ry deep except on the bar at its mouth, where the depth of
water is thirty feet.

Since its early days the growth of the city has been very rapid. In 1900
it held 342,782 people, and the census estimate made from figures of the
city directory in 1904 gave it then a population of 485,000, probably
a considerable exaggeration. In it are mingled inhabitants from most
of the nations of the earth, and it may claim the unenviable honor of
possessing the largest population of Chinese outside of China itself,
the colony numbering over 20,000.

Of the pioneer San Francisco few traces remain, the old buildings having
nearly all disappeared. Large and costly business houses and splendid
residences have taken their place in the central portion of the city,
marble, granite, terra-cotta, iron and steel being largely used as
building material. The great prevalence of frame buildings in the
residence sections is largely due to the popular belief that they
are safer in a locality subject to earthquakes, while the frequent
occurrence of earth tremors long restrained the inclination to erect
lofty buildings. Not until 1890 was a high structure built, and few
skyscrapers had invaded the city up to its day of ruin. They will
probably be introduced more frequently in the future, recent experience
having demonstrated that they are in considerable measure earthquake
proof.

The city before the fire contained numerous handsome structures,
including the famous old Palace Hotel, built at a cost of $3,000,000 and
with accommodations for 1,200 guests; the nearly finished and splendid
Fairmount Hotel; the City Hall, with its lofty dome, on which $7,000,000
is said to have been spent, much of it, doubtless, political plunder;
a costly United States Mint and Post Office, an Academy of Science, and
many churches, colleges, libraries and other public edifices. The city
had 220 miles of paved streets, 180 miles of electric and 77 of cable
railway, 62 hotels, 16 theatres, 4 large libraries, 5 daily newspapers,
etc., together with 28 public parks.

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 t