that devoted to subtropical fruits, 71.7%. Small
fruits, orchard fruits,
hay,
garden products and grains are
decreasingly dependent on irrigation;
wheat, which was once California's great
staple, is (for good, but not for
best results) comparatively independent of it, - hence its early
predominance in Californian agriculture, due to this success on
arid lands since taken over for more remunerative irrigated
crops.
Agriculture
The spread of irrigation and of intensive cultivation, and the
increase of small farms during the last quarter of the 9th century,
have made California what it is to-day. Agriculture had its
beginning in wheat-raising on great ranches, from 50,000 even to
several hundred thousand acres in extent. A few of these,
particularly in the Great Valley, are still worked, but only a few.
The average size of farms in 1850 (when the large Mexican grants
were almost the only farms, and these unbroken) was 4466 acres; in
1860 it was 466.4, and in 1900 only 397.4 acres. Stock ranches,
tobacco plantations, and hay
and
grain farms, average from
Boo to 530 acres, and counteract the tendency of
dairy farms,
beet plantations, orchards, vegetable gardens and
nurseries to lower the size of the farm unit still further. The
renting of large holdings prevails to a greater extent than in any
other state except Texas. From 1880 to 1900 the number of farms
above Soo and below r000 acres doubled; half of the total in 1900
were smaller than loo acres. The most remunerative and most
characteristic farming to-day is diversified and intensive and on
small holdings. The
essential character of California's economic life has been
determined by the successive predominance of grass,
gold, grain and fruits. Omitting the second it may
be truly said that the order of agricultural development has been
mainly one of blind experiment or fortuitous circumstances. Staple
products have changed with increasing knowledge of climatic
conditions, of life-zones and of the fitness of crops; first hides
and
tallow, then
wool, wheat,
grapes (which in the early eighteen-nineties were the leading
fruit),
deciduous orchard fruits, and semi-tropical
citrus fruits successively. Prunes were introduced in 1854, but
their possibilities were only slightly appreciaLcd for some thirty
years. Of various other crops much the same is true. Of late years
progress has been very intelligent; in earlier years it was gained
through a multitude of experiments and failures, and great
pecuniary loss, and progress was a testimonial chiefly to courage
and perseverance. The possibilities of the lower Sonoran and
tropical areas are still imperfectly known. Nature has been niggard
of rain but lavish in soil and sun. Irrigation has shown that with
water, arid and barren plains, veritable deserts, may be made to
bloom with immense wealth of
semi-tropical fruits; and irrigation in the tropical area along the
Colorado river, which is so arid that it naturally bears only
desert vegetation, has made it a true humid-tropical region like
Southern
Florida, growing
true tropical fruits.
In 1899 California ranked eleventh among the states in total
value of farm property ($796,527,955) and fourteenth in the total
value of farm products ($131,690,606). The growth of the former
from 1890 to 1900 was only 2.5%, one of the smallest increases
among all the states.
The
pastoral period
extended from 1769 to 1848. The livestock industry was introduced
by the
Franciscans
and flourished exceedingly. In 1834, when the
missions had already passed their best days,
there were some 486,000
cattle, hoses, mules and asses on the ranges,
and 325,000 small animals, principally sheep. Throughout the
pre-American period stock-raising was the leading industry; it
built up the prosperity of the missions, largely supported the
government and almost exclusively sustained foreign commerce. Hides
and tallow were the sum and substance of Californian economy.
Horses were slaughtered wholesale at times to make way for cattle
on the ranges. There was almost no dairying;
olive oil took the place of
butter, and
wine of
milk, at
the missions; and in general indeed the Mexicans were content with
water. In the development of the state under the American regime
the live-stock industry has been subordinate. A fearful drought in
1862-1864 greatly depressed it, and especially discouraged cattle
ranching. Sheep then became of primary importance, until the
increase of the flocks threatened ranges and forests with
destruction. As late as 1876 there were some 7,000,000 sheep, in 1
9 00 only 2,581,000, and in 1906 only 1,750,000. In the total value
of all live stock (5,402,297 head) in 1900 ($65,000,000) the rank
of the state was 15th in the Union, and in value of dairy products
in 1899 (12.84 million dollars) 12th. The live-stock industry
showed a tendency to decline after 1890, and the dairy industry
also, despite various things - notably irrigation and alfalfa
culture - that have favoured them.
Cereals replaced hides and tallow in importance after 1848.
Wheat was long California's greatest crop. Its production steadily
increased till about 1884, the production in 1880, the banner year,
being more than 54 million bushels (32,537,360 centals). Since 1884
its production has markedly fallen off; in 1 9 05 the wheat crop
was 17,542,013 bushels, and in 1906, 26,883,662 bushels (valued at
$20,162,746). There has been a general parallelism between the
amount of rain and the amount of wheat produced; but as yet
irrigation is little used for this crop. In the eighth decade of
the 19th century, the value of the wheat product had come to exceed
that of the annual output of gold.
Barley has always been very important. The
acreage given to it in 1899 was one-fourth the total cereal
acreage, and San Francisco in 1902-1904 was the
shipping point of the larger part of American
exported barley, of (roughly) three-quarters in 1902, seven-eighths
in 1903 and four-fifths in 1904. In 1906 California produced
38,760,000 bushels of barley, valued at $20,930,400. The great
increase in the acreage of barley, which was 22-5% of the country's
barley acreage in 1906, and 24.2% in 1 9 05, is one reason for the
decreased production of wheat. The level nature of the great grain
farms of the valley led to the utilization of machinery of
remarkable character. Combined harvesters (which enter a field of
standing grain and leave this grain piled in sacks ready for
shipment), steam gang-ploughs, and other farm machinery are of
truly extraordinary size and efficiency. In 1899 cereals
represented more than a third of the total crop acreage and crop
product ($93,641,334) of the state. Wheat and other cereals are in
part cut for hay, and the hay crop of 1906 was 1,133,465 tons,
valued at $12,751,481. California is one of the leading
hop-producing states of the Union, the
average annual production since 1901 being more than 10,000,000 lb.
The product of sugar beets increased between 1888 and 1902 from
1910 to 73,761 tons (according to the state
board of trade),
and in 1906-1907 (according to the department of agriculture) it
was 671,571 tons, from which 185,480,000 lb of sugar was
manufactured. In this industry California is much ahead of all
other states.
Truck gardening
for export is an assured industry, especially in the north. Great
quantities of vegetables, fresh and canned, are shipped yearly, and
the same is true on a far larger scale of fruit. Vegetable exports
more than doubled between 1894 and 1903. In 1899 hay and grain
represented slightly more than a third of the farm acreage and
capital and also of the value of all farm products; live-stock and
dairy farms represented slightly more than half the acreage, and
slightly under 30% of the capital and produce; fruit farms absorbed
6.2% of the acreage and 27% of the capital, and returned 22.5% of
the value of farm produce.
Fruit-growing. -
Horticulture is now the principal
industry, and in this field California has no rival in the United
States, although ranking after Florida in the growth of some
tropical or semi-tropical fruits, - pineapples,
guava, limes, pomeloes or
grape-fruit and Japanese persimmons. In 1899
California's output of fruit was more than a fifth of that of the
whole Union. The supremacy of the state is established in the
growth of oranges, lemons, citrons, olives, figs, almonds, Persian
(or English) walnuts, plums and prunes, grapes and raisins,
nectarines, apricots and pomegranates; it also leads in pears and
peaches, but here its primacy is not so assured. Southern
California by no means monopolizes the warm-zone fruits. Oranges,
lemons and walnuts come chiefly from that section, but citrus
fruits grow splendidly in the Sierra foothills of the Sacramento
Valley, and indeed ripen earlier there than in the southern
district. Almonds, as well as peaches, pears, plums, cherries and
apricots, come mainly from the north. Over half of the
prune crop comes from Santa Clara
county, and the bulk of the
raisin output from Fresno county. Olives thrive
as far north as the head of the Great Valley, growing in all the
valleys and foothills up to 1500 or 2000 ft. They were introduced
by the Franciscans (as were various other subtropical fruits, pears
and grapes), but their scientific
betterment and commercial importance date
from about 1885. They grow very abundantly and of the finest
quality; for many years poor methods of preparation prejudiced the
market against the Californian product, but this has ceased to be
the case. The modern orange industry practically began with the
introduction into Southern California in 1873 of two seedless
orange trees from
Brazil; from
their stock have been developed by budding millions of trees
bearing a seedless fruit known as the " Washington
navel," which now holds first rank in American
markets; other varieties, mainly seedlings, are of great but
secondary importance. Shipments continue the year round. There has
been more than one horticultural excitement in California, but
especially in orange culture, which was for a time almost as
epidemic a
fever as gold seeking
once was. By reason of the co-operative effort demanded for the
large problems of irrigation, packing and marketing, the citrus
industry has done much for the permanent development of the state,
and its extraordinary growth made it, towards the close of the 19th
century, the most striking and most potent single influence in the
growth of agriculture. State legislation has advanced the fruit
interest in all possible ways. Between 1872 and 1903 exports of
canned fruits increased from 91 to 94,205 short tons; between 1880
and 1903 the increase of dried fruit exports was from 295 to
149,531 tons; of fresh deciduous fruits, from 2590 to 101,199; of
raisins, from 400 to 39,963; of citrus fruits, from 458 to 299,623;
of wines and brandies between 1891 and 1903, from 47,651 to 97,332
tons. Of the shipments in 1903 some 44% were from Southern
California, - i.e. from the seven southernmost counties.
Grape culture has a great future in California. Vines were first
introduced by the Franciscans in 1771 from
Spain, and until after 1860 " Mission "grapes
were practically the only stock in California. Afterwards many
hundreds of European varieties were introduced with great success.
" The state has such a variety of soil, slope, elevation,
temperature and climatic conditions as to reproduce, somewhere
within its borders, any wine now manufactured " (United States
Census, 1900); but the experience has not yet divided the state
into districts of specialized produce, nor determined just how far
indigenous American vines may profitably be used, either as base or
graftings, with European varieties. Grapes are grown very largely
over the state. Raisins do well as far north as Yolo county, but do
best in Madera,
Jesus, King, Tulare and San Diego
counties. The product is more than sufficient for the markets of
the United States. Dry wine grapes do best in the counties around
San Francisco Bay, on unirrigated lands; while sweet wine
stocks do best in Yolo, San
Joaquin and the counties of the raisin grape, and on irrigated
lands. In 1899 California produced more than two-thirds in value
($3,937,871) and three-fourths in bulk (19,020,258 gallons) of the
total wine output of the United States. The value of product more
than sextupled from 1880 to 1900. In quantity the product was more
than four times the combined product of all other states. The
better California wines are largely sold under French labels.
Brandies are an important product. They are made chiefly from
grapes, and are used to fortify wines. It was officially estimated
that in the spring of 1904 there were some 227,000 acres of
vineyards in the state, of which exactly five-tenths were in wine
grapes and four-tenths in raisin grapes.
Gold
Between the pastoral period and the era of wheat was the golden
epoch of Californian history. The existence of gold had long been
suspected, and possibly known, in California before 1848, and there
had been desultory washings in parts where there was very little to
reward prospectors. The first perfectly authenticated discovery was
made near Los Angeles in .1842. The discovery of real historical
importance was made in January 1848 (the 24th is the correct date)
at John A. Sutter's
mill, on the
south fork of the American river near Coloma, by a workman, James
W.
Marshall (1810-1885).
His monument now marks the spot. From 1848 to the 1st of January
1903, according to the state mining bureau, California produced
$1,379,275,408 in gold. There were two periods of intense
excitement. The first ended in 1854, at which time there was a
decided reaction throughout the United States in regard to mining
matters. The Californian discoveries had given rise to a general
search for metalliferous deposits in the Atlantic states, and this
had been followed by wild speculations. At the time of their
greatest productiveness, from 1850 to 1853, the highest yield of
the washings was probably not less than $65,000,000 a year;
according to the state mining bureau the average production from
1851-1854 was $73,570,087 ($81,294,270 in 1852, the banner year),
and from 1850-1861 $55,882,861, never falling below $50,000,000.
The estimates of other competent authorities differ considerably,
and generally are somewhat less generous than these figures.
At first the diggings were chiefly along the rivers. These were
" flumed," - that is, the water was diverted by wooden flumes from
the natural channel and the sand and
gravel in the
bed
were washed. All the " gulches " or ravines leading down into the
canyons were also worked over, with or without water. These were
the richest " placers," but in them the gold was very unequally
distributed. Those who first got possession of the rich bars on the
American, Yuba, Feather,
Stanislaus and the other smaller streams in
the
heart of the gold region,
made sometimes from $r to $5000 a day; but after one rich spot was
worked out it might be days or weeks before another was found. In
1848 $500-$700 a day was not unusual
luck; but, on the other hand, the income of the
great majority of miners was certainly far less than that of men
who seriously devoted themselves to trade or even to common labour.
Many extraordinary nuggets were found, varying from $1 to $20,000
in value. The economic stimulus given by such times may be
imagined. For several years gold-
dust was a regular circulating medium in the
cities as well as in the mining districts of the state. An
ounce of dust in 1848 frequently
went for $4 instead of $17; for a number of years traders in dust
were sure of a margin of several dollars, as for example in private
coinage, mints for which were common by 1851. From the record of
actual exports and a comparison of the most authoritative estimates
of total production, it may be said that from 1848 to 1856 the
yield was almost certainly not less than $450,000,000, and that
about 1870 the billion
dollar
mark had been passed. Just at this
time came the highest point and the sudden fall of the second great
mining fever of the state. This was a stock
speculation based on the remarkable output
($ 3 00,000,000 in 20 years) of the silver " bonanzas " of the
Comstock
lode at
Virginia City, Nevada, which
were opened and financed by San Francisco capitalists. The craze
pervaded all classes. Shares that at first represented so many
dollars per foot in a tangible mine were multiplied and
remultiplied until they came to represent paper thicknesses or
almost nothing, yet still their prices mounted upward. In April
1872 came the revulsion; there was a shrinkage of $60,000,000 in
ten days; then in 1873 a tremendous advance, and in 1875 a final
and disastrous collapse; in ten years thereafter the stock of the
Comstock lode shrank from $3,000,000 to $2,000,000. This Comstock
fever belongs to Californian rather than to Nevadan history, and is
one of the most extraordinary in mining annals.
First the " rocker," then the " torn," the "
flume," and the hydraulic stream were the tools
of the miner. Into the " rocker " and the " tom " the miner
shovelled dirt, rocking it as he poured in water, catching the gold
on riffles set across the bottom of his
box; thus imitating in a wooden box the work of
nature in the rivers. The " flume " enabled him to dry the bed of a
stream while he worked over its gravels. The hydraulic stream came
into use as early as 1852 (or 1853) when prospecting of the higher
ground made it certain that the " deep " or " high " gravels - i.e.
the detrital deposits of tertiary age - contained gold, though in
too small quantities to be profitably worked in the ordinary way.
The hydraulic process received an immense development through
successive improvements of method and machinery. In this method
tremendous blasts of
powder,
sometimes twenty-five or even fifty tons, were used to loosen the
gravel, which was then acted on by the
jet of water thrown from the " pipes." To give an
idea of the force of the
agent
thus employed it may be stated that when an eight-inch nozzle is
used under a heavy head, more than 3000 ft. may be discharged in a
minute with a velocity of 150 ft. per second. The water as it thus
issues from the nozzle feels to the touch like
metal, and the strongest man cannot sensibly
affect it with a crowbar. A gravel
bank acted on by such tremendous force
crumbled rapidly, and the disintegrated material could be run
readily through sluices to the " dumps." Hydraulic mining is no
longer practised on the scale of early days. The results were
wonderful but disastrous, for the " dumps " were usually
river-beds. From 1870-1879 the bed of
Bear river was raised in places in its lower
course 97 ft. by the detritus wash of the hydraulic mines, and that
of Sleepy Hollow
Creek 136 ft.
The total filling up to that time on the streams in this vicinity
had been from loo to 250 ft., and many thousand acres of fine
farming land were buried under gravel, some 16,000 on the lower
Yuba alone. For many years the mining interests were supreme, and
agriculture, even after it had become of great importance, was
invariably worsted when the two clashed; but in 1884 the long and
bitter " anti-debris " or " anti-slickins " fight ended in favour
of the farmers. In 1893 the United States government created a
California Debris Commission, which has acted in unison with the
state authorities. Permits for hydraulic mining are granted by the
commission only when all gravel is satisfactorily impounded and no
harm is done to the streams; and the improvement of these, which
was impossible so long as limits were not set to hydraulic mining,
can now be effectively advanced.
Quartz mining began as early as 1851. In 1906
some three-fourths of the gold output was from such mines. Quartz
veins are very often as good at
a depth of 3000 ft. as at the surface. A remarkable feature of
recent years (especially since 1900) is gold " dredging." Thousands
of acres even of orchard, vineyard and farming land have been thus
treated in recent years. Gold was being produced in 1906 in more
than thirty counties. The annual output since 1875 has been about
$15,000,000 to $17,000,000; in 1905, according to the Mines Report,
it was $18,898,545. Colorado now excels California as a gold
producer.
Mineral Products. - California produces more than forty
mineral substances that are of commercial significance. Gold,
petroleum,
copper, borax and its products,
clays, quicksilver and silver
lead, in order of importance, representing some
fourfifths of the total. From 1894 to 1902 the aggregate production
increased from 20.2 to 35.1 million dollars; in 1905 it was
$43,406,258. Metallic products represent about three-fourths of the
total, but the feature of recent years has been the rising
importance of hydrocarbons and gases, and of structural materials,
and indeed of non-metallic products generally. The production of
crude petroleum has grown very rapidly since about 1895. Oil is
found from north to south over some 600 m., but especially in
Southern California. The high cost of
coal, which has always been a hindrance to the
development of manufactures, makes the petroleum deposits of
peculiar value. Their
consumption increased from 4,250,000 to
35,671,000 barrels between 1900 and 1905, and the value of the
product in 1905 was $8,201,846. The Kern river field is the most
important in the state and one of the greatest in the world. Those
of Coalinga,
Santa
Maria and Lompoc, and Los Angeles are next in importance. Both
in 1900 and in 1905 California ranked fifth among the states of the
United States in the petroleum refining industry. Copper has risen
in importance in very recent years; it is mined mainly in Shasta
county; the value of the state's total product in 1905 was
$2,588,111. Gold mining still centres in the mountainous counties
north of Tuolumne. This is the region of quartz mining. In borax
(of which California's output in 1904 was 45,647 tons) and
structural materials San Bernardino has a long lead. More than
nine-tenths of the borax product of the country comes from about
Death Valley. San Bernardino
marbles have a very high repute. California was
the fourth state of the Union in 1899 in the production of granite.
It furnishes about two-fifths of the quicksilver of the world. This
has been mined since 1824; the output was greatest from 1875-1883,
when it averaged about 43,000,000 pounds. The New
Almaden mine (opened in 1824)
in Santa Clara county produced from 1850 to 1896 some 73,000,000
pounds. The centre of production is north and south of San
Francisco Bay. Californian coal is almost wholly inferior brown
lignite, together with a small
quantity of bituminous coals of poor quality; the state does not
produce a tenth part of the coal it consumes. Of growing importance
are the gems found in California: a few diamonds in Butte county;
rock crystal in
Calaveras county; and tourmalines,
kunzite, the rare
pink beryl and
bright blue topazes in San Diego county.
Chrysoprase, mined near Porterville and
near Visalia (Tulare county), is used partly for gems, but more
largely (like the
vesuvianite found near
Exeter, in the same county) for
mosaic work; and there are ledges
of fine
rose quartz in the
Coahuila mountains of
Riverside county and near
Lemon
Cove, Tulare county.
A vivid realization of the industrial revolution in the state is
to be gained from the reflection that in 1875 California was
pre-eminent only for gold and sheep; that the aggregate mineral
output thirty years later was more than a third greater than then,
and that nevertheless the value of farm produce at the opening of
the 10th century exceeded by more than $100,000,000 the value of
mineral produce, and exceeded by $50,000,000 the most generous
estimate of the largest annual gold output in the annals of the
state.
Manufactures
Previous to 1860 almost every manufactured article used in the
state was imported from the east or from
Europe. Dairy products, for example, for whose
production good facilities always existed, were long greatly
neglected, and not for two decades at least after 1848 was the
state independent in this respect. The high cost of coal, the
speculative attractions of mining, and the high
wages of labour, handicapped the development of
manufactures in early years. The first continued to be a
drag on such industries, until after
1895 the increasing use of crude petroleum obviated the difficulty.
Several remarkable electric power and
lighting plants utilize the water power of the
mountains.' Geographic isolation has somewhat fostered state
industries. The value of
gross
manufactured products increased 41.9% from 1889 to 1899. In the
latter year California ranked 12th among the states in the gross
value of all manufactures ($302,874,761); the per-capita value of
manufactured and agricultural products being $293, - $89 of the
latter, $204 of the former. Of the population 61% were engaged in
manufacturing. Fourteen industries represented from 41% to 45% of
the employees, wages, capital and product of the aggregate
manufacturers of the state. The leading ones in order of importance
and the value of product in millions of dollars were: the
manufacture of railway, foundry, and machine
shop products (19.6 million dollars), lumber and
timber industries (18.57), sugar and
molasses refining (15.91),
beef slaughtering (15.72), canning and preserving
(13.08),
flour and grist milling
(13.10), the manufacture of
malt,
vinous and distilled liquors (9.26),
leather industries (7.40),
printing and
publishing (6.86). In the second, third and
fifth of these industries the state ranked respectively fifth,
fourth and first in the Union. 2 The canning and preserving of
fruits and vegetables is in the main an industry of the northern
and central counties. In 1890 the state board of forestry estimated
that the redwood forests were in danger of exhaustion by 1930. The
redwood is a general utility lumber second only to the common white
pine, and the drain on the woods has been continuous since 1850.
The wood has a fine, straight and even grain; and though light and
soft, is firm and extremely durable, lying, it is authoritatively
asserted, for centuries in the forest without appreciable decay. It
takes a beautiful polish. The colour varies from cedar colour to
mahogany. A small southern
belt in San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties is not being
commercially exploited. The annual lumber cut from 1898-1903
averaged more than 663,348,000 ft.; of the 852,638,000 ft. cut in
1903, 4 6 5,4 60, 000 were of redwood, and 264,890,000 of yellow
pine; fir and sugar pines contributing another 104,600,000, and
spruce and cedar 17,670,000 ft. In 189 9 California ranked 16th
among the states in value of product ($13,764,647, out of a total
of $566,852,984). The total cut was under z of i % of the estimated
stand. In Humboldt county, in the redwood belt near
Eureka, are probably the most
modern and remarkable lumber mills of the world. In 1900 it was
estimated that lumbermen controlled somewhat less than a fifth of
the timber of the state, and the same part of the redwood. After
1890 important shipyards were established near San Francisco. The
most important naval station of the United 1 Small masses of water
made to fall great distances and the use of turbines are important
features of such plants. One on the North Yuba river at Colgate,
where there is a 700 ft. fall, serves
Oakland, San Jose and San Francisco, at high
pressure yielding in San Francisco (220 m. away) 75% of its power.
Other plants are one at
Electra (154 m. from San Francisco), and one on
the San Joaquin, which delivers to Fresno 62 m. distant.
z The 1905 census of manufactures deals only with establishments
under the factory system; its figures for 1905 and the figures for
1900 reduced to the same limits are as follows: - total value of
products, 1905, $367,218,494; 1900, $ 2 57,3 8 5,5 21, an increase
of 4 2.7%; leading industries, with value of product in millions of
dollars - canning and preserving, first in 1905 with 23.8 millions,
third in 1900 with 13.4 millions; slaughtering and
meat-packing, second in 1905 with 21.79 millions,
first in 1900 with 15.71 millions; flour and grist mill products,
third in 1905 with 20.2 millions, fourth in 1900 with 13.04
millions; lumber and timber, fourth in 1905 with 18.27 millions,
second in 1900 with 13.71 millions; printing and publishing, fifth
in 1905 with 17.4 millions, sixth in 1900 with 9.6 millions;
foundry and machine shop products, sixth in 1905 with 15.7
millions, fifth in 1900 with 12.04 millions; planing mill products,
seventh in 1905 with 13.9 millions, twelfth in 1900 with 4.8
millions;
bread and other bakery
products, eighth in 1905 with 10.6 millions, eleventh in 1900 with
4.87 millions.
States on the Pacific coast is at Mare Island at the northern
end of San Francisco Bay, and the private Union
Iron Works, on the peninsula near San Francisco,
is one of the largest shipyards of the country. The best sugar
product was in 1905 exceeded only by that of Colorado and that of
Michigan. In 1905 60.3%
(by value) of the wine made in the United States was made in
California.
The transportation facilities in California increased rapidly
after 1870. The building of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific
lines are among the romances of American railway history. They
joined tracks near
Ogden,
Utah, in May 1869. The
New Orleans line of the
Southern Pacific was opened in January 1883; the
Atchison,
Topeka &
Santa Fe completed its line to San Diego in
1885, and to San Francisco Bay in 1900. The San Pedro, Los Angeles
&
Salt Lake, with
trans-continental connexions at the eastern
terminus, was chartered in 1901 and fully
opened in March 1903. Railway mileage increased 1 37.3% from 1870
to 1880, and 154.6% from 1880 to 1900. At the close of 1906 the
total mileage was 6385.46 m., practically all of which is either
owned or controlled by the two great transcontinental systems of
the Southern Pacific and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe. From
1869 to 1875 registered
mail
exchanges were opened with China,
Japan,
Hawaii and
Australia. There are now frequent mail
connexions from San Francisco with Hawaii,
Australasia, and eastern
Asia, as well as with American ports north and
south. The commerce of San Francisco amounts to some $80,000,000 or
$90,000,000 yearly, about equally divided between imports and
exports, until after 1905 - in 1907 the imports were valued at
$54,207,011, and the exports at $3 0 ,37 8 ,355 (less than any year
since 1896). San Diego has a very good harbour, and those of San
Pedro, Port Los Angeles, and Eureka are fairly good and of growing
importance. Grains, lumber, fish, fruits and fruit products,
petroleum, vegetables and sugar are the leading items in the
commerce of San Francisco. Other ports are of very secondary
importance. Navigation on the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers was
very important in early days, but is to-day of relatively slight
importance in comparison with railway traffic.
Population.
The population of California increased in successive decades
from 1850 to 1910 respectively by 310.3, 47.3, 54.3, 40.3, 22.4 and
60.1%. (The percentage of increase in 1900-1910 was exceeded in
Washington, Oklahoma, Idaho, Nevada, North Dakota and Oregon.) In
1910 the total population was 2,377,549, or 15.2 per sq. m. In 1900
there were 116 incorporated towns and cities; and of the total
population 43.3% was urban, - i.e. resident in cities (11 in
number) of 8000 or more inhabitants. These 11 cities were: San
Francisco (pop. 342,782), Los Angeles (102,479), Oakland (66,960),
Alameda (16,464), Berkeley (13,214), - the last
three being suburbs of San Francisco, and the last the seat of the
state university, - Sacramento, the state capital (29,282), San
Jose (21,500), San Diego (17,700), Stockton (17,506), Fresno
(12,470), and Pasadena
(9117). Eight other cities had populations of more than 5000 -
Riverside City (7973), Vallejo (7965), Eureka (7327), Santa Rosa (6673), Santa Barbara
(6587), San Bernardino (6156), Santa Cruz (5659), and Pomona (5526).
Of the entire population in 1900 persons of foreign birth or
parentage (one or both parents being foreign) constituted 54.2 and
those of native birth were 75.3%. Of the latter six-tenths were
born in California. The foreign element included 45,753 Chinese (a
falling off of 25313 since 1890), and 10,151 Japanese (an increase
of 9004 in the same decade). Twenty-two foreign countries
contributed more than 1000 residents each, the leading ones being
Germany (72,449), China, the
United
Kingdom (80,222),
Canada
(29,618; 27,408 being English Canadians),
Italy (22,777),
Sweden (14549),
France (12,256),
Portugal (12,068),
Switzerland (10,974), Japan,
Denmark, and
Mexico, in the order named. Persons of negro
descent numbered 11,045. Almost all the Indians of the state are
taxed as citizens. In 1890 Roman Catholics constituted more than
half the total number of church communicants, Methodists a fifth as
many; Presbyterians, Congregationalists,
Baptists and Episcopalians being the other
strongest sects. A peculiar feature in the population
statistics of California
is the predominance of males, which in 1900 was 156,009; the
Asiatic element accounts for a third of this number. Since 1885 the
eight counties south of the Tehachapi Range, which are known
collectively and specifically as Southern California, have greatly
advanced in population. In 1880 their population was
7.3,
in 1890 17.2, and in 1900 20' 1% of the total population of the
state. The initial impulse to this increase was the beginning of
the " fruit epoch " in these counties, combined with a railway "
rate-war " following the completion to the coast in 1885 of the
Santa Fe, and an extraordinary land
boom prevailing from 1886 to 1888. The conjuncture
of circumstances, and the
immigration it induced, were unusual even
for American conditions. The growth of the South, as of the rest of
the state, has been continuous and steady since this time.
The Indians were prominent in early Californian history, but
their progress toward their present insignificance began far back
in the Spanish period. It proceeded much more rapidly after the
restraining influence of the missions was removed, leaving them
free to revert to savagery; and the downward progress of the race
was fearfully accelerated during the mining period, when they were
abused, depraved, and in large numbers killed. There have been no
Indian wars in California's annals, but many butcheries. The
natives have declined exceedingly in number since 1830, in 1900
numbering 15,377. They have always been mild-tempered, low, and
unintelligent, and are to-day a poor and miserable race. They are
all called " Digger Indians " indiscriminately, although divided by
a multiplicity of tongues.
Government and Institutions
In the matter of constitutionmaking California has been
conservative, having had only two between 1849 and 1905. The first
was framed by a convention at Monterey in 1849, and ratified by the
people and proclaimed by the United States military governor in the
same year. The present constitution, framed by a convention in
1878-1879, came into full effect in 1880, and was subsequently
amended. It was the work of the
labour party, passed at a time of high
discontent, and goes at great length into the details of
government, as was demanded by the state of public opinion. The
qualifications required for the
suffrage are in no way different from those
common throughout the Union, except that by a constitutional
amendment of 1894 it is
necessary for a voter to be able to read the state constitution and
write his name. As compared with the earlier constitution it showed
many radical advances toward popular control, the power of the
legislature being everywhere curtailed. The power of legislation
was taken from it by specific
inhibition in thirty-one subjects before
within its power; its control of the public domain, its powers in
taxation, and its use of
the state credit were carefully safe-guarded. "
Lobbying " was made a
felony; provisions were inserted against
lotteries and
stock-exchange
gambling, to tax and control common carriers and great
corporations, and to regulate
telegraph,
telephone, storage and wharfage charges. The
powers of the executive department were also somewhat curtailed.
For the judiciary, provisions were made for expediting trials and
decisions. Notable was the innovation that agreement by
threefourths of a
jury should be
sufficient in civil cases and that a jury might be waived in minor
criminal cases, a provision which of course was based on experience
under the Mexican law. All these changes in the organic law reflect
bitter experience after 1850; and, read with the history of those
years as a commentary, few American constitutions are more
instructive. The constitution of 1878 corresponds very closely to
the ordinary state constitution of to-day. The
incorporation of
banks issuing circulating notes is forbidden. Marriage is not only
declared a civil contract, but the laws expressly recognize that
the mere consent of the parties is adequate to constitute a binding
marriage. The union of whites with persons of African descent is
forbidden. Felons twice convicted may not be pardoned except on the
recommendation of a majority of the judges of the
supreme court. Judges and
state executive officers are elected for terms longer than is usual
in the different states (supreme judges 12 years, executive
officers 4 years). These few provisions are mentioned, not as of
particular importance in themselves, but as exceptions of some
moment to the usual type of state Constitutions (see
United
States). The Australian
ballot was introduced in 1891. In
local
government there are no deviations from the usual types that
demand notice. In the matter of
liquor-laws there is local
option, and a considerable
proportion of the towns and smaller cities, particularly in the
south, adopt
prohibition. In most of the rest high
licence is more or less
strictly enforced.
The total assessed
valuation of property grew from
$666,399,985 in 1880 to $1,217,648,683 in 1900 and $1,879,728,763
in 1907. In 1904, when the U.S. Census Report showed California to
be the twenty-first state of the Union in population but the sixth
in wealth, the total estimated true value of all property was
$4,115,491,106, of which $2,664,472,025 was the value of
real property and
improvements thereon. The per capita wealth of the state was then
reported as $2582.32, being exceeded only by the three sparsely
settled states of
Montana,
Wyoming and Nevada. In 1898
California had the largest savings-bank
deposit per depositor ($637.75) of any state in
the. Union; the per caput deposit was $110 in 1902, and about one
person in seven was a depositor. The state bonded debt in 1907
amounted to three and a half million dollars, of which all but
$767,529.03 was represented by bonds purchased by the state and
held for the school and university funds; for the common school
fund on the 1st of July 1907 there were held bonds for $4, 8 9 0
,95 0, and $800,000 in
cash
available for investment; for the university fund there were held
$751,000 in state bonds, and a large amount in other securities.
The total bonded county indebtedness was $4,879,600 in 1906 (not
including that of San Francisco, a consolidated city and county,
which was $4,568,600). A
homestead, entered upon record and limited to
a value of $5000 if held by the head of a family and to a value of
$
loon if held by one not the head
of a family, is exempt from liability for debts,except for a
mortgage; a
lien before it was claimed as a homestead is a
lien afterward for improvements. A homestead held by a married man
cannot be mortgaged without consent of his wife.
Under an act approved on the 25th of March 1903 a state board of
charities and corrections, -
consisting of six members, not more than three being of the same
political party, appointed by the governor, with the advice and
consent of the
senate, and
holding office for twelve years, two retiring at the end of each
quadrennium, - investigates, examines, and makes " reports upon the
charitable, correctional and penal institutions of the state,"
excepting the Veterans' Home at Yountville, Napa county, and the
Woman's Relief Corps Home at
Evergreen, Santa Clara county. There are
state prisons with convicts working under the public account
system, at San Quentin, Maria county, and Folsom, Sacramento
county. The
Preston (Sonoma
county) School of Industry, for older boys, and the Whittier (Los
Angeles county) State School, for girls and for boys under sixteen,
are the state reformatories, each having good industrial and manual
training departments. There are state hospitals for the insane at
Agnew, Santa Clara county; at Stockton, San Joaquin county; at
Napa, Napa county; at Patton, San Bernardino county; and, with a
colony of tubercular patients, at
Ukiah, Mendocino county. In 1906 the ratio of insane confined to
institutions, to the total population, was to every 270. Also under
state control are the home for care and training of feeble-minded
children, at Eldridge, Sonoma county; the institution for the
deaf and the blind
at Berkeley, and the home of mechanical trades for the adult blind
at Oakland. A Juvenile Court Law was enacted in 1903 and modified
in 1905.
The educational system of California is one of the best in the
country. The state board of education is composed of the governor
of the state, who is its president; the
superintendent of public instruction,
who is its secretary; the presidents of the five normal schools and
of the
University of California, and
the professor of pedagogy in the university. Sessions are long in
primary schools, and attendance was made compulsory in 1874 (and
must not be less than two-thirds of all school days). The state
controlled the actual preparation and sale of text-books for the
common schools from 1885 to 1903, when the
Perry amendment to the constitution (ratified by
popular vote in 1884) was declared to mean that such text-books
must be manufactured within the state, but that the texts need not
be prepared in California. The experiment of state-prepared
text-books was expensive, and its effect was bad on the public
school system, as such text-books were almost without exception
poorly written and poorly printed. After 1903 copyrights were
leased by the state. Secondary schools are closely affiliated with,
and closely inspected by, the state university. All schools are
generously supported, salaries are unusually good, and
pension funds in all cities are
authorized by state laws. The value of school property in 1900 was
$19,135,722, and the expenditure for the public schools $6,195,000;
in 1906 the value of school property was $29,013,150, and the
expenditure for public schools $10,815,857. The average school
attendance for all minors of school age (5-20 years) was 5 9.9%; of
those native-born 61.5, of those foreign-born 34.6; of coloured
children, including Asiatics and Indians, 35.8, and of white,
60.8%. In 1900, 6.2% of the males of voting age, and 2.4% of the
native-born males of voting age, were illiterate (could not write).
Some 3% of the total population could not speak English; Chinese
and Japanese constituting almost half of the number, foreign-born
whites somewhat less, and Indians and native-born whites of foreign
parentage together less than a tenth of the total. Of the higher
educational institutions of the state the most important are the
state university at Berkeley and
Leland Stanford Jr.
University at
Palo
Alto. The former is supported with very great liberality by the
state; and the latter, the endowment of which is private (the
state, however, exempting it from taxation), is one of the richest
educational institutions of America. In 1906 there were also five
state normal schools (at Chico, Los Angeles, San Diego, San
Francisco, and San Jose), and a considerable number of
denominational colleges. There is also a state
polytechnic school at
San Luis Obispo (1903)
.
History
The name " California " was taken from Ordonez de Montalvo's
romance of
chivalry
Las Sergas de Esplandian (Madrid, 15 ro), in which is told
of black
Amazons ruling an
island of this name " to the right of the
Indies, very near the quarter of the terrestrial
paradise." The name was
given to the unknown north-west before I 540. It does not show that
the namers were prophets or wise judges, for the Spaniards really
knew California not at all for more than two centuries, and then
only as a genial but rather barren land; but it shows that the
conquistadores mixed
poetry with business and illustrates the glamour
thrown about the " Northern
Mystery." Necessarily the name had for a long
time no definite geographical meaning. The lower Colorado river was
discovered in 1540, but the explorers did not penetrate California;
in 1542-1543 Juan
Rodriguez Cabrillo explored at least the
southern coast; in 1579
Sir Francis Drake repaired his ships
in some Californian port (almost certainly not San Francisco Bay),
and named the land New Albion; two Philippine ships visited the
coast in 1584 and 1595, and in 1602 and 1603
Sebastian Vizcaino discovered the sites of
San Diego and Monterey. There was apparently no increase of
knowledge thereafter for 150 years. Most of this time California
was generally supposed to be an island or a group of islands.
Jesuit missionaries entered Lower California as early as 1697,
maintaining themselves there until
Charles III.'s expulsion in 1767 of all
Jesuits from his dominions; but
not until
Russian
explorations in Alaska from 1745-1765 did the Spanish government
show interest in Upper California. Because of these explorations,
and also the long-felt need of a refitting point on the California
coast for the galleons from
Manila, San Diego was occupied in 1769 and
Monterey in 1770 as a result of urgent orders from
Charles III. San
Francisco Bay was discovered in the former year. Meanwhile the
Jesuit property in the Peninsula had been turned over to Franciscan
monks, but in 1772 the
Dominicans took over the
missions, and the Franciscans not unwillingly withdrew to Upper
California, where they were to thrive remarkably for some fifty
years.
This is the mission period - or from an economic standpoint, the
pastoral period - of Californian history. In all, twenty-one
missions were established between 1769 and 1823. The leader in this
movement was a really remarkable man, Miguel
Jose Serra (known as
Junipero Serra, 1713-1784), a
friar of very great ability, purest piety, and
tireless zeal. He possessed great influence in Mexico and
Madrid. " The theory of the
mission system," says H. H. Bancroft, " was to make the savages
work out their own salvation and that of the priests also." The
last phrase scarcely does justice to the truly humane and devout
intentions of the missionaries; but in truth the mission system was
a complete failure save in the
accumulation of material wealth.
Economically the missions were the blood and life of the province.
At them the neophytes worked up wool, tanned hides, prepared
tallow, cultivated
hemp and wheat,
raised a few oranges, made
soap,
some iron and leather articles, mission furniture, and a very
little wine and olive oil. Such as it was, this was about the only
manufacturing or handicraft in California. Besides, the hides and
tallow yielded by the great herds of cattle at the missions were
the support of foreign trade and did much toward paying the
expenses of the government. The Franciscans had no sympathy for
profane knowledge, even among the Mexicans, - sometimes publicly
burning quantities of books of a scientific or miscellaneous
nature; and the
reading of
Fenelon's
Telemaque brought excommunications on a layman.
As for the intellectual development of the neophytes the mission
system accomplished nothing; save the care of their souls they
received no instruction, they were virtually slaves, and were
trained into a fatal dependence, so that once
coercion was removed they relapsed at once
into barbarism. It cannot be said, however, that Anglo-Americans
have done much better for them.
The political upheavals in Spain and Mexico following 1808 made
little stir in this far-off province.
Joseph was never recognized, and
allegiance was sworn to
Ferdinand (1809). When
revolution broke out in Mexico (1811), California remained loyal,
suffering much by the cessation of supplies from Mexico, the
resulting deficits falling as an added
burden upon the missions. The occupation of
Monterey for a few hours by a
Buenos Aires privateer (1818) was the only incident of
actual war that California saw in all these years; and it, in
truth, was a ridiculous
episode, fit introduction to the bloodless
play-wars, soon to be inaugurated in Californian politics. In 1820
the Spanish constitution was duly sworn to in California, and in
1822 allegiance was given to Mexico. Under the Mexican Federal
constitution of 1824 Upper California, first alone (it was made
distinct province in 1804) and then with Lower California, received
representation in the Mexican congress.
The following years before American occupation may be divided
into two periods of quite distinct interest. From about 1840 to
1848 foreign relations are the centre of interest. From 1824 to
1840 there is a complicated and not uninteresting movement of local
politics and a preparation for the future, - the missions fall,
republicanism grows, the sentiment of local patriotism becomes a
political force, there is a succession of sectional controversies
and personal struggles among provincial chiefs, an increase of
foreign commerce, of foreign immigration and of foreign
influence.
The Franciscans were mostly Spaniards in blood and in
sympathies. They viewed with displeasure and foreboding the fall of
Iturbide's empire and the creation of the republic. They were not
treasonable, but talked much, refusing allegiance to the new
government; and as they controlled the resources of the colony and
the good will of the Indians, they felt their strength against the
local authority; besides, they were its constant benefactors. But
secularization was in harmony with the growth of republican ideas.
There was talk in California of the
rights of
man and neophytes, and of the sins of friars. The missions were
never intended to be permanent. The missionaries were only the
field workers sent out to convert and civilize the Indians, who
were to be turned over then to the regular clergy, the monks
pushing further onward into new fields. This was the
well-established policy of Spain. In 1813 the Spanish
Cortes ordered the secularization
of all missions in America that were ten years old, but this
decree was not published in
California until 1821. After that secularization was the burning
question in Californian politics. In 1826 a beginning toward it was
made in partially emancipating the neophytes, but active and
thorough secularization of the missions did not begin until 1834;
by 1835 it was consummated at sixteen missions out of twenty-one,
and by 1840 at all. At some of the missions the monks acted later
as temporary curates for the civil authorities, until in 1845-1846
all the missions were sold by the government. Unfortunately the
manner of carrying it out discredited a policy neither unjust nor
bad in itself, increasing its importance in the political struggles
of the time. The friars were in no way mistreated: Californians did
not share Mexican resentments against Spaniards, and the national
laws directed against these were in the main quietly ignored in the
province. In 1831 the mission question led to a rising against the
reactionary clerical rule of Governor Manuel
Victoria. He was driven out of the
province.
This was the first of the
opera bouffe wars. The causes underlying them
were serious enough. In the first place, there was a growing
dissatisfaction with Mexican rule, which accomplished nothing
tangible for good in California, - although its plans were as
excellent as could be asked had there only been peace and means to
realize them; however, it made the mistake of sending convicts as
soldiers. Californians were enthusiastic republicans, but found the
benefits of republicanism slow in coming. The resentment of the
Franciscans, the presence of these and other reactionaries and of
Spaniards, the attitude of foreign residents, and the ambitions of
leading Californian families united to foment and propagate
discontent. The feeling against Mexicans - those " de la otra
banda " as they were significantly
termed - invaded political and even social life. In the second
place, there was growing
jealousy between northern towns and southern
towns, northern families and southern families. These entered into
disputes over the location of the capital and the
custom-house, in the
Franciscan question also (because the friars came some from a
northern and some from a southern college), and in the question of
the distribution of commands in the army and offices in the civil
government. Then there was the mission question; this became acuter
about 1833 when the friars began to destroy, or sell and realize
on, the mission property. The next decade was one of
plunder and ruin in mission
history. Finally there was a real growth of republicanism, and some
rulers - notably Victoria - were wholly out of sympathy with
anything but personal, military rule. From all these causes sprang
much unrest and considerable agitation.
In 1828-1829 there was a revolution of unpaid soldiers aided by
natives, against alleged but not serious abuses, that really aimed
at the establishment of an independent native government. In 1831
Governor Victoria was deposed; in 1835 Governor Mariano Chico was
frightened out of the province; in 1836 Governor Nicolas Gutierrez
and in 1844-1845 Governor Manuel Micheltorena were driven out of
office. The leading natives headed this last rising. There was talk
of independence, but sectional and personal jealousies could not be
overcome. In all these wars there was not enough blood
shed to discolour a
sword. The rising of 1836 against Gutierrez seems
to-day most interesting, for it was in part a protest against the
growth of federalism in Mexico. California was even deferred to as
(declared to be seems much too strong a statement) an Estado Libre
y Soberano; and from 1836 to 1838, when the revolutionary governor,
Juan B. Alvarado, was recognized by the Mexican government, which
had again inclined to federalism and, besides, did not take the
matter very seriously, the local government rested simply on local
sentiment. The
satisfaction of this ended all
difficulties.
By this time foreign influence was showing itself of importance.
Foreign commerce, which of course was
contraband, being contrary to all Spanish
laws, was active by the begin ning of the 1 th century. It was
greatly stimulated
American g 9 Y g Y during the
Spanish-American revolutions (the
Lima and
Panama trade dating from about 1813), for, as
the Californian authorities practically ignored the law,
smuggling was unnecessary;
this was, indeed, much greater after 1822 under the high duties (in
1836-1840 generally about loo %) of the Mexican tariffs. In the
early 'forties some three-fourths of the imports, even at Monterey
itself, are said to have paid no duties, being landed by agreement
with the officials. Wholesale and
retail trade flourished all along the coast in
defiance of prohibitory
laws. American trade was by far most important. The
Boston traders - whose direct
trade began in 1882, but the indirect ventures long before that -
were men of decided influence in California. The trade supplied
almost all the clothing, merchandise and manufactures used in the
province; hides and furs were given in exchange. If foreign trade
was not to be received, still less were foreign travellers, under
the Spanish laws. However, the Russians came in 1805, and in 1812
founded on Bodega Bay a post they held till 1841, whence they
traded and hunted (even in San Francisco Bay) for furs. From the
day of the earliest foreign commerce sailors and traders of
divers nationalities began to
settle in the province. In 1826
American hunters first crossed to the coast; in 1830 the
Hudson's Bay Company began
operations in northern California. By this time the foreign element
was considerable in number, and it doubled in the next six years,
although the true overland immigration from the United States began
only about 1840. As a class foreigners were respected, and they
were influential beyond proportion to their numbers. They
controlled commerce, and were more energetic, generally, than were
the natives; many were naturalized, held generous grants of land,
and had married into Californian families, not excluding the most
select and influential. Most prominent of Americans in the interior
was John A. Sutter (1803-1880), who held a grant of eleven square
leagues around the present site of Sacramento, whereon he built a
fort. His position as a Mexican official, and the location of his
fortified post on the border, commanding the interior country and
lying on the route of the overland immigrants, made him of great
importance in the years preceding and immediately following
American occupation; although he was a man of slight abilities and
wasted his great opportunities. Other settlers in the coast towns
were also of high standing and importance. In short, Americans were
hospitably received and very well treated by the government and the
people; despite some formalities and ostensible surveillance there
was no oppression whatever. There was, however, some jealousy of
the ease with which Americans secured land grants, and an entirely
just dislike of " bad " Americans. The sources from which all the
immigrants were recruited made inevitable an element of lawlessness
and truculence. The Americans happened to predominate. Along with a
full share of border individuality and restlessness they had the
usual boisterous boastfulness and a racial contempt, which was
arrogantly proclaimed, for Mexicans, - often too for Mexican legal
formalities. The early corners were a conservative force in
politics, but many of the later corners wanted
and Euro-
to make California a second Texas. As early as 1805
p a S°
" (at the time of James Monroe's negotiations for Florida),
there are traces of Spain's fear of American ambitions even in this
far-away province. It was a fear she felt for all her American
possessions. Spain's fears passed on to Mexico, the Russians being
feared only less than Americans. An offer was made by President
Jackson in 1835 to buy the
northern part of California, including San Francisco Bay, but was
refused. In 1836 and 1844 Americans were prominent in the incidents
of revolution; divided in opinion in both years they were neutral
in the actual " hostilities " of the latter, but some gave active
support to the governor in 1836. From 1836 on, foreign interference
was much talked about. Americans supposed that Great
Britain wished to exchange
Mexican bonds for California; France also was thought to be
watching for an opening for gratifying supposed ambitions; and all
parties saw that even without
overt act by the United States the progress
of American settlement seemed likely to gain them the province,
whose connexion with Mexico had long been a notoriously loose one.
A considerable literature written by travellers of all the
countries named had before this discussed all interests. In 1840
for too active interest in politics some Americans and Englishmen
were temporarily expelled.
In 1842
Commodore T.
A. C. Jones (1789-1858) of the United States
navy, believing that war had broken out between
his country and Mexico and that a British force was about to seize
California,raised the American
flag over Monterey (October 21st), but finding
that he had acted on misinformation he lowered the flag next day
with due ceremony and warm
apology. In California this incident served
only to open up agreeable personal relations and social courtesies,
but it did not tend to clarify the diplomatic
atmosphere. It showed the ease of seizing
the country, the indifference of the natives, and the
resolution of the United
States government. Mexico sought to prevent American immigration,
but the local authorities would not enforce such orders, however
positive. Between 1843 and 1845, Great Britain, the United States,
and France opened consulates. By 1845 there was certainly an
agreement in opinion among all American residents (then not 700 in
number) as regards the future of the country. The policy of France
and Great Britain in these years is unknown. That of the United
States is fully known. In 1845 the American
consul at Monterey, Thomas O. Larkin
(1802-1858), was instructed to work for the
secession of California from Mexico, without
overt aid from the United States, but with their good-will and
sympathy. He very soon gained from leading officers assurances of
such a movement before 1848. At the same time American naval
officers were instructed to occupy the ports in case of war with
Mexico, but first and last to work for the good-will of the
natives. In 1845 Captain J. C.
Fremont, - whose doings in California in the
next two years were to be the main
assets in a life-long reputation and an
unsuccessful presidential campaign, - while engaged in a government
surveying expedition,
aroused the apprehensions of the Californian authorities by
suspicious and very possibly intentionally provocative movements,
and there was a show of military force by both parties. Fremont had
information beyond that of ordinary men that made him believe early
hostilities between the United States and Mexico to be inevitable;
he was also officially informed of Larkin's secret task and in no
way authorized to hamper it. Resentment, however, incited him to
personal revenge on the Californian government, and an ambition
that clearly saw the gravity of the crisis prompted him to improve
it unscrupulously for his own
advancement, leaving his
The
government to support or disavow him according as
P1 war
should come or not. In violation therefore of international
amities, and practically in disobedience of orders, he broke the
peace, caused a band of Mexican
cavalry mounts to be seized, and prompted some
American settlers to occupy Sonoma (14th June 1846). This episode
is known as the " Bear Flag War," inasmuch as there was short-lived
talk of making California an independent state, and a flag with a
bear as an
emblem (California
is still popularly known as the Bear Flag State)flew for a few days
at Sonoma. It was a very small, very disingenuous, inevitably an
anomalous, and in the vanity of proclamations and other concomitant
incidents rather a ridiculous affair; and fortunately for the
dignity of history - and for Fremont - it was quickly merged in a
larger question, when Commodore John Drake Sloat (1780-1867) on the
7th of July raised the flag of the United States over Monterey,
proclaiming California a part of the United States. The opening
hostilities of the Mexican War had occurred on the
Rio Grande. The excuses
and explanations later given by Fremont - military preparations by
the Californian authorities, the imminence of their attack,
ripening British schemes for the seizure of the province, etc. -
made up the stock account of historians until the whole truth came
out in 1886 (in Royce's
California). Californians had been
very friendly to Americans, but Larkin's intimates thought they had
been tricked, and the people resented the stealthy and unprovoked
breaking of peace, and unfortunately the Americans did not known
how to treat them except inconsiderately and somewhat
contemptuously. The result was a feeble rising in the south. The
country was fully pacified by January 1847. The aftermath of
Fremont's filibustering acts, followed as they were by wholly
needless hostilities and by some injustice then and later in the
attitude of Americans toward the natives, was a growing
misunderstanding, and estrangement regrettable in Californian
history. Thus there was an end to the " lotos-land society " of
California. Another society, less hospitable, less happy, less
contented, but also less mild, better tempered for building states,
and more " progressive," took the place of the old.
By the treaty of Guadelupe
Hidalgo in 1848 Mexico ceded California to the
United States. It was just at this time that
California
gold was discovered, and the new territory took on great national
importance. The discussion as to what
the United should be
done with it began in Congress in 1846, immediately involving the
question of
slavery. A
furious conflict developed, so that nothing was accomplished in two
successive sessions; even at the end of a third, in March 1849, the
only progress made toward creating a government for the territory
was that the national revenue laws had been extended over it and
San Francisco had been made a port of entry. Meanwhile conditions
grew intolerable for the inhabitants. Before the end of the war
Mexican laws not incompatible with United States laws were by
international
law supposed to be in force; but nobody knew what they were,
and the uncertainties of vague and variable
alcalde jurisdictions were increased when
Americans began to be alcaldes and grafted English
common-law principles,
like the jury, on Californian practices. Never was a population
more in need of clear laws than the
motley Californian people of 1848-1849, yet they
had none when, with peace, military rule and Mexican law
technically ended. There was a curious extra-legal
fusion of laws, a half-breed
legal system, and no definite basis for either law or government.
Even the acts and theories of the officials were very inconsistent.
Early in 1849 temporary local governments were set up in various
towns, and in September a convention framed a freestate
constitution and applied for admission to the Union. On the 7th of
September 1850 a bill finally passed Congress admitting California
as a free state. This was one of the bargains in the "
Compromise Measures of 1850
" that were intended to dispose of the question of slavery in the
Territories. Meanwhile the gold discoveries culminated and
surpassed " three centuries of wild talk about gold in California."
For three months there was little excitement, then a wild rush.
Settlements were completely deserted; homes, farms and stores
abandoned. Ships deserted by their sailors crowded the bay at San
Francisco - there were 500 of them in July 1850; soldiers deserted
wholesale, churches were emptied, town councils ceased to sit,
merchants, clerks, lawyers and judges and criminals, everybody,
flocked to the foothills. Soon, from Hawaii, Oregon and
Sonora, from the Eastern states,
the South Seas, Australia,
South America and China came an
extraordinary flow of the hopeful and adventurous. In the winter of
'48 the rush began from the states to Panama, and in the spring
across the plains. It is estimated that 80,000 men reached the
coast in 1849, about half of them coming overland; three-fourths
were Americans. Rapid settlement, excessive prices, reckless waste
of money, and wild commercial ventures that glutted San Francisco
with all objects usable and unusable made the following years
astounding from an economic point of view; but not less bizarre was
the social development, nor less extraordinary the problems of
state-building in a society " morally and socially tried as no
other American community ever has been tried " (Royce). There was
of course no home life in early California. In 1850 women numbered
8% of the population, but only 2 in the mining counties. The miners
were an energetic, covetous, wandering, abnormally excitable body
of men. Occasionally a kind of frenzy even would seem to seize on
them, and lured by. the hope of new deposits of unheard-of richness
thousands would
flock on
unfounded rumours to new and perhaps distant localities, where many
might perish from disease and starvation, the rest returning in
poverty and rags. Such were the Kern River fever of 1855 and the
greater "
Fraser River rush "
of 1858, the latter, which took perhaps 20,000 men out of the
state, causing a terrible amount of suffering. Many interior towns
lost half their population and some virtually all their population
as a result of this
emigration; and it precipitated a real
estate
crash in San Francisco
that threatened temporary ruin. Mining times in California brought
out some of the most ignoble and some of the best traits of
American character. Professor
Josiah Royce has pictured the social-moral
process by which society finally impressed its " claims on wayward
and blind individuals " who " sought wealth and not a social
order," and so long as possible shirked all social obligations.
Through varied instruments -
lynch law, popular courts, vigilance
committees - order was, however, enforced, better as times went on,
until there was a
stable
condition of things. In the economic life and social character of
California to-day the legacies of 1848 are plain.
The slavery question was not settled for California in 1850.
Until the Civil War the division between the
Whig and Democratic parties, whose
organization in California preceded statehood, was essentially
based on slavery. The struggle fused with the personal contests of
two men, rivals for the United States Senate, William McKendree
Gwin (1805-1885, United States senator, 1850-1861), the leader of
the pro-slavery party, and David Colbreth Broderick (1819-18J9),
formerly a leader of Tammany in
New York, and after 1857 a member from
California of the United States Senate, the champion of free
labour, who declared in 1860 for the policy of the
Republican
party. Broderick's undoing was resolved upon by the slavery
party, and he was killed in a
duel. The Gwin party hoped to divide California
into two states and hand the southern over to slavery; on the
eve of the Civil War it considered the
scheme of a Pacific coast republic. The decade 1850-1860 was also
marked by the activity of filibusters against Sonora and
Central
America. Two of these - one a French adventurer, Gaston Raoux,
comte de Raousset-Boulbon (1817-1854), and
William Walker,
had very picturesque careers. The state was thoroughly loyal when
war came. The later 'fifties are characterized by H.H.Bancroft as a
period of " moral, political and financial night." National
politics were put first, to the complete ignoring of excessive
taxation, financial extravagance, ignorant legislation and
corruption in California. The public was exploited for many years
with impunity for the benefit of private interests. One
legacy that ought to be briefly
noted here is that of disputed land grants. Under the Mexican
regime such grants were generous and common, and the complicated
formalities theoretically essential to their validity were very
often, if not usually, only in part attended to. Titles thus gained
would never have been questioned under continued Mexican
government, but Americans were unaccustomed to such riches in land
and to such laxity. From the very first hundreds " squatted " on
large claims, contesting the title. Instead of confirming all
claims existing when the country passed to the United States, and
so ensuring an immediate settlement of the matter, which was really
the most important thing for the peace and
purse of the community, the United States
government undertook through a land commission and courts to sift
the valid from the fraudulent. Claims of enormous aggregate value
were thus considered and a large part of those dating from the last
years of Mexican dominion (many probably artfully concocted and
fraudulently antedated after the commission was at work) were
finally rejected. This litigation filled the state and federal
courts for many years. The high value of realty in San Francisco
naturally offered extraordinary inducements to
fraud, and the largest part of the city was for
years involved in fraudulent claims, and its peace broken by "
squatter "-troubles. Twenty or thirty years of the state's life
were disturbed by these controversies. Land
monopoly is an evil of large proportions in
California to-day, but it is due to the laxness of the United
States government in enabling speculators to accumulate holdings
and not to the original extent of Mexican grants.
In state gubernatorial elections after the Civil War the
Democrats won in 1867, 1875,1882, 1886, 1894; the Republicans in
1871, 1879, 1890, 1898, 1902. The leading features of political
life and of legislation after 1876 were a strong labour agitation,
the struggle for the exclusion of the Chinese, for the control of
hydraulic mining, irrigation, and the advancement by state-aid of
the fruit interests; the last three of which have already been
referred to above. Labour conditions were peculiar in the period
following 1870. Mining, war times and the building of the Central
Pacific had up to then inflated prices and prosperity. Then there
came a slump; probably the truth was rather that money was becoming
less unnaturally abundant than that there was any over-supply of
labour. The turning off of some 15,000 Chinese (principally in
1869-1870) from the Central Pacific lines who flocked to San
Francisco, augmented the discontent of incompetents, of
disappointed late immigrants, and the reaction from flush times.
Labour unions became strong and demonstrative. In 1877-1878
Denis Kearney (1847-1907), an Irish drayman and
demagogue of considerable
force and daring, headed the discontented. This is called the "
sand-lots agitation " from the favourite meeting-place (in San
Francisco) of the
agitators.
The outcome of these years was the Constitution of 1879, already
described, and the exclusion of Chinese by national law. In 1879
California voted against further immigration of Chinese by 154,638
to 883. Congress re-enacted exclusion legislation in 1902. All
authorities agree that the Chinese in early years were often abused
in the mining country and their rights most unjustly neglected by
the law and its officers. Men among the most respected in
California (Joaquin Miller, H. H. Bancroft and others) have said
most in praise and defence of the Chinaman. From railroad making to
cooking he has proved his abilities and trustworthiness. He is
found to-day in the mines and
fisheries, in various lines of manufacture,
in small farming, and in all branches of domestic service. The
question of the economic development of the state, and of trade to
the Orient, the views of the
mercenary labour-contractor and of the
philanthropist, the factor of " upper-race " repugnance, the "
economic-
leech" argument, the "
rat-
rice-filth-and-
opium " argument, have all entered into the
problem. Certain it is that though the unprejudiced must admit that
exclusion has not been at all an unmixed blessing, yet the
consensus of opinion is that a large population, non-
citizen and non-assimilable,
sending - it is said - most of their earnings to China, living in
the main meanly at best, and practically without wives, children or
homes, is socially and economically a menace outweighing the
undoubted convenience of cheaper (and frequently more trustworthy)
menial labour than the other
population affords. The exclusion had much to do with making the
huge single crop ranches unprofitable and in leading to their
replacement by small farms and varied crops. Many of the Chinese
now in the state are wealthy. Race feeling against them has become
much less marked.
One outcome of early mission history, the " Pious Fund of the
Californias," claimed in 1902 the attention of
the Hague Tribunal. (See [[International
arbitration, Hague cases section.) In 1906-1907 there was
throughout the state a remarkable anti-Japanese agitation, centring
in San Francisco (q.v.) and affecting international relations and
national politics.
Governors Of California (State) I. Spanish Gasper de Portola
Filipe de Barri Felipe de Neve Pedro Fages. Jose Antonio Romeu.
'Jose Joaquin de Arillaga Diego de Borica.. *Jose Joaquin de
Arillaga Jose Joaquin de Arillaga *Jose Diario Arguello. Pablo
Vicente de Sola .
1 As months and even years often elapsed between the date when
early governors were appointed and the beginning of their actual
service, the date of commission is disregarded, and the date of
service given. Sometimes this is to be regarded as beginning at
Monterey, sometimes elsewhere in California, sometimes at Loreto in
Lower California ., All the Spanish and Mexican governors were
appointed by the national government, except in the case of the II.
M Exican Pablo Vicente de Sola. *Luis Antonio Arguello Jose Maria
Echeandia Manuel Victoria Jose Maria Echeandia Pio
Pico 3 .
- Nicolas Gutierrez Mariano Chico .
Nicolas Gutierrez Juan Bautista Alvarado
Carlos
Antonio Carrillo Manuel Micheltorena. Pio Pico .
III. American (a)
Military. John D. Sloat. Richard F.
Stockton Stephen W. Kearney R. B. Mason. Bennett Riley
Peter H. Burnett. *John H.
McDougall John Bigler John M. Johnson. John B. Weller.
Milton S. Latham *John G. Downey.
Leland Stanford. Frederick G. Law
Henry H. Haight .
Newton Booth. *Romualdo Pacheco William Irwin. George G.
Perkins George C. Stoneman Washington
Bartlett *Robert W. Waterman
Henry H. Markham James H. Budd. Henry T.
Gage. George C. Pardee James N. Gillett .
The mark * before the name of one of the Spanish governors
indicates that he acted only
ad interim, and, in the case of governors
since 1849, that the officer named was elected as
lieutenant-governor and succeeded to the office of governor.
Bibliography. - For list of works on California, see Uniyersity
of California
Library Bulletin, No. 9, 1887, " List of
Printed Maps of California "; catalogue of state official
publications by State Library (Sacramento, 1894). The following may
be cited here on different aspects: Topography. - J. Muir,
Mountains of California (
New York, 1894); H.
Gannet, " Dictionary of
Elevations " (1898), and " River Profiles," publications of
United States Geological Survey; G. W. James,
The
Wonders of the Colorado Desert (2 vols., Boston, 1906).
Climate. -
United States Department of Agriculture,
California Climate and Crop Service, monthly reports; E. S.
Holden,
Recorded Earthquakes in California, Lower California,
Oregon, and Washington Territory (California State University,
1887);
United States Department Agriculture, Weather Bureau,
Bulletins, No. I, 1892, M. H.
Harrington, " Climate and Meterorology of
Death Valley." There is a great mass of general descriptive
literature, especially on Southern California, such as
Charles
Dudley Warner,
Our Italy (New York, 1891); Kate
Sanborn,
A Truthful Woman in Southern California (New
York, 1893); W. Lindley and J. P. Widney,
California of the
South (New York, 1896); J. W. Hanson,
American Italy
(Chicago, 1896); T. S. Van Dyke,
Southern California (New
York, 1886), &c.
Fauna, Flora. - Muir, op. cit.; United States Geological
Survey, zgth Annual Report, pt. v., H. Gannet, " Forests of
the United States"; idem, Both Annual Report, pt. v., "
United States Forest Reserves "; United States Division of
Forestry, Bulletin No. 28, " A Short Account of the Big Trees
of California " (1900), No. 38, " The Redwood " (a volume, 1903),
also Professional Papers, e.g. No. 8, J. B. Leiberg, "
Forest Conditions in the Northern Sierra Nevada " (1902);
California Board of Forestry, Reports (1885-);
semi-revolutionary rulers of 1831-1832 and 1836 (Alvarado), whose
title rested on revolution, or on local choice under a national
statute regarding gubernatorial vacancies.
Acting political chief, revolutionary title.
Briefly recognized in South.
4 Revolutionary title, 1836-1838.
5 Appointed 1837, never recognized in the North.
served 1822- 1822-1825 1825-1831 1831- 1831-1832 1832 1832-1835
-1835-1836 1836 1836 1836- 1836-1842 1837- 1838-1842
-1845-1845-1846 appointed 1846- 1846-1847 1847 „ 1847-1849 -1849
served 1767-1770 -1771-1774 1774-1782 -1782-1791 1791-1792
-1792-1794 1794-1800 -1800-1804 1804-1814 -1814-1815 1815-1822
1860-1862 1862-1863 1863-1867 1867-1871 1871-1875 1875 1875-
1880-1880 -1883-1883-1887 1887-1887-1891 1891-1895
1895-1899 1899-1903.1903-1907.1907 Republican Democrat Republican
Democrat Republican Democrat Republican Democrat Republican (b)
State. 1849-1851 Democrat 1851-1852 „ 1856-1858
Know Nothing
1858-1860 Lecompton Democrat 1860 (6 days) „ „
United States
Censuses, reports on forests;
United States Biological
Survey, North American Fauna, No.
16, 1899, C. H. Merriam, " Biological Survey of Mt. Shasta ";
United States Department Agriculture, Contributions from United
States National Herbarium, iv., 1893, F. V. Colville, " Botany
of Death Valley Expedition ";
State Board of Fish
Commissioners, Reports, from 1887;
United States Fish
Commissioners, Annual Reports, from 1871, and
Bulletins from 1882; J. le
Conte, " Flora of the Coast Islands " (1887),
being
Bulletin No. 8 of California Academy of Sciences;
consult also its
Proceedings, Memoirs, and
Occasional
Papers; G. J. Peirce,
Studies on the Coast Redwood
(publication of Leland Stanford jr. University, 1901).
Agriculture. -
California
Agricultural Experiment Station, Bulletins from
1884;
Reports of the State Dairy Bureau, from 1898;
State Board of Horticulture, Reports, 1889-1894;
United States Censuses, 1890 and 1900, reports on
irrigation.
Industries. - J. S. Hittell,
Resources of California
(7th ed., San Francisco, 1879); J. S. Hittell,
Commerce and
Industries of the Pacific Coast (San Francisco, 1882); T. F.
Cronise,
Natural Wealth of California (San Francisco,
1868); E. W. Maslin,
Resources of California, prepared by
order of Governor H. H. Markham (Sacramento, 1893);
United
States Treasury, Bureau of Statistics, report by T. J. Vivian
on " Commercial, Industrial, Agricultural, Transportation and Other
Industries of California " (Washington 1890, valuable for whole
period before 1890);
United States Censuses, 1890 and
1900, reports on agriculture, manufactures, mines and fisheries;
California State Board of Trade (San Francisco),
Annual Report from 1890. On Mineral Industries: - J. R.
Browne, Report on " Mineral Resources of the States and Territories
west of the Rocky Mountains " (
United States Treasury, 2
vols., Washington, 1867-1868);
United States Geological Survey,
Annual Reports, Mineral Resources; consult also the
bibliographies of ,publications of the
Survey, issued as
Bulletins; California State Mining Bureau, Bulletins from
1888, note especially No. 30, 1904, by A. W. Vodges, " Bibliography
relating to the
Geology,
Palaeontology and
Mineral Resources of California " (2nd ed., the 1st being
Bulletin No. to, 1896);
California Debris Commission,
Reports (in
Annual Reports Chief of Engineers, United
States Army, from 1893).
Government. - E. F. Treadwell,
The Constitution of the State
of California Annotated (San Francisco, 1902);
Johns Hopkins University,
Studies in History and Political Science, xiii., R. D. Hunt, "
Genesis of California's
First Constitution ";
Annals of the American Academy of
Political and Social Science, xii., R. D. Hunt, " Legal Status
of California, 1846-1849 "; Reports of the various officers,
departments and administrative boards of the state government
(Sacramento), and also the
Appendix to the Journals of the
Senate and Assembly, which contains, especially in the earlier
decades of the state's history, many of these state official
reports along with valuable legislative reports of varied
character.
HIsTORY
Accounts of the valuable archives in Bancroft, and by Z. E.
Eldridge in
California Genealogical Society (1901);
elaborate bibliographies in Bancroft with analyses and
appreciations of many works. Of general scope and fundamental
importance is the work of two men, Hubert H. Bancroft and
Theodore H. Hittell. The
former has published a
History of California, 1542-1890 (7
vols., San Francisco, 1884-1890), also
California Pastoral,
1769-1848 (San Francisco, 1888),
California Inter-Pocula,
1848-1856 (San Francisco, 1888), and
Popular
Tribunals (2 vols., San Francisco, 1887). These volumes were
largely written under Mr. Bancroft's direction and control by an
office staff, and are of very unequal value; they are a vast
storehouse of detailed material which is of great usefulness,
although their judgments of men are often inadequate and
prejudiced. As regards events the histories are of substantial
accuracy and adequacy. Written by one hand and more uniform in
treatment and good judgment, is T. H. Hittell's
History of
California (4 vols., San Francisco, 1885-1897). The older
historian of the state was Francisco Palou, a Franciscan, the
friend and biographer of Serra; his " Noticias de la Nueva
California " (Mexico, 1857, in the
Doc. Hist. Mex., ser.
iv., tom. vi.-viii.; also San Francisco, 1874, 4 vols.) is no
longer of importance save for its historical interest. Of the
contemporary material on the period of Mexican domination the best
is afforded by R. H. Dana's
Two Years Before the Mast (New York, 1840, many later
and foreign editions); also A. Robinson,
Life in
California (New York, 1846); and
Alexander Forbes,
California: A History of Upper and Lower California from their
First Discovery to the Present Time (London, 1839); see also
F. W. Blackmar, " Spanish Institutions of the Southwest "
(
Johns Hopkins University Studies, 1891). A beautiful,
vivid and reputedly very accurate picture of the old society is
given in Helen Hunt Jackson's novel,
Ramona (New York,
1884). There is no really scientific separate account of mission
history; there are books by Father Z. Engelhart,
The
Franciscans in California (Harbor Springs, Michigan, 1899),
written entirely from a Franciscan standpoint; C. F. Carter,
Missions of Nueva California (San Francisco, 1900); Bryan
J. Clinch,
California and its Missions: Their History to the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (2 vols., San Francisco, 1904);
Francisco Palou,
Relation Historica de la Vida. .. del Fray
Junipero Serra (Mexico, 1787), the standard contemporary
source; the
Craftsman (Syracuse, N. Y., vol. v.), a series
of articles on " Mission Buildings," by G. W. James. On the case of
the Pious Fund of the missions see J. F. Doyle,
History of the
Pious Fund (San Francisco, 1887);
United States Department
of State," United States
v. Mexico. Report of J. H.
Ralston, agent of the United States and of
counsel in the matter of the
Pious Fund of the Californias " (Washington, 1902). On the " flush
" mining years the best books of the time are J. Q. Thornton's
Oregon and California (2 vols., New York, 1849); Edward
Bryant's
What I Saw in California (New York, 1848); W.
Shaw's
Golden Dreams (London, 1851); Bayard Taylor's
Eldorado (2 vols., New York, 1850); W. Colton's
Three
Years in California (New York, 1850); E. G. Buffum's
Six
Months in the Gold Mines; from a Journal of Three Years' Residence
in Upper and Lower California (London, 1850); J. T. Brooks'
Four Months among the Gold Finders (London, 1849); G. G.
Foster,
Gold Regions of California (New York, 1884). On
this same period consult Bancroft's
Popular Tribunals; D.
Y. Thomas, " A History of Military Government in Newly Acquired
Territory of the United States," in vol. xx. No. 2 (New York, 1904)
of
Columbia University Studies in
History, Economics, and Public Law; C. H. Shinn's
Mining
Camps: A Study in American Frontier Government (New York,
1885); J. Royce,
California. A Study of American Character,
1846-1856 (Boston, 1886); and, for varied pictures of mining
and frontier life, the novels and sketches and poems of
Bret
Harte. See also P. H.
Burnet,
Recollections and Opinions of an Old
Pioneer (New York,
1880); S. J. Field,
Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in
California (privately published,
copyright 1893).
The 1922 extension to the 1911 encyclopedia has updated
information on this subject.
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