ARTICLE III. CALIFORNIA: ITS PRODUCTS AND COMMERCE. WHILE the excitement which carried so many of our enterprising citizens to California, continued we refrained from publishing such accounts of its products and trade, as daily appeared in the public prints, lest we should seem to give countenance to the reckless adventures, which threatened, for a time, to drain the western States of their most useful population. But the excitement and emigration having subsided, the products and commerce of that region are now to be regarded as new and important facts in connection with the political, social, and commercial condition of the American States east of the Rocky Mountains. Henceforth, the vision of the statesman must embrace the western slope of the continent and the commerce of the broad Pacific; the political economist must review his former systems, and, adding a new chapter, republish with annotations; and the merchant, open a correspondence with new markets, which, until recently, were unknown. The production of gold in California is to be looked to in future with an interest not less intense, than that which was formerly observed in respect to the crops in England and on the continent of Europe. And the financial operations of capitalists, involving the successful prosecution of our great schemes of public improvement, are all to be affected by the mining operations west of the Rocky Mountains. In consideration of these facts we shall endeavor in future to collect and arrange the statistics relating to the products and trade of California for the benefit of our readers. The following article, which we extract from the Merchants' Magazine, is credited to the " Pacific News" and has the appearance of having been carefully made up. It is the fullest account that we have met with of the products and trade of California for the year 1850. EDITORS. FIFTY years ago the only evidences of human improvement, says the News, or of the fact that the hand of man has fashioned into shape anything appertaining to this locality, was the Presidio at the northern extremity of the borders of San Francisco, and the Mission at the southern line. Between the two was almost a barren waste, the extremes being occupied by a community of perhaps a thousand rough, uncivilized men, untutored in the arts, unlearned in the sciences, and following in the way their fathers trod, since first the footsteps of man were imprinted in the sands of a locality to which the eyes of the world are now turned in almost stupefied amazement. Look at San Francisco now! Had a dweller hereabouts of "fifty years ago," taken a Rip Van Winkle sleep, and awaked at the close of eighteen hundred and fifty," he would have fancied that the black art of magic had eclipsed itself in working a change scarcely less surprising than though the whole locality had been bodily transported to another region. The mud hovel, the tiled adobe buildings, the hide houses, have given way to splendid piles of brick and mortar that rise towering to the skies-monuments of the energy and ingenuity of a people that know no superiors, and acknowledge no equals,-while the people of that day have almost left the field of action, or become "hewers of wood and drawers of water" to the more enterprising and intelligent class, whom the golden sands of California-to leave out of question the "manifest destiny" which seems to urge on the American nationhave attracted thither. Fancy may conjure up, and almost give life and shape to, a thousand impossibilities, absurd and visionary, but the utmost stretch of imagination would fail to present a picture so wonderful in its aspects, as the past and present history of California. We have neither time nor space to extend the contrast for the entire State, but must confine ourselves to the principal city, where the changes which have taken place are more marked than in any other locality; where "fifty years ago" the extent of population did not exceed one thousand, but which number may be multiplied. at the "close of eighteen hundred and fifty," by at least thirtyfive. As the mines of California, and the shipments of gold dust are the principal features of attraction here and at home, we first enter upon that field, and annex the amounts which have been sent forward during each month, for the past year, as taken from the manifest at the custom house, and which, of course, does not include that taken by private hands. All the statistics presented below are compiled from official sources, and for a great portion of them we are indebted to the courtesy af Col. COLLIER, the Collector of the Port, and the gentlemanly clerks under him, who have charge of the books. AMOUNT OF GOLD DUST SHIPPED FROM JAN. 1ST TO DEC. 30TH, 1850. ARTICLE III. CALIFORNIA: ITS PRODUCTS AND COMMERCE. WHILE the excitement which carried so many of our enterprising citizens to California, continued we refrained from publishing such accounts of its products and trade, as daily appeared in the public prints, lest we should seem to give countenance to the reckless adventures, which threatened, for a time, to drain the western States of their most useful population. But the excitement and emigration having subsided, the products and commerce of that region are now to be regarded as new and important facts in connection with the political, social, and commercial condition of the American States east of the Rocky Mountains. Henceforth, the vision of the statesman must embrace the western slope of the continent and the commerce of the broad Pacific; the political economist must review his former systems, and, adding a new chapter, republish with annotations; and the merchant, open a correspondence with new markets, which, until recently, were unknown. The production of gold in California is to be looked to in future with an interest not less intense, than that which was formerly observed in respect to the crops in England and on the continent of Europe. And the financial operations of capitalists, involving the successful prosecution of our great schemes of public improvement, are all to be affected by the mining operations west of the Rocky Mountains. In consideration of these facts we shall endeavor in future to collect and arrange the statistics relating to the products and trade of California for the benefit of our readers. The following article, which we extract from the Merchants' Magazine, is credited to the "Pacific News" and has the appearance of having been carefully made up. It is the fullest account that we have met with of the products and trade of California for the year 1850. EDITORS. FIFTY years ago the only evidences of human improvement, says the News, or of the fact that the hand of man has fashioned into shape anything appertaining to this locality, was the Presidio at the northern extremity of the borders of San Francisco, and the Mission at the southern line. Between the two was almost a barren waste, the extremes being occupied by a community of perhaps a thousand rough, uncivilized men, untutored in the arts, unlearned in the sciences, and following in the way their fathers trod, since first the footsteps of man were imprinted in the sands of a locality to which the eyes of the world are now turned in almost stupefied amazement. Look at San Francisco now! Had a dweller hereabouts of "fifty years ago," taken a Rip Van Winkle sleep, and awaked at the close of "eighteen hundred and fifty," he would have fancied that the black art of magic had eclipsed itself in working a change scarcely less surprising than though the whole locality had been bodily transported to another region. The mud hovel, the tiled adobe buildings, the hide houses, have given way to splendid piles of brick and mortar that rise towering to the skies-monuments of the energy and ingenuity of a people that know no superiors, and acknowledge no equals,-while the people of that day have almost left the field of action, or become "hewers of wood and drawers of water" to the more enterprising and intelligent class, whom the golden sands of California-to leave out of question the "manifest destiny" which seems to urge on the American nationhave attracted thither. Fancy may conjure up, and almost give life and shape to, a thousand impossibilities, absurd and visionary, but the utmost stretch of imagination would fail to present a picture so wonderful in its aspects, as the past and present history of California. We have neither time nor space to extend the contrast for the entire State, but must confine ourselves to the principal city, where the changes which have taken place are more marked than in any other locality; where "fifty years ago" the extent of population. did not exceed one thousand, but which number may be multiplied at the "close of eighteen hundred and fifty," by at least thirtyfive. As the mines of California, and the shipments of gold dust are the principal features of attraction here and at home, we first enter upon that field, and annex the amounts which have been sent forward during each month, for the past year, as taken from the manifest at the custom house, and which, of course, does not include that taken by private hands. All the statistics presented below are compiled from official sources, and for a great portion of them we are indebted to the courtesy af Col. COLLIER, the Collector of the Port, and the gentlemanly clerks under him, who have charge of the books. AMOUNT OF GOLD DUST SHIPPED FROM JAN. 1ST TO DEC. 30TH, 1850. This statement is a sufficient answer to the too often expressed opinion that the mines were becoming exhausted, and that California must prove a failure by and by. For the two past seasons the summer months have produced the greatest amount of gold, the wet diggings being worked then to a greater extent than the dry. This accounts for the fact that the shipment in the month of August exceeded that of any other month in the year. Fixing the amount of gold exported, and which was regularly shipped and entered, for the period named above, at $30,000,000, in round figures, and add to it an estimate of $12,000,000, as having gone forward in private hands, and $6,000,000 retained for circulation, and the aggregate shows the enormous sum of $48,000,000; an amount exceeding one-third the total of all the products of the United States exported during the fiscal year ending June 30th, 1850, and nearly one-third the amount of imports; $12,000,000 more than the exports of the State of New York or Louisiana; $35,000,000 more than Alabama; $38,000,000 more than South Carolina; $40,000,000 more than Massachusetts or Maryland; $41,000,000 more than Georgia; and $43,000,000 more than Pennsylvania. And while viewing this statement, it will at the same time be borne in mind, that the States which show the largest amount of exports, are those which possess the advantage of having ports situated on the sea-board, and which do the carrying trade of States more remotely located. The eight States above enumerated, in fact do the labor of transporting to foreign ports, not only their own products, but those of the remaining twenty-two. From the same source of information, the custom house books, we have compiled the following monthly receipts of bullion, at this port, for the year. AMOUNT OF BULLION RECEIVED FROM JAN. 1st TO DEC. 31st, 1850. The largest proportion of this amount of bullion has been received from the Atlantic States, though a no inconsiderable amount has found its way from the old world-sent hither from both localities, for the reason that in no country in the world does an investment of money pay as well. Securities are ample, and the losses small, in comparison with the flood of disasters which sweep |