2-889-312 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

San Francisco - General View, 1850. Engraving from a Daguerreotype, showing '...the Bay of San Francisco [which is] is of difficult navigation, on account of the winds, and fogs and adverse currents, as well as from the rocks with which it is beset. It is proposed to build here two forts, so as to command the mouth of the channel. The depth of water is sufficient to float a large navy. At its extremity is San Francisco, the capital of Upper California...the Bay of San Francisco, according to a French authority, will easily contain all the fleets of the world....when M. A. Haussman anchored in this bay, there were between three and four hundred ships moored here, presenting a forest of masts, from which floated the flags of every country of the globe. Here lay the Chinese junk, with its streaked pennant and its fantastic form, next the three-masted American liner, with its stars and stripes...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.