Notably is the hotel service of the city superior through this reconstruction. Scores of fine hotels have been built within the two years and many more are under way. The opportunity to embody every comfort and convenience, and the rivalry among the hotels to secure the best, have resulted in a series of up-to-date homes for wayfarers probably never equaled, for never elsewhere have circumstances been such as to permit the complete modernization of a great business city within two years. Among the great hotels of San Francisco the Fairmont on Nob Hill is architecturally the most commanding feature of the city and of unsurpassed service. The Hotel St. Francis conducted on the same high plane of hospitality is noted for the excellence of its service and is in the heart of the down town business section, facing Union Square. It is one-half larger than before the new era. The new Palace Hotel will be opened in the fall of 1909 on the old site and is a magnificent structure. San Francisco has now in its hotels and apartment houses accommodations for 25,000 visitors. San Francisco is the busiest of cities and among its features most of interest to visitors is the construction under way. Many of the new buildings are remarkable for their beauty, a great deal of marble having been used. [Illustration: THE SOLANO, THAT TAKES UP SO EASILY THE SECTIONS OF THE “OVERLAND,” IS THE LARGEST FERRY STEAMER IN THE WORLD] This cosmopolitan metropolis at the gateway to the Orient possesses now as it always has during the past thirty years, that fascinating variety in its life which has made it a place of great attraction for people from all over the earth. Hither come ships of all the seven seas with the flags of all the maritime nations flying over them; here, too, come the peoples of every land from far Cathay to Alaska, from Siberia to the Isles of Greece. Every nation favors California with immigration and every nationality of importance is represented by a colony in San Francisco of which the customs and manners help make up the cosmopolitan life of the ever growing city. The great out-of-door attractions, such as Mount Tamalpais, lifting its volcanic crest 2596 feet above the city, the great Golden Gate Park with its animal and plant life drawn from all quarters of the globe, the Seal Rocks and Sutro Heights, Museum and Baths, the beautiful military reservation of the Presidio commanding the Golden Gate, the islands of the bay and the wooded Mann shores, the Muir woods, the old Mission Dolores built more than a century ago, and the neighboring valleys within short excursion distance laden with fruit and flowers; all these and many other attractions help make San Francisco a lodestone for the pleasure seeker.