Page:The city that was; a requiem of old San Francisco (IA citythatwasrequi00irwi).djvu/14

THE CITY THAT WAS city, much like other cities and without its old atmosphere.

San Francisco lay on a series of hills and the lowlands between. These hills are really the end of the Coast Range of mountains, which stretch southward between the interior valleys and the Pacific Ocean. Behind it is the ocean; but the greater part of the town fronts on two sides on San Francisco Bay, a body of water always tinged with gold from the great washings of the mountain, usually overhung with a haze, and of magnificent color changes. Across the bay to the north lies Mount Tamalpais, about 3,000 feet high, and so close that ferries from the waterfront take one in less than half an hour to the little towns of Sausalito and Belvidere, at its foot.

Tamalpais is a wooded mountain, with ample slopes, and from it on the north stretch away ridges of forest land, [8]