Libraries.
In these windy and dusty afternoons, when nature seems to frown, art and literature invite you within, and proffer quiet retreats with the best of company—good books. For a city as young and as distinctively absorbed in business, San Francisco has amply provided for the gratification of scientific research or literary taste. The chief libraries are the Mercantile, the Mechanics' Institute, the Odd Fellows', the Pioneers', and the Y. M. C. A., each of which is located in the building of the same name, presently to be noticed. Besides these, at the What Cheer House, and at Woodward's Gardens, one finds two or three thousand well selected standard volumes, free to guests and visitors.