and the wealth of a world lay entombed in the bosom of her solitary
mountains, and on the banks of her unexplored streams. Behold the contrast!
The hand of agriculture is now busy in every fertile valley and its toils
are remunerated with rewards which in no other portion of the world can be
credited. Enterprise has pierced every hill, for hidden treasure, and has
heaped up enormous gains. Cities and villages dot the surface of the whole
State. Steamers dart along our rivers, and innumerable vessels spread their
white wings over our bays. Not Constantinople, upon which the wealth of
imperial Rome was lavished,--not St. Petersburg, to found which the
arbitrary Czar sacrificed thousands of his subjects, would rival, in
rapidity of growth, the fair city which lies before me. Our state is a
marvel to ourselves, and a miracle to the rest of the world. Nor is the
influence of California confined within her own borders. Mexico, and the
islands nestled in the embrace of the Pacific, have felt the quickening
breath of her enterprise. With her golden wand, she has touched the
prostrate corpse of South American industry, and it has sprung up in the
freshness of life. She has caused the hum of busy life to be heard in the
wilderness "where rolls the Oregon," and but recently heard no sound,
"save its own dashings." Even the wall of Chinese exclusiveness has been
broken down, and the children of the sun have come forth to view the
splendor of her achievements.

But, flattering as has been the past, satisfactory as is the present, it is
but a foretaste of the future. It is a trite saying, that we live in an age
of great events. Nothing can be more true. But the greatest of all events
of the present age is at hand. It needs not the gift of prophecy to
predict, that the course of the world's trade is destined soon to be
changed. But a few years can elapse before the commerce of Asia and the
islands of the Pacific, instead of pursuing the ocean track, by way of Cape
Horn or the Cape of Good Hope, or even taking the shorter route of the