San Francisco Bay

“ In front, a scene ever-changing in color as the atmospheric conditions changed, was ranged in a semi-circular pageant, the wild panorama of San Francisco Bay, from Point Bonita and Golden Gate in the west, past the Marin County shore with Sausalito twinkling under the long, beautiful profile of Mount Tamalpais, past Belvedere with its white villas, Alcatraz and Goat Island floating in the harbor, to the foot-hills behind Oakland and Berkeley, where, in the east, Mount Diablo's pointed peak shimmered in the blue distance. ”

“ There is never lack of exercise in small-boat sailing, and the hard work is not only part of the fun of it, but it beats the doctors. San Francisco Bay is no mill pond. It is a large and draughty and variegated piece of water. I remember, one winter evening, trying to enter the mouth of the Sacramento. There was a freshet on the river, the flood tide from the bay had been beaten back into a strong ebb, and the lusty west wind died down with the sun. ”

“ The irregular surface of upturned, oily, wave-shaped clods took the appearance of a vast, black, chopping sea, that reached from the actual shore of San Francisco Bay to the low hills of the Coast Range. The sea-breeze that blew chilly over this bleak expanse added to that fancy, and the line of straggling whitewashed farm buildings, that half-way across lifted themselves above it, seemed to be placed on an island in its midst. Even the one or two huge, misshapen agricultural machines, abandoned in the furrows, bore an odd resemblance to hulks or barges adrift upon its waste. ”

“ Upon a high ledge of rock jutting out into the Pacific, at the very entrance to the Bay of San Francisco, stands the Cliff House, a white, wooden, many-windowed monstrosity with glazed verandas, cupolas, frivolous dormers, cheap, garish, bulky, gay, seemingly almost toppling into the water. Here come not only such innocently holidaying folk as Fancy Gray and Gay P. Summer, not only jaded tourists and the Sunday-outing citizens who lie upon the warm beach below and doze away a morning in the sun and wind. ”

“ The pointed tops of the fir trees, miles below us, look like stunted shrubbery; the buildings in Mill Valley seem like dolls' houses nestling among the trees; while far in the distance the blue waters of the bay glisten in the sunshine, Alcatraz Island rises out of its watery bed, and San Francisco stands silhouetted against the distant hills.
We are lost in wonder at the grand spectacle spread out before us; it is a very fairyland of enchantment, as if brought into being by the genii of Aladdin. ”

“ We retrace our steps, and after much searching, find a narrow trail almost hidden by vines and underbrush. Venturing in, we follow its tortuous and uneven course along the edge of the cañon, and, as the evening shadows gather, and the stars come out one by one, tired and dust-covered, we reach the valley, and enjoy the moonlight ride across the bay to San Francisco. ”

“ Then, as the sails are furled, and all made snug aloft and below, and the boats bob up and down on the long swells, straining at their moorings, the sun sinks down behind the ocean, leaving the wharf in shadow. The lights begin to gleam in the city, the tower of the ferry building gleams like a beacon, outlined with its thousands of incandescent lights, and the ferryboat takes us across the bay and home, to dream of queer-shaped sails, of ancient mariners, and the "Golden City" on the bay. ”

“ That there are so few noises from the ships in San Francisco Bay, is explained by the fact of their being but few men to make them—in many cases not a single soul aboard. All have deserted; either for good, and are gone to the “diggings,” or only for the night, to take part in the pleasures and dissipations of the town. Now and then a boat may be seen, putting off from, or returning to, the side of some vessel better manned—by its laborious movement, and the unmeasured stroke of oars, telling that even it lacks a full complement of crew. ”

“ There is the card of admission to the wharf, still lying on the table before us; that is tangible and real at least. The sunlight which the waters of the bay of San Francisco glistened under, and which flooded with its golden glory the mountains of Contra Costa and Alameda, looked and felt real. We can still hear the roar of many voices shouting in an unknown tongue, and see the stream of men in blue blouses, with shaven foreheads, and with long braided queues of glossy black hair and silk hanging down their backs. ”

“ If the people and government of the United States will consider for a moment the importance to the nation of a well-fortified and imposing city and seaport at San Francisco bay; the importance to the army and navy, to art and science, to commerce and manufactures; of the effect of a city with its broad surroundings, at once elegant and impressive, upon the nations round the Pacific and on all the world, there should be little trouble in its accomplishment. ”

“ The ocean pounds its western base, Mount Tamalpais is its proudest possession, it has a haunted looking lake; and a part of it embraces one of the many ramifications of the Bay of San Francisco, and commands a superb view of city and island and mountain. But it has a heavy brooding peace that seems to relax the social conscience. Entertaining is intermittent, and its inhabitants return to their winter in San Francisco deeply refreshed. It has its paradoxes like the rest of California. ”

“ The natural surroundings of the city are, however, decidedly handsome, and I doubt if there is a handsomer sight anywhere than San Francisco Bay, a bay in which all of the navies of the world could ride at anchor and still have plenty of room for the merchant vessels to come and go. The shores of this bay are lined with beautiful little suburban towns that are within easy reach by boat and sail from San Francisco, and it is in these towns that a large proportion of the people doing business in the city reside. ”

“ Sitting, like Rome of old, on its seven hills, San Francisco has long been noted for its beautiful site, clasped in, as it is, between the Pacific Ocean and its own splendid bay, on a peninsula of some five miles in width. Where this juts into the bay at its northernmost point rises a great promontory known as Telegraph Hill, from whose height homeless thousands have recently gazed on the smoke rising from their ruined homes. ”

“ About one hundred miles south of San Francisco lies the beautiful Monterey Bay. Here hundreds of fishing boats of all styles and sizes tug at their anchors, awaiting the turn of the tide to sail out and cast their lines for baracuta, yellowtail, and salmon, which abound in these waters to gladden the heart of the sturdy fisherman. One may forego the pleasure of fishing if so inclined, and take a sail in the glass-bottom boat, viewing through its transparent bottom the wonders of the mighty deep. ”

“ The sight has proved sufficient to thickly people the banks of the Sacramento—hitherto sparsely settled—and cover San Francisco Bay with ships from every quarter of the globe.
Not only is the harbour of Yerba Buena crowded with strange craft, but its streets with queer characters—adventurers of every race and clime—among whom may be heard an exchange of tongues, the like never listened to since the abortive attempt at building the tower of Babel. ”

“ North of the city the Golden Gate, a passage one mile wide and 4 miles long, connects the bay with the ocean. San Francisco Bay is a beautiful sheet of water completely shut in by wooded mountains 1000 to over 2000 feet high. The water is generally shallow far out from the shores, but the Golden Gate and the part of the bay adjoining San Francisco as well as a central channel running through its whole length have a depth of 30 to over 100 feet. ”

“ Fig. 47. Map of Western Coast of California Showing Position of San Francisco
San Francisco Bay, accessible by the Golden Gate, is the principal harbor on the Pacific Coast, and is, indeed, [Pg 263] one of the most magnificent harbors in the world. It is land-locked, that is, surrounded by a continuous land border except at its entrance through the Golden Gate. Including San Pablo Bay, it has a length of about fifty-five [Pg 264] miles, and varies in breadth from three to twelve miles. ”

“ Every afternoon, especially from October to May, a stiff breeze sweeps the city; every afternoon in the summer the fogs roll over it from the ocean. Though geraniums and fuchsias bloom through the year in the open, an overcoat is often needed in summer.
Communications and Commerce.—San Francisco Bay is the most important as well as the largest harbour on the Pacific coast of the United States. There is a difference of a fathom in the mean height of the tides. Deep-water craft can go directly to docks within a short distance of their sources of supply, around the bay. ”

“ On the northerly shore of San Francisco Bay, at a point where the Golden Gate broadens into the Pacific, stands a bluff promontory. It affords shelter from the prevailing winds to a semicircular bay on the east. Around this bay the hillside is bleak and barren, but there are traces of former habitation in a weather-beaten cabin and deserted corral. ”

“ Near to the mouth of San Francisco the land recedes, and passing through the narrow jaws of the Straits, which are framed in by bold, precipitous, and rocky cliffs, where violent currents are sweeping and foaming in eddying whirls around their base, you soon debouch into the outer bay. It is like a great lake, stretching away right and left, far into the heart of California. ”

“ Brook and Waterfall
California, the land of sunshine and roses, with its genial climate, its skies as blue as the far-famed skies of Venice, and its pure life-giving air, invites the lover of nature to take long tramps over hill and dale, mountain and valley, and to search out new trails in the rugged mountains.
It is a common sight to see parties of men and women meet at the ferry building, dressed in khaki suits, with knapsacks strapped on their backs, waiting to take the boat across the bay to some of the numerous places of interest. ”

“ Many people do not realize that San Francisco tips a peninsula projecting west and north from the coast of California. Between that peninsula and the mainland lies a blue arm of the blue San Francisco bay. So that when you have bisected the continent and come to what appears to be the edge of the western world, you must take a ferry to get to the city itself. ”

“ You are in San Francisco, at the Grand, at the Occidental, at the Lick House or the Cosmopolitan. In their luxurious beds you have slept off the fatigue of thirty-three hundred miles across the continent, and at their bountiful tables you have fed yourself into courage and spirit for new and further enterprise. You have come forth so fresh and brave that you feel ready for eight thousand miles more, straight across the tranquil Pacific; or climbing, unaided, the loftiest vertebral peak of that spinal range which furnishes the backbone of the continent. ”

“ In my case it is usually San Francisco Bay, than which no lustier, tougher, sheet of water can be found for small-boat sailing.
It really blows on San Francisco Bay. During the winter, which is the best cruising season, we have southeasters, southwesters, and occasional howling northers. Throughout the summer we have what we call the "sea- breeze," an unfailing wind off the Pacific that on most afternoons in the week blows what the Atlantic Coast yachtsmen would name a gale. They are always surprised by the small spread of canvas our yachts carry. ”

“ The ground, sometimes, as far as the eye can reach, is brilliant with color, a golden yellow the predominating hue. In the rainy season the Sacramento valley, the occasional victim of prolonged drouth, is sometimes visited by a freshet, which carries destruction with it; a mountain torrent, taking its rise near the base of Mt. Shasta, and fed by the snows of the Sierras, it is fitful in its demeanor. It finds its outlet through San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate to the Pacific.
San Francisco is on a peninsula which extends between the bay of that name and the ocean. ”

“ From the top of most mountains surrounding peaks shut off the view to some extent, but from the summit of Mount Tamalpais there is an unbroken view. Rising as it does almost from the shores of the bay, there are miles and miles of uninterrupted view. Far below us the ocean and the bay shimmer like a mirror, and majestic ocean liners, outward bound, look like toy boats. To the left Mount Hamilton rises out of the purple haze, while to the right Mount Diablo pushes its great bulk above the clouds. ”

“ San Francisco, from a drowsy, Mexican trading station, composed of a cluster of some fifty mud huts, adobe dwellings, and hide houses, situated upon a magnificent bay with lofty mountains in the distance, occasionally enlivened by the visit of a New Bedford or Nantucket whale ship in need of wood and water, or a Boston hide droger which took away tallow, hides, and horns, suddenly became one of the great seaports of the world. ”

“ It is a mere eyelet—a strait, giving access to a wide expanse of bay. So happy is the opening, and commodious the shelter afforded, that the reversal of the churlishness prevailing up to this point seems miraculous.
There is no doubt, when once the site is understood, as to why San Francisco is located just where it is. It has the only natural harbor between Astoria, Oregon, to the north, and San Diego, to the south. It bears, besides, with this advantage, such a relation to the resources of the back country, that it could not escape a destiny of greatness. ”