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 their
ruined homes. In the early days of golden promise a watchman was
stationed on this hill to look out for coming ships entering the Golden
Gate from their long voyage around the Horn and signal the welcome news
to the town below. From this came its name.

Cliffs rise on either side of the Golden Gate, and on one is perched the
Cliff House, long a famous hostelry. This stands so low that in storms
the surf is flung over its lower porticos, though its force is broken
by the Seal Rocks. A chief attraction to this house was to see the seals
play on these rocks, their favorite place of resort. The Cliff House was
at first said to have been swept bodily by the earthquake into the sea,