Page:The Tourist's California by Wood, Ruth Kedzie.djvu/127

 SAN FRANCISCO 99 Meanwhile new streets were graded and named, hills were moved to make way for them, and the water front extended by filling in the cove to the point where the ferry-house now stands. Four costly fires had swept the populous section before 1852. The invariably swift recuperation of the town prompted the Council to place upon the municipal seal the phoenix, that feathered phe- nomenon of Arabia which emerged immortal from a bed of flames. How prophetic was this deed only those can know who walked the smoking miles of broken streets in 1906 and who have, in this year of grace, looked upon rejuvenescent Market Street and the thoroughfares which tap it on both sides from the bay to Van Ness Avenue. Swept clean of dingy structures and unsightly alleys, the city has no rival in its modernity. In eight years $300,000,000 has been spent to make it new. It is the fifth richest of our cities, though but elev- enth in size. The trembler which wrenched asunder gas and water mains and unleashed the fire Faries also set in vibration a high-power motor of zeal and cour- age which energised the city, gave it new health and life beyond what it had ever known. Above Chinatown on the edge of a bank there stands a Green Bay Tree which, though burned to its heart, has sent out from its blackened trunk glistening new shoots. The Bay Tree and the