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GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01717 1866
HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA
History of California
SPECIAL ARTICLES
-
DARIUS OGDEN MILLS
Born at North Salem, New York, September 5, 1825; died at Millbrae, Cal., January 3, 1910; came to California in 1849 and went into business in Sacramento. He soon opened a bank there under the firm name of D. O. Mills and Com- pany, still in existence as the National Bank of D. O. Mills and Company. After retiring from the Bank of California in 1877 he removed to New York, though retaining his large interests in California.
History of California
SPECIAL ARTICLES
EDITED BY ZOETH SKINNER ELDREDGE
VOLUME FIVE
REGA
NEW YORK THE CENTURY HISTORY COMPANY 54 & 56 DEY STREET
Printed by John C. Rankin Company for The Century History Company
COPYRIGHT BY THE CENTURY HISTORY COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Publication Office 54 & 56 Dey Street, New York, N. Y. U. S. A.
INTRODUCTION TO THE FIFTH VOLUME
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T HE special articles in this volume will give some idea of what California is, what her citizens have done, and what they may reasonably be expected to do to increase the sum of human knowledge and to promote the welfare and happiness of the people.
It is hard to understand Spain's long neglect of California after the voyages of Ulloa, Cabrillo, and Vizcaino, after Francis Drake sailed his Golden Hinde up the coast and proclaimed the sovereignty of Queen Elizabeth, leaving with the Indians a portrait of their queen in the form of a sixpence nailed to a post at Point Reyes. It was not until the advent of the Russians on the northern coast nearly two hundred years later, combined with the attitude of the English cabinet, that Spain awoke to the necessity of protecting her rights. And even in this Spain's action was feeble and lacking in vigor; so much so that navigators of other nations marveled that she could maintain herself in California with so small an armed force. As Gessler raised his hat on a pole for all to do it reverence, so Spain planted in California the royal standard of Castile and Leon, as if she expected the sight of it to overaw all who contemplated invasion or insult.
Spanish rule in California came to an end in 1821 on the establishment of the Mexican republic, and the Mexican title was extinguished in 1848 by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Seventy years ago barefooted friars were pushing from mission to mission, converting the heathen, while the ranchero prince, with his cattle on a thousand hills, entertained all comers with magnificent hospitality. The exports of California
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INTRODUCTION
consisted of a few cargoes of hides and a little grain. Today what a change! The annual products of the orchards and vineyards alone amount to $100,000,000, while another hundred million dollars is taken from the earth in metals and in mineral oils. The country that was said by early travelers to be unfit for cultiva- tion was for many years the largest exporter of wheat of any state in the union.
Along with the development of material wealth is the progress of education and the cultivation of the arts and sciences. And what of the Californian! In him is concentered the romance and chivalry of Spain, the glory of England, the energy and valor of the empire builders; he dwells in the Terrestrial Paradise,* and the fruits and flowers of the earth are his.
"He made him ride on the high places of the earth,
That he might eat the increase of the fields;
And he made him suck honey out of the rock,
And oil out of the flinty rock;
Butter of kine, and milk of sheep,
With fat of lambs,
And rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats,
With the fat of kidneys of wheat;
And thou didst drink the pure blood of the grape."
San Francisco, May, 1914.
*When Columbus sailed on his fourth voyage, in which he hoped to pass through what we now know as the Isthmus of Panama, and sail northwestward, he wrote to his king and queen that thus he should come as near as men could come to "the Terrestrial Paradise." (Edward Everett Hale in Atlantic Monthly for February, 1864, cf. also, Las Sergas de Esplandian, Seville, 1510.)
CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS VOLUME
CHARLES E. BUNDSCHU ("Viticulture in California") is a wine merchant; was born in San Francisco in 1878; educated in the public schools, taking a two years special course in Viticulture at the University of California, class of 1901, and is at present serving as State Viticultural Commissioner.
WILLIAM WALLACE CAMPBELL ("A Brief History of Astronomy in California") is Director of the Lick Obser- vatory, University of California, and Astronomer in charge of the Spectroscopic Department. Professor Campbell was born on a farm in Hancock County, Ohio, in 1862, and received his education in the public schools and the Univer- sity of Michigan, receiving the degree of B. S .; has honorary degrees, M. S. University of Michigan, Sc. D. University of Western Pennsylvania, LL. D. University of Wisconsin; has organized and taken charge of expeditions for scientific observation to Santiago, Chile; Jeur, India; Thomaston, Georgia; Alhambra, Spain; Flint Island, Pacific Ocean; and to Russia; is member of many scientific societies in Europe and America and has received a number of gold medals for scientific work; is author of text book on Elements of Prac- tical Astronomy, of a volume on Stellar Motions, and many papers published in scientific journals.
ALBERT E. CHANDLER ("Irrigation in California") is an Irrigation Engineer, Water-Right Specialist, and Assistant Professor of Irrigation, University of California. He was born in San Francisco in 1872; educated in the public schools, University of California, College of Civil Engineer- ing, 1896. Has served in U. S. Geological Survey; as State Engineer of Nevada; U. S. Reclamation Service, and is the author of several technical works and articles.
ALICE EASTWOOD ("Some General Features of the California Flora") is Botanist of the California Academy of Sciences. She was born in Toronto, Canada, in 1859, and was graduated at the East Denver High School, and is author of a number of books and papers on Botany.
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HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA
ZOETH SKINNER ELDREDGE ("Land Titles in California," "George Davidson and the Coast and Geodetic Survey," "Banking in California," "San Francisco, the Earthquake and Fire of 1906") is a retired banker. He was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1846, and came to California in 1868. He was weigher and acting cashier, U. S. Mint at Carson City, Nevada, 1869-73; Secretary and Manager Virginia Savings Bank, 1879; Cashier Pacific Bank, San Francisco, 1883; National Bank Examiner, 1893-1900; California State Bank Commissioner, 1904-05; President National Bank of the Pacific, San Francisco, 1905-09; is author of "The March of Portola," 1909, "The Beginnings of San Francisco," 1912, and is editor of this History of California.
JOHN M. ELLIOTT ("The City of Los Angeles") is one of the best known bankers in California and is and has been for the past thirty years president of the First National Bank of Los Angeles. He was born in Pendleton, South Carolina, in 1844; was educated at the Chatham Academy, Savannah, Georgia, and the Georgia Military Institute, leaving the latter to enlist in the confederate army, serving for two and a half years as a private, to the close of the war. He has served on the Los Angeles Board of Education and for five years, 1902-1907, on the Los Angeles City Water Board.
GEORGE HAMLIN FITCH ("California Books and Authors") is a newspaper man, and since 1880 has been Night Editor and Literary Editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. He was born in Lancaster, New York, in 1852; was educated in the public schools of San Francisco, Fort Edward Institute, New York, and Cornell University, class of 1875; from 1878 to 1879 was Assistant City Editor of New York Tribune. Mr. Fitch is the author of "Comfort Found in Good Old Books," "Modern English Books of Power," "The Critic in the Orient" and "The Critic in the Occident."
xiii
CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS VOLUME
HARRY FOOT HODGES ("The Panama Canal") is Colonel, Corps of Engineers, U. S. A., Member and Assistant Chief Engineer Isthmian Canal Commission; was born in Massa- chusetts in 1860; graduated at West Point Military Academy, 1881, number four in his class; second lieutenant of engineers, 1881; first lieutenant, 1883; captain, 1893; lieutenant colonel U. S. V. engineers, 1898; colonel, 1899; mustered out of volunteers, January 25, 1899; major, engineers, 1901 ; lieutenant-colonel, 1907; colonel, 1911.
ALFRED L. KROEBER ("The Indians of California") is Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Cali- fornia; was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, 1876; graduated Columbia College, class of 1896; degrees, A. B., A. M., Ph. D., and has written a large number of papers on Anthro- pology and related subjects.
ROBERT NEWTON LYNCH ("Development of California") is vice-president and manager of the California Develop- ment Board and also vice-president and manager of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. He was born in Sharpeville, Pennsylvania, in 1875; educated for the law and in theology in State Normal School, Chico, California, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, and in Regents Park College, London University, class of 1902. Has served as Baptist Minister and secretary of various commerical bodies; Commissioner for California to Turin International Exposition, Turin, Italy, 1911, and to Ghent International Exposition, Ghent, Belgium, 1913.
ALEXANDER G. MCADIE ("The Climate of California") occupies the Abbott Lawrence Rotch chair of Meteorology, Harvard University, and is Director of Blue Hill Obser- vatory, Massachusetts; he was born in New York in 1863, and was educated at the College of the City of New York and Harvard University; was professor of Meteorology, United States Weather Bureau, and for some fifteen years stationed at San Francisco. His literary work includes
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HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA
"Climatology of California," "Protection from Frost," "The Ephebic Oath," "Clouds and Fogs of San Francisco," and other books.
LOYE HOLMES MILLER ("The Fauna of California") is the head of the Department of Biology of the State Normal School, Los Angeles, and Associate Professor of Comparative Anatomy, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Los Angeles. He was born in Minden, Louisiana, in 1874; graduated University of California, holding the degrees of B. S., M. S., and Ph. D .; has served as instructor and associate professor in Oahu College, Honolulu, in University of California; as naturalist and collector on various scientific expeditions, and has published a large number of works and papers on the fauna and Paleontology of California.
EDMOND O'NEILL ("The Development of the Petroleum Industry in California") is Professor of Chemistry, Univer- sity of California; was born in Nashville, Tennessee, 1858; educated in San Francisco public schools, University of California, class of 1879, Strassburg, Germany; Paris, France; and is consulting chemist and adviser for a number of California cities in regard to water, sewage, gas, and other utilities; is a member and officer of a number of scientific societies and author of many articles of technical nature published in chemical journals.
Honorable GEORGE C. PARDEE ("Conservation in California") was born in San Francisco, 1857; educated in public schools and City College of San Francisco; graduated University of California, Ph. B., 1879; graduated University of Leipzig, M. D., 1885; member Oakland Board of Health, 1889-91; Oakland City Council, 1891-93; Mayor of Oakland, 1983-95; Regent of University of California, 1889-1903; Governor of California, 1903-07; member National Conser- vation Commission, 1907-08; President two terms National Irrigation Congress; Director for California of National
CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS VOLUME
XV
Conservation Congress and National River and Harbors Congress; Chairman California Conservation Commission since 1911.
BRUCE PORTER ("Art and Architecture") is a well known artist of San Francisco, born there in 1865. He received his education in the public schools and his art training in London and Paris and in Italy.
G. W. SHAW ("The Agronomics of California") is an authority on agricultural chemistry and soil selection. He is a graduate of Dartmouth, class of 1887, and holds that college's degrees of A. B., A. M., and Ph. D. Has been professor of chemistry, physics, agricultural technology, etc., at Whitman College, Washington, Pacific University, Oregon, Oregon State Agricultural College, Corvallis, University of California, and head of California's Agronomy department, besides conducting soil investigations for U. S. Department of Agriculture and Colorado Sugar Manufac- turing Company. He is author of many papers and bulletins on agricultural subjects.
JAMES PERRIN SMITH ("Outline of the Geology of Cali- fornia") is Professor of Paleontology in Leland Stanford, Jr., University ; was born in Cokesburg, South Carolina, 1864; A. B. in classical course, Wofford College, South Carolina, 1884; A. M. Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, 1886; Ph. D. Gottingen, Germany, 1892; was Assistant Geologist, Geo- logical Survey of Arkansas, 1888-1890; Geologist, U. S. Geological Survey, 1896; Professor of Paleontology at Stan- ford since 1892; has published numerous scientific articles in various journals.
CRITTENDEN THORNTON ("History of the Laws of Cali- fornia") is a lawyer of high standing in San Francisco. He was born in Eutaw, Greene county, Alabama, in 1849; was educated at the City College of San Francisco; has practiced his profession in Nevada and for the past thirty years in California.
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HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA
ORSON F. WHITNEY ("The Mormons in the History of California") known in Utah as Bishop Whitney, was born in Salt Lake City in 1855; son of a pioneer of 1847; was educated in the public schools and in the University of Deseret, now University of Utah; has been newspaper reporter and editor, Chancellor of University of Deseret, 1886-90; Professor of Theology and English, Brigham Young College, 1896-97; Assistant Church Historian, lecturer, preacher, etc .; member of City Council; City Treasurer; Chief Clerk of House of Representatives, Utah Legislature; member of Constitutional Convention; State Senator; has published "Life of Heber C. Kimball," "History of Utah," and other works.
EDWARD JAMES WICKSON ("The California Fruit In- dustry") is Professor of Horticulture in the University of California. He was born in Rochester, New York, in 1848; was graduated at Hamilton College, 1869, with degree A. B .; A. M., 1872; has been connected with the Department of Agriculture of University of California since 1891 ; was one of the organizers of the State Horticultural Society and is its sec- retary; is the author of "California Fruits and How to Grow Them," "The California Vegetables in Garden and Field."
CHARLES G. YALE ("Mining in California") is Statistician, U. S. Geological Survey. He was born in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1847; was educated in the public schools of San Francisco and the City College, graduating in the class of 1870; studied chemistry, assaying, etc., under Professor Thomas Price; has had field experience as assayer, miner, and millman; was for many years mining statistician, U. S. Mint at San Francisco, and the California State Mining Bureau; for twenty years editor Mining and Scientific Press of San Francisco, mining editor of other San Francisco papers, correspondent of Engineering and Mining Journal of New York, and a large contributor to U. S. Mint reports, State Mining reports, census reports, and to various mining and other publications, and is today perhaps the best authority in California on mining matters.
CONTENTS
PAGE
BUNDSCHU (CHARLES E.) Viticulture in California. 603
CAMPBELL (WILLIAM WALLACE)
A Brief History of Astronomy in California.
231
CHANDLER (ALBERT E.)
301
Irrigation in California
EASTWOOD (ALICE)
Some General Features of the Californian Flora .39
ELDREDGE (ZOETH SKINNER)
Land Titles in California .
141
George Davidson and the Coast and Geodetic Survey
569
Banking in California. .
423
San Francisco: The Earthquake and Fire of 1906. 505
ELLIOTT (JOHN M.)
The City of Los Angeles.
557
FITCH (GEORGE HAMLIN) 487
California Books and Authors
HODGES (HARRY FOOT)
The Panama Canal.
525
KROEBER (ALFRED L.)
The Indians of California
119
LYNCH (ROBERT NEWTON)
The Development of California
MCADIE (ALEXANDER)
587
The Climate of California .
.79
MILLER (LOYE HOLMES)
The Fauna of California.
O'NEILL (EDMOND)
53
The Development of the Petroleum Industry in California
345
PARDEE (GEORGE C.)
Conservation in California
363
PORTER (BRUCE)
Art and Architecture in California
461
SHAW (G. W.)
The Agronomics of California
275
SMITH (JAMES PERRIN)
Outline of the Geology of California 3
THORNTON (CRITTENDEN)
History of the Laws of California
397
WHITNEY (ORSON F.)
The Mormons in the History of California
163
WICKSON (EDWARD JAMES)
The California Fruit Industry
YALE (CHARLES G.)
.321
California's Mining History
199
ILLUSTRATIONS
Darius Ogden Mills. Frontispiece Diseño of San Antonio Rancho. Facing page 156
Brigham Young.
¥
164
Philip St. George Cooke
168
Gull Monument
178
Henry W. Bigler
182
Los Angeles Chapel
196
Joseph W. Winans
432
Plate I. The Adopted Plan of the Panama Canal.
536
Plate 2. The Gatun Dam.
542
Plate 3. The Gatun Locks.
544
Plate 4. Cross-section of Lock Chamber
546
George Davidson.
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OUTLINE OF THE GEOLOGY OF CALIFORNIA
C ALIFORNIANS may well be proud of the geologists that have contributed to science in this field, for there are some great names among them, names as highly honored in the scientific centres of Europe as in America.
PRINCIPAL WORKERS IN GEOLOGY IN CALIFORNIA
The pioneer work was done by the geologists of the Pacific Railroad survey in the early fifties, William P. Blake, Jules Marcou and Thomas Antisell. Blake was a keen-sighted, practical geologist whose work still stands as a model for accuracy. Marcou was a brilliant but hasty and erratic generalizer, who dared to make a geologic map of the state at a time when the geology had not yet been outlined. Antisell was a patient and plodding student who laid the framework of our knowledge of the geology of the Coast ranges. Associ- ated with them, although he was never in California, was T. A. Conrad, the greatest authority on the Tertiary paleontology of America.
Immediately after them, and still among the pioneers, came John B. Trask, our first state geologist, whose name we are still proud to commemorate in the many species named after him.
Then came the golden age in the great geological survey conducted by J. D. Whitney and William M. Gabb, in the sixties. We are still proud that the great- est geologist of his time in America should have honored California by making it the field of his scientific studies during this decade. Gabb, too, was a genius of the first rank, and would have become one of the foremost among American men of science had he not been cut
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HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA
off by premature death. With this survey, too, were associated Clarence King, W. H. Brewer, and Leo Lesquereux, famous in other lines of activity. It is peculiarly fortunate that in a new and difficult region, men of such high attainments ahould have laid the foundation.
After this period came genial Professor Joseph Le Conte, whose deep philosophy and charming simple expression of it, and whose lovable personality brought additional glory to California.
A marked increase in scientific activity came in the eighties and early nineties, through the investigations of the United States Geological survey, represented by George F. Becker, Joseph S. Diller, Waldemar Lindgren, F. H. Knowlton, and Henry W. Turner, whose mas- terly delineations of the intricate geology of the Sierra Nevada, and especially of the gold belt, have won the admiration of the scientific world. Associated with them in deciphering the geology of the Coast ranges was William H. Dall, the world's greatest conchologist, who has given so liberally of his stores of learning in unraveling our Tertiary paleontology and making known the wealth of mollusks in our living fauna.
The modern era begins in the opening of the nineties with the coming of Andren C. Lawson and John C. Branner to the state. They, with their associates, have begun the superstructure, and have made great steps toward deciphering the physical history of California.
No history of the geology of California would be complete without the name of Harold W. Fairbanks, who is inseparably connected with the study of physi- cal geography in our region. John C. Merriam's won-
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OUTLINE OF GEOLOGY
derful discoveries of fossil mammals, and his masterly philosophic discussions of the extinct animals that swam in our seas and roamed over our lands, have become world famous. And Ralph Arnold has added a new chapter to our history in his careful stratigraphic and paleontologic studies that have made our Tertiary and Quaternary faunas known everywhere.
There are few regions in the world where the records of geologic history are more complete than in California, for every major division is represented by marine sedi- ments, and many of them also by continental deposits. This is made possible by the geographic position between two ancient and persistent bodies of water, the Pacific ocean, and the Great Basin sea, which alter- nately encroached on what is now California, each one supplying that part of the record which the other omitted. The Pacific ocean still washes the western shore of California, now encroaching, now retreating; but the Great Basin sea is long since dead, and would be buried, were it not for the later uplifts that rear its old sediments in the mountain ranges of the desert region.
Great Basin Sea. The older portion of the geologic record, from the Cambrian to the top of the Middle Jurassic, has been preserved chiefly in the sediments of the Great Basin sea, while during those ages that part of California which was afterward covered by the Pacific ocean was either above water, or has had its sediments so much metamorphosed that their age is not positively determinable.
The Great Basin Sea of Paleozoic and early Mesozoic time covered approximately the area of the Great
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HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA
Basin of the present age, sometimes more, and some- times less, dwindling away gradually from the noble expanse of the Carboniferous Sea to the shrunken remnant in early Mesozoic time. This basin at all times was directly connected with the Pacific ocean, by a broad passage to the northwest; and during a part of the Paleozoic, especially during the period of the Coal Measures, it was joined to the Mississippian Sea. At all other times it was exclusively western, and the marine Triassic and Jurassic history of the United States is its peculiar property. It has played very much the same part in the geologic history of North America as the ancient Mediterranean or Tethys did in the history of Europe, though on a much smaller scale, since it was epicontinental, and not intercon- tinental. The Cambrian, Silurian, and Devonian sediments of California are mere fragments of little area, representing only a small part of the entire time of those ages. The Carboniferous, however, is fairly complete, all three major divisions being fully repre- sented by marine faunas. The Triassic period is well represented, the Upper Triassic of California being the standard for this epoch in America, and comparing very favorably with the rest of the world in the richness of its faunas, and the completeness of the record. The Jurassic section of the Great Basin sea is the most complete in the United States, having portions of each stage, but it is fragmentary, the faunas being poorly preserved and scanty. It is not com- parable with the Jurassic record of Alaska and British Columbia, and nowhere approaching that of South
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OUTLINE OF GEOLOGY
America. With this epoch the marine column of the Great Basin ends abruptly, as the sea was obliterated at the beginning of the Cordilleran revolution.
Pacific Record. The marine record of California from the bottom of the Upper Jurassic through the Quaternary was kept exclusively by the Pacific ocean. This was divided between two provinces, or areas of sedimentation, the Sierra Nevada, and the Coast ranges, but the distribution was not balanced. The Pacific province is one of the great geosynclines, with sediments approximating seventy thousand feet in thickness, and undergoing subsidence more or less continuously, though spasmodically, from the Triassic onward, interrupted by great periods of orogenic activity. This is a part of that grand structural feature of the continent of which the Great valley, the Gulf of California, the Willamette valley, and Puget sound are remnants.
The recognizable Paleozoic and early Mesozoic sediments are confined to the Sierra Nevada, while the Cretaceous and Tertiary strata are most complete in the Coast ranges. The Sierran record is fragmen- tary, the formations being incomplete, separated by great unconformities, including great masses of tuffs and igneous rocks, and showing evidence of important recurring orogenic and volcanic activity.
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