The Press., 1888-05-31
A FRIEND OF CALIFORNIA.
CALIFORNIA SEASON.


 Every month in the year is a gooe time to visit California. If you come in the spring. you will see the country in the most beautiful condition resp!endeut with verdure and flowers. If you arrive in the summer, you will fiId q most pleasant change from the heat of the Atlantic slope to the stimulating coolness of the Pacific If your trip is in the autumn, you will en joy the California fruit crop in its greatest variety and abundance; and if in the win ter, genial temperature, without snow and ice, will delight you. Come as soon as you can, and escI Ipe the extreme heat of the summer.
 SITUATION.
 San Francis co is remarkable in many re- apects, and perhaps in none more than in the beauty of the situation and of the sur- rounding scenery The city is built be- tween the ocean and bay, upon the end of a mountainous peninsula, which is thirty miles long, and terminates with low hills and small valley i'll d point six miles wi It.. The highest peaks within the city limits and these include an area about six miles square-ri4e to an elevation of 925 feet Telegraph Hill, 300 feet; Lone Noun tain, 468 feet Bernal Heights, 480 feet Park Hill, 57U feet, and Hundl Hull, half a mile , all within the city limits, besides many others less strongly marked The Hun dred Filled City would be an appropriate title for San Francisco. Many of them command panoramic views of the city, the bay, the plains beyond, and the ocean. Mt. St. Helena, fifty miles to the north ward, Mt. Hamilton as far to the south ward, Mt. D ablo thirty miles to the east ward. Tamatpais fifteen miles away to the north-westward, and the Farallones, thir ty-five miles to the westward, are magnifi cent corner pieces. The waterfront witE it's wharves the herbor with its shipping it's forests of masts, and it's busy ferry boats the Angel, Goat, Ale ,traz and Rec Rock Islands; the long mOles, wharves aud pile bridges, running out into the wa ter or crossing the caves; the cliffs tina line the Golden Gate the park the beaci with its surf i; tho turbld currents of th' river water, struggling with the clear tides entering from the sea the beautiful gar dens of Oakland and Berkeley the cleal cut slopes and gOrges of the Contra Cost' hills: aud the dark chaparral and the red wood crest of the mountains of MOrln combine to make q remarkable serles 0 views.
 Considering all these scenes as parts O a group. familiarity with all of which i necessary to get cDrrt c: idaa of SH Francisco's situation, I venture to asser that it surpasses that of any other grea city. By many noted travellers Maple has been declared uneqnaled among grea cities ill the beauty of it's surroundini scenery; but these in their turn, afte all, do not equal, or even approach, th landscape attractiveness of the Cahf"rui metropolis.
 SITE.
 The site of land upon which tn" city In been built consisted, in 1S49, of stee ridges and deep ravines. The nearest leN } el and dry land was at the mission. Tn place, in its natural condition, was unfit fo occupation but. by cutting down hlis an filling up hollows, and converting the mu fats and anchorage in front of the tow into land. The city contains more thn 300 acres of ''n1ade ground, a a 'arg |, part of the business is done where tine "; , ter stood in 1850 A large ship, lle'l th