Page:The Tourist's California by Wood, Ruth Kedzie.djvu/125

 SAN FRANCISCO 97 broad inland lake, communicating by a narrow channel with the ocean. This channel, as the tra- dition of the aborigines runs, was opened by an earthquake which a few centuries since convulsed the continent." The five hundred residents who in 1847 made up the community of San Francisco had as great con- fidence as Fremont in the future activities of the bay and contiguous country. They were already discussing a means of enlisting the interest of the East when Marshall's fruitful blasts shook the whole continent and sent the names " California " and " San Francisco " flaming from tongue to tongue. New York streets quickly thronged with " a new class of men in broad felt hats, loose rough coats and high boots." The bakers of sea-bread kept their ovens hot day and night. Makers of oil- cloth, bowie knives and seasick nostrums could not fill the demand. " On an average, two or three vessels leave this port daily for California," so we are informed by the Pocket Guide to California, printed at New York in 1849. Its advertisers recounted the merits of mining tools, stoves, mess- hampers, tents, daguerreotypes, emigrant wag- ons, snuff, salt-water soap, phrenologists, and Mexican stage lines ; they addressed their readers as " Adventurers to California ! " and " Gold