[9] Revolutionary title, 1836-1838.
[10] Appointed 1837, never recognized in the North.
CALIFORNIA, LOWER (Baja California), a long narrow peninsula between the Gulf of California and the Pacific Ocean, forming a territory of the republic of Mexico. Pop. (1895), 42,245; (1900) 47,624. Lower California is a southward extension of the State of California, United States, and is touched by only one of the Mexican states, that of Sonora on the E. The peninsula is about 760 m. long and from 30 to 150 m. wide, and has an area of 58,328 sq. m. It is traversed throughout its entire length by an irregular range of barren mountains, which slopes toward the Pacific in a succession of low hills, but breaks down abruptly toward the Gulf. The coast has two or three good sheltered bays, that of La Paz on the Gulf side and of Magdalena on the Pacific side being best known. The coast is bordered by numerous islands, especially on the eastern side. The general appearance of the surface is arid and desolate, partly because of the volcanic remains, and partly because of the scanty rainfall, which is insufficient to support vegetation other than that of the desert except in the deeper mountain valleys. The northern part is hot and dry, like southern California, but the southern part receives more rain and has some fertile tracts, with a mild and pleasant climate. The principal natural product in this region is orchil, or Spanish moss, but by means of irrigation the soil produces a considerable variety of products, including sugar cane, cotton, cassava, cereals, tobacco and grapes. Horses, sheep and cattle are raised in the fertile valleys, but only to a limited extent. The territory is rich in minerals, among which are gold, silver, copper, lead, gypsum, coal and salt. The silver mines near La Paz were worked by the Jesuits as early as 1700. There are also extensive pearl fisheries in the Gulf, La Paz being the headquarters of the industry, and whale fisheries on the W. coast in the vicinity of Magdalena Bay. The development of mining and other industries in the territory has led to an extension of the California railway system southward into the peninsula, with the Mexican government’s permission, the first section of 37 m. from the northern frontier being completed and opened to traffic in 1907. The territory is divided into two districts, the northern having its capital at the insignificant little village of La Ensenada, on Todos Santos Bay, and the southern having its capital at La Paz, at the head of a deep bay opening into the Gulf. La Paz is a port of call for steamships running between Mazatlan and San Francisco, and had a population of 5056 in 1900. La Ensenada (pop. in 1906, about 1500), 65 m. by sea S. of San Diego, Cal., is the only port for the northern part of the territory, and supplies a district extending 250 m. along the coast and 60 m. inland, including the mining camps of the north; it manufactures and exports flour and leather.
By orders of Cortés the coast of Lower California was explored in 1539 by Francisco de Ulloa, but no settlement resulted. It was called California, the name (according to E.E. Hale) being derived from a popular Spanish romance of that time, entitled Sergas de Esplandian, in which an island named California was mentioned and situated “on the right hand of the Indies, very near the terrestrial paradise.” The name must have been given derisively, as the barren coasts of Lower California could not have suggested the proximity of a “terrestrial paradise.” The exploration of the coast did not extend above the peninsula until 1842. The name California was at first applied exclusively to the peninsula; later, on the supposition that a strait connected the Pacific with the head of the Gulf of California, the name Islas Californias was frequently used. This erroneous theory was held as late as 1721. The first settlement was made in 1597, but was abandoned. From 1633 to 1683 five unsuccessful attempts were made to establish a settlement at La Paz. Finally the Jesuits succeeded in founding a mission at Loreto on the Gulf coast, in about 26° N. lat., in 1697, and at La Paz in 1720. At the time of their expulsion (1767) they had sixteen missions which were either self-supporting or were maintained by funds invested for that special purpose. The settlement of Upper California began in 1769, after which the two provinces were distinguished as California Baja or Antigua, and California Alta, the seat of government remaining in the former for a short time. The two provinces were separated in 1804, were united under one governor residing in California Alta in 1825, and were then reunited in a single department through the political changes of 1836, which lasted no later than 1847. Lower California was only slightly disturbed by the struggle for independence among the Spanish-American colonies, but in 1822 Admiral Lord Cochrane, who was in the service of the Chilean revolutionists, appeared on the coast and plundered San José del Cabo, Todos Santos and Loreto. In the war between Mexico and the United States La Paz and other coast towns were occupied by small detachments from California. In 1853 a filibustering expedition against Sonora under William Walker took possession of La Paz and proclaimed a republic consisting of Sonora and the peninsula. Fearing an attack from the mainland, the filibusters first withdrew to La Ensenada, near the American frontier, and then in the following year broke up altogether during an attempt to invade Sonora by land. A revolution under the leadership of Marquez de Leon in 1879 met with some temporary success, but died for want of material support in 1880. The development of mining and other industries since that time, together with vigorous efforts to found colonies in the more favoured localities, have greatly improved the situation in the territory.
See the two volumes of H.H. Bancroft’s North Mexican States and Texas, lettered vols. 15 and 16 of his Works; also Arthur Walbridge North, The Mother of California (San Francisco, 1908).
CALIFORNIA, UNIVERSITY OF, one of the largest and most important of state universities in America, situated at Berkeley, California, on the E. shore of San Francisco Bay. It took the place of the College of California (founded in 1855), received California’s portion of the Federal land grant of 1862, was chartered as a state institution by the legislature in 1868, and opened its doors in 1869 at Oakland. In 1873 it was removed to its present site. In the revised state constitution of 1879 provision is made for it as the head of the state’s educational system. The grounds at Berkeley cover 270 acres on the lower slopes (299-900 ft.) of the Berkeley Hills, which rise 1000 ft. or more above the university; the view over the bay to San Francisco and the Golden Gate is superb. In recent years new and better buildings have gradually been provided. In 1896 an international architectural competition was opened at the expense of Mrs Phoebe R. Hearst (made a regent of the university in 1898) for plans for a group of buildings harmonizing with the university’s beautiful site, and ignoring all buildings already existing. The first prize was awarded in 1899 to Emile Bénard, of Paris. The first building begun under the new plans was that for the college of mines (the gift of Mrs Hearst), completed in 1907, providing worthily for the important school of mining, from 1885 directed by Prof. S.B. Christy (b. 1853); California Hall, built by state appropriation, had been completed in 1906. The Greek theatre (1903), an open-air auditorium seating 7500 spectators, on a hill-side in a grove of towering eucalypts, was the gift of William Randolph Hearst; this has been used regularly for concerts by the university’s symphony orchestra, under the professor of music, John Frederick Wolle (b. 1863), who originated the Bach Festivals at Bethlehem, Pa.; free public concerts are given on Sunday afternoons; and there have been some remarkable dramatic performances here, notably Sudraka’s Mricchakattika in English, and Aeschylus’s Eumenides in Greek, in April 1907. There are no dormitories. Student self-government works through the “Undergraduate Students’ Affairs Committee” of the Associated Students. The faculty of the university has its own social club, with a handsome building on the grounds. At Berkeley is carried on the work in the colleges of letters, social sciences, natural sciences, commerce, agriculture, mechanical, mining and civil engineering, and chemistry, and the first two years’ course of the college of medicine—the Toland Medical College having been absorbed by the university in 1873; at Mount Hamilton, the work of the Lick astronomical department; and in San Francisco, that of dentistry (1888), pharmacy, law, art, and the concluding (post graduate or clinical) years of the medical course—the San Francisco Polyclinic having become a part of the university in 1892. Three of the San Francisco departments occupy a group of three handsome buildings in the western part of the city, overlooking Golden Gate Park. The Lick astronomical department (Lick Observatory) on Mount Hamilton, near San José, occupies a site covering 2777 acres. It was founded in 1875 by James Lick of San Francisco, and was endowed by him with $700,000, $610,000 of this being used for the original buildings and equipments, which were formally transferred to the university in 1888. The art department (San Francisco Institute of art) was until 1906 housed in the former home of Mark Hopkins, a San Francisco “railroad king”; it dated from 1893, under the name “Mark Hopkins Institute of Art.” The building was destroyed in the San Francisco conflagration of 1906; but under its present name the department resumed work in 1907 on the old site. At the university farm, of nearly 750 acres, at Davisville, Yolo county, instruction is given in practical agriculture, horticulture, dairying, &c.; courses in irrigation are given at Berkeley; a laboratory of plant pathology, established in 1907 at Whittier, Riverside county, and an experiment station on 20 acres of land near Riverside, are for the study of plant and tree diseases and pests and of their remedies. A marine biological laboratory is maintained at La Jolla, near San Diego, and another, the Hertzstein Research Laboratory, at New Monterey; the Rudolph Spreckels Physiological Laboratory is in Berkeley. The university has excellent anthropological and archaeological collections, mostly made by university expeditions, endowed by Mrs Hearst, to Peru and to Egypt. In 1907 the university library contained 160,000 volumes, ranking, after the destruction of most of the San Francisco libraries in 1906, as the largest collection in the vicinity. The building of the Doe library (given by the will of Charles Franklin Doe), for the housing of the university library, was begun in 1907. The university has also the valuable Bancroft collection of 50,000 volumes and countless pamphlets and manuscripts, dealing principally with the history of the Pacific Coast from Alaska through Central America, and of the Rocky Mountain region, including Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Western Texas. This collection (that of the historian Hubert Howe Bancroft) was acquired in 1905 for $250,000 (of which Mr Bancroft contributed $100,000), and was entrusted (1907) to the newly organized Academy of Pacific Coast History. The library of Karl Weinhold (1823-1901) of Berlin, which is especially rich in Germanic linguistics and “culture history,” was presented to the university in 1903 by John D. Spreckels. The university publishes The University of California Chronicle, an official record; and there are important departmental publications, especially those in American archaeology and ethnology, edited by Frederic Ward Putnam (b. 1839), including the reports of various expeditions, maintained by Mrs Hearst; in physiology, edited by Jacques Loeb (b. 1859); in botany, edited by William Albert Setchell (b. 1864); in zoology, edited by William Emerson Ritter (b. 1859); and in astronomy, the publications of the Lick Observatory, edited by William Wallace Campbell (b. 1862). In 1902, under the direction of Henry Morse Stephens (b. 1857), who then became professor of history, a department of university extension was organized; lecture courses, especially on history and literature, were delivered in 1906-1907 at fifteen extension “centres,” at most of which classes of study were formed. Annexes to the university, but having no corporate connexion with it, are the Berkeley Bible Seminary (Disciples of Christ), the Pacific Theological Seminary (Congregational), the Pacific Coast Baptist Seminary and a Unitarian school.
The growth of the university has been extremely rapid. From 1890 to 1900 the number of students increased fourfold. In the latter year the university of California was second to Harvard only in the number of academic graduate and undergraduate students, and fifth among the educational institutions of the country in total enrolment. In July 1907 there were 519 officers in the faculties and 2987 students, of whom 226 were in the professional schools in San Francisco. In addition there were 707 students in the 1906 summer session, the total for 1906-1907 thus being 3684; of this number 1506 were women. The university conferred 482 degrees in 1907, 546 in 1906, 470 in 1905. The affairs of the university are administered by a board of twenty-three regents, seven state officials and heads of educational institutions, being members ex officio, and sixteen other members being appointed by the governor and senate of the state; its instruction is governed by the faculties of the different colleges, and an academic senate in which these are joined. The gross income from all sources for 1905-1906 was $1,564,190, of which about $800,000 was income from investments, state and government grants, fees, &c., and the remainder was gifts and endowments. There is a permanent endowment of more than $3,000,000, partly from munificent private gifts, especially from Mrs Hearst and from Miss Cora Jean Flood. The financial support of the state has always been generous. No tuition fee is charged in the academic colleges to students resident in the state, and only $10.00 annually to students from without the state. The university maintains about 90 undergraduate scholarships, and 10 graduate scholarships and fellowships. All able-bodied male students are required to take the courses in military science, under instruction by an officer of the United States army detailed for the purpose. Physical culture and hygiene are prescribed for all men and women. A state law forbids the sale of liquor within one mile of the university grounds. To realize the ideal of the university as the head of the educational system of the state, a system of inspection of high schools has been developed, whereby schools reaching the prescribed standard are entitled to recommend their graduates for admission to the university without examination. It was anticipated at one time that the foundation of the Leland Stanford Junior University at Palo Alto would injure the state institution at Berkeley; but in practice this was not found to be the case; on the contrary, the competition resulted in giving new vigour and enterprise to the older university. Joseph Le Conte (professor from 1872 to 1901) and Daniel C. Oilman (president in 1872-1875) deserve mention among those formerly connected with the university. In 1899 Benjamin Ide Wheeler (b. 1854) became president. He had been a graduate (1875) of Brown University, and was professor first of comparative philology and then of Greek at Cornell University; his chief publications are Der griechische Nominalaccent (1885); Analogy, and the Scope of its Application in Language (1887); Principles of Language Growth (1891); The Organization of Higher Education in the United States (1897); Dionysos and Immortality (1899); and Life of Alexander the Great (1900).