[originaltext] From this lookout we enjoy one of the most spectacular views o

From this lookout we enjoy one of the most spectacular views of San Francisco. As you can see, the city rests on a series of hills varying in altitude from sea level to 938 feet. The first permanent settlement was made at this site in 1776. For 13 years the village had fewer than one hundred inhabitants. But in 1848, with the discovery of gold, the population grew to ten thousand. The same year the name was changed from Yerba Buea to San Francisco.
   By 1862 telegraph communications linked San Francisco with eastern cities, and by 1869 the first transcontinental railroad connected the Pacific coast with the Atlantic seaboard. Today San Francisco has a population of almost three million. It is the financial center of the west, and serves as the terminus for trans-Pacific steamship lines and air traffic. The port of San Francisco, which is almost 18 miles long with 42 piers, handles between five and six million tons of cargo annually.
   And now, if you will look to your right, you should just be able to see the east section of the Golden Gate Bridge. The bridge, which is more than one mile long, spans the harbor from San Francisco to Marin County and the Red Wood Highway. It was completed in 1937 at a cost of 32 million dollars and is still one of the largest suspension bridges in the world.