were in the harbor 623 sailing vessels, 12 steamers; and 140 sail vessels and 8 steamers at Sacramento City, Stockton and other places up the rivers. Of this total of 783 vessels, 120 were foreign and 663 American. The amount of tonnage at San Francisco, was 1,020,476, and 100,000 in towns and cities on the Sacramento and San Joaquin; but of this large sum 800,000 tons at least were unemployed.
The singular history of the unprecedented rise in the value of merchandize or the necessaries of life in California after the discovery of gold, is a chapter full of surprising and fantastical incidents, but our narrowing space denies us the tempting privilege of recounting it in this volume.
In all these calculations and estimates we must occasionally approach the dangerous domain of speculation, and in this category must we also place most of our information respecting the population and towns of California. Population is of course constantly augmenting under these great temptations for the rapid accumulation of fortune; yet with society in such a transition state, the true ratios or numbers of actual increase cannot be accurately obtained.