PREFACE
This little Tale is founded upon the well–known tradition, prevalent among the old inhabitants, that where the Golden Gate now is was once dammed up by a rock or rocks, and the whole Valley was a great inland sea with its entrance to the Ocean down near Monterey. The writer has seen, on Ohio Street, in this City, (which in 1850 was quite an elevated spot of ground,) the black sedimentary earth, at least two feet thick, which abounds in greater or less degree throughout the Valley, and which readily accounts for the wonderful fertility of the soil.
San Francisco, December, 1868.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by Chas. P. Kimball, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Northern District of California.