The exact locality of Drake’s Bay was for years a vexed question.  So able an authority as Alexander von Humboldt says:  “The port of San Francisco is frequently confounded by geographers with the Port of Drake, farther north, under 38 deg. 10’ of latitude, called by the Spaniards the Puerto de Bodega.”

The truth is, Bodega Bay lies some miles north of Drake’s Bay—­or Jack’s Harbor, as the sailors call it; the latter, according to the log of the Admiral, may be found in latitude 37 deg. 59’ 5”; longitude 122 deg. 57-1/2’.  The cliffs about Drake’s Bay resemble in height and color, those of Great Britain in the English Channel at Brighton and Dover; therefore it seems quite natural that Sir Francis should have called the land New Albion.  As for the origin of the name California, some etymologists contend that it is derived from two Latin words:  calida fornax; or, as the Spanish put it, caliente fornalla,—­a hot furnace.  Certainly it is hot enough in the interior, though the coast is ever cool.  The name seems to have been applied to Lower California between 1535 and 1539.  Mr. Edward Everett Hale rediscovered in 1862 an old printed romance in which the name California was, before the year 1520, applied to a fabulous island that lay near the Indus and likewise “very near the Terrestrial Paradise.”  The colonists under Cortez were perhaps the first to apply it to Lower California, which was long thought to be an island.

The name San Francisco was given to a port on the California coast for the first time by Cermenon, who ran ashore near Point Reyes, or in Drake’s Bay, when voyaging from the Philippines in 1595.  At any rate, the name was not given to the famous bay that now bears it before 1769, and until that date it was unknown to the world.  It is not true, as some have conjectured, that the name San Francisco was given to any port in memory of Sir Francis Drake.  Spanish Catholics gave the name in honor of St. Francis of Assisi.  Drake was an Englishman and a freebooter, who had no love for the saints.

That the Bay of San Francisco should have so long remained undiscovered is the more remarkable inasmuch as many efforts were made to survey and settle the coast.  California was looked upon as the El Dorado of New Spain.  It was believed that it abounded in pearls, gold, silver, and other metals; and even in diamonds and precious stones.  Fruitless expeditions, private or royal, set forth in 1615, 1633 and 1634; 1640, 1642 and 1648; 1665 and 1668.  But nothing came of these.  A hundred years later the Spanish friars established their peaceful missions, and in 1776 the mission church of San Francisco was dedicated.

[Illustration:  The Outer Signal Station at the Golden Gate]

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At last the fog began to show signs of life and motion.  Huge masses of opaque mist, that had shut us in like walls of alabaster, were rent asunder and noiselessly rolled away.  The change was magical.  In a few moments we found ourselves under a cloudless sky, upon a sparkling sea, flooded with sunshine, and the Golden Gate wide open to give us welcome.