. STOCKTON (ante), a city in central California, co. seat of San Joaquin co., incor• porated, 1850; pop. 'SO, 10,2E:7. It was set off in 1S49 by rapt. Charles M. Weber, the owner of a Mexican grant, and it then served as a convenient starting-point for miners bound for Calaveras, Tuolumne, and Mariposa counties; and the beginning of its local trade was the sale of miners' outfits. It has daily communication with San Francisco by a line of steamers, mid is on the Central Pacific and the Stockton and Copperopolis rail roads, 48 m. s.e. of Sacramento, and 92 m. by rail from San Francisco. It is connected with Ione City, 40 m. away, by a narrow-gange railway, used for the transportation of coal. It is built on a plain in the great California valley; oak trees are scattered through its streets and surround its public buildings; and outside its limits are cultivable prairies extending for miles in all directions. It has an excellent harbor; the river here is navi gable at all seasons by vessels of from 150 to 230 tons, and in the spring, above the city, for 200 miles. It furnishes supplies to the farmers of the San Joaquin valley, receiving immense quantities of marketable produce, and is an important shipping point for wheat and wool. The shipments of wheat for 3 years averaged 3,500,000 bushels, valued at
$3,000,000. It contains several large warehouses for grain, with an aggregate capacity of 3.000,000 bushels. The most prominent buildings are of brick, and it contains a court house, city hall, 13 churches, a convent, a Jewish synagogue, the state lunatic asylum, a theater, 2 public libraries, 6 newspapers. 5 banks—including a national gold bank, and a branch of the banking-house of Wells, Fargo 4.t Co. It is lighted with gas, has a horse railway, and is supplied with water through pipes from artesian wells bored to a depth' of from 80 to 120 ft. (one, however, is 1000 ft. deep), the water rising within 6 ft. of,the surface. It has flour mills with a capacity for manufacturing 800 barrels per day; other industries are the manufacture of paper, woolen goods, chairs, soap, agricultural implements, boots and shoes, leather, carriages and wagons, saddlery and harness, iron, ale and beer, and large quantities of wine.