that pierce their rugged sides in every direction, are the arable lands of California. In a previous part of this notice we have shown that the present boundaries of the State give to her 155,550 square miles of superficial area, or 99,552,000 square acres, exclusive of islands adjacent to the coast. If it be granted that one half of California is covered with mountains and that one fourth is a desert waste, we have still one fourth, or 24,888,000 square acres of arable land left for productive purposes. Messieurs Gwin, Frémont, Wright and Gilbert, in their Memorial already cited, do not hesitate to assert, that, after all due allowances, three-fifths of the whole territory, embraced in the State of California, will never be susceptible of cultivation or useful to man. This would leave, as the remaining two-fifths, 62,220 square miles, or 39,820,000 square acres, constituting the total valuable agricultural and grazing district, and distributed at intervals over the whole surface within the actual boundaries.3
Such are some of the substantial elements of self-reliance and independence possessed by the new State, exclusive of her precious metallic deposits. The genial soil is well adapted for the growth