The North Beach property, after I had sold all my houses out, I closed my interest in.  It proved a failure to use for a wharf or shipping point.

During the seven months of summer the north-west wind blew there so hard every afternoon that it was not a safe place for vessels, and the property would never have any value for that purpose, and I do not think it has ever been used since for that.

In the winter months, which is generally the rainy season, the wind blows from the south for five months, and the other seven months it blows from the north-west over six thousand miles of ocean, and, consequently, is not impregnated with any decayed vegetable matter, and is as pure as air can be.  In San Francisco the sun would rise in a clear sky every morning and there would be a perfect calm; by 11 A.M. there would be a little breeze; by 2 or 3 o’clock, a gale.  When the sun set the wind would subside and there would be a perfect calm again.  Every day would be the same, month after month.  What was almost a gale on the coast would be a gentle breeze up in the mining district, in the interior.  The next day that air would be displaced by another gale from over the thousand miles of ocean, for it is impossible to imagine any other country with purer air.

During that time there were various visionary reports of new discoveries of gold regions, one of a lake that the sands of its banks were rich with gold.  All you had to do, to make your fortune, was to wash it out, which produced quite a sensation, and parties were organized to go there, but they never found it.  The next year after the purchase of my brig, there were small steamers constructed to run to Stockton, and they had already some sailing vessels put on, built there, and the price of freight had commenced falling, and I thought I had better sell my vessel while I could get a good price for it.  There was a man who came to me and said he wanted to buy it; that he had been a captain of a boat on Lake Erie.  I stated to him my price for it.  He said that was not out of the way, but he would like to try it one trip before closing the purchase, and referred me to a mercantile house there as his reference.  They said he had run vessels for them on Lake Erie when they were doing business in Buffalo.  I concluded that was entirely satisfactory; that that had evidently been his regular business.  He said he wanted to employ all his own hands.  I had the vessel, at the time, half loaded with freight, which I turned over to him.  I paid my men and discharged them, and told them the vessel was about to change owners, and put him in full possession of it.  Of course I had nothing more to do with it until he returned from the trip to Stockton; then I expected he would close the purchase as he said that the price was satisfactory to him.  After a few weeks I commenced looking for the return of my brig, but it did not come.  Finally I heard a rumor that the captain had left the