This is a 29"x41" watercolor of Yerba Buena Cove in 1854 from a vantage point farther out into San Francisco Bay than the view of the cove in "The New Arrivals". This painting was derived from a horribly poor quality photo from the Smithsonian Collection. There was enough detail from the main resource photo and other collateral photos and drawings from that time to insure a substantially accurate rendering of the scene. The vantage point for this work was from an area of the cove which had all of the local metal-working and smelting facilities in the early days of San Francisco. One can see that the filling in of Yerba Buena Cove was well underway. Redwood logs were used in the same way that concrete forms are used to build modern foundations and concrete buildings. The redwood forms were packed with dirt and at some point these earthen berms were connected and the log forms would rot away and dry land was left. It is these landfill areas like the Marina district that are subject to liquifaction that casued much of the structural failure in both the 1906 Great Earthquake and the quake of October 1989. Also many of the ships that made there way were either sunk to assist in the landfill project or were used as structures in the rapidly growing city by the bay.