It is a government possession, as also the other islands, Alcatraz and Angel.

Alcatraz, which Costanso styles, White Island, is smaller than Yerba Buena.

In its greatest elevation it is 135 feet above the Bay, and it embraces in its surface about thirty-five acres, about the same area as the Haram Esh-Sherif, or sacred enclosure of the Temple Hill in Jerusalem, with the Mosque of Omar and the Mosque el-Aksa.

On its top is a lighthouse, which, on a clear night, sailors can see twelve miles outside of the Golden Gate.

Nature, with her wise forethought, seems indeed to have formed this island opposite the Golden Gate, far inside, in the Bay, as a sentinel to watch that pass into the Pacific, and to guide the returning voyager after his perilous journeyings to safe moorings in a land-locked haven.