The record-union., 1897-06-24
CALIFORNIA SCENERY.
The Golden State Has an Endless va
riety and Abundance.
Glowing Description by John nuir,
the Celebrated Geologist and
Naturalist.

The following description Of the seen
cry of California is from proof-sheets
of the souvenir book about to pc pup
Iished by the State Board OF TRADE,
expository of the varied resources ana
advantages of this State. Ihe pook
will contain thirty articles py we'll
known citizens and writer's ana hand-
somely illustrated. 1t is edited ana
published under the personal direction
of William H. Mills, the Chairman OF
the Committee on Publication or the
State Board Of Trade. This particular
article is from the pen of John Muir
the eminent geologist and naturalist;
At first sight of the fashionable seen
cry habit, it would seem that the people
of the East need not come West seek
ing fine scenery, for they have plenty or
it at home. God never made an ugly
landscape All that the sun shines on
is beautiful, as long as it is wild; and
much in every landscape is unchange-
ably wild, especially light, which falls
everywhere. In no place on all this
continent, from Florida to the Arctic
Ocean, have | seen finer, diviner, more
enchanting landscapes than in the
Great American Desert, with its broad,
hot alkaline levels, and mountains and
hills rising farther and farther beyond
each other in smooth, billowy ranges,
Tobed in light as a garment. And so
the lover of nature, wandering at Will
or remaining steadfast like a rock, is
always content with the fullness of
beauty about him in any wild place,
wherever he may chance to be. Every
heaven born want of scenery is salts
fed, and there is no aching void to ex-
cite longing or curiosity concerning any
other country or star.
To the sane and healthy, therefore,
it seems hardly worth while to sompare
the scenery Of the two sides Of our con-
tinent. Each has it's own beauty, like
the two sides of a rainbow; but to de-
frauded toilers, grown dull and blind in
duty and business, the need is different.
Like sick children who can no longer
eat bread or recognize their own mo-
theirs, the wearied workers of civiliZa-
ton, weak and giddy in the whirl of
cities, stupefied by doing good and
making money, recreation for body and
soul is found only in what is novel
Their own beautiful and enchanting
scenery no longer nOurishes them.
Their thousand miles of coast, with
marvellous wealth of picturesque bays
and headlands, kept in perpetual song
and bloom of foam and spray by the
waves of the blue Atlantic; the charm
ing round-headed trees-oakS and elms,
hickory and lex, tulip and magnolia,
fringed with rhodendron and sassafras,
stretching in lovely forests along the
Towering folds of the Alleghanies; the
Spiry spruce and pine woods of New
England, with countless lakes and
streams shining like silvery embroi-
derry; the woods of the Middle West,
the richest in species in the world, and
chain of great lakes-au these, good
enough for gods or men, at length be-
come of non-effect Seen so often
through clouds of care and the stupor
of business, they at length are not seen
at all, and something tremendously
striking is required to shake and fright
en- them out of apathy to life.
OF such awakening scenery there is
abundance in the West-the wild dance
of waters on the top of the Rocky
Mountains in the Yellowstone Park; in
verted waterfalls rushing up into the
sky instead of falling out of it; the Yo-
semitic streams descending from the
sky with beauty and song fit to awaken
the dead; lofty mountains, pure as
heaven, preaching forever; the plunge
of icebergs from the great glaciers of
Alaska, and majestic sequoias that
have looked down through all the CEN
turies since Christ walked the earth.
Forests, mountains and plains, wild
gardens, fair as Eden, and crystal
caves, our Golden State has in endless
variety ard abundance, to heal and
cheer and revive the sick and weary
of every land
The immediate coast of California.
though by no means lacking in interest,
is much less broken and picturesque
than that of the Atlantic. Excepting
the unrivaled bay and harbor of San
Francisco and the Bay of San Pedro,
there are few marked openings. The
shore bluffs rise abruptly from the
waves, forming a wall apparently un-
broken, gray along the front, green and
yellow on the top. Going ashore we
lind few smooth reaches where one may
saunter or meadows, save the. brown
and purple meadows of the sea, full of
slippery kelp and dulse, where seals and
fishes feed, swashed and swirled in the
restless breakers. The abruptness of
the shore allows the massive waves
that have come from afar over the
broad Pacific to get close to the bluffs
before they break, and the laundering
shocks shake them to their foundations.
No calm comes to these shores. Even
in the calmest weather, when the sails
of the ships hang loose against the
masts, there is always a wreath of
foam at the feet of the cliffs. The
waves are ever in bloom, and crystal
brine is ever in the air
The scenery of California is COM
posed on a much grander scale than