The Newtown bee., 1904-04-15
Southern California,

Southern California,
 March 25, 1904.
 MT Editor: This morning a tally-ho party of fourteen people was made up at our boarding place for three hours drive to Plunge Creek canyon. With four horse team and sturdy driver, we were ready at o'clock, and when well arranged we started off, jolly crowd. It looked rather formidable to your correspondent to be so high up above ground, but I thought, better die young at seventy, than to die old at forty, and followed suit, and sat along side the driver. There is no difficulty in getting together cosmo- pOlitan crowd here, and when we were all in, on taking canvas of our crowd, we found representatives from differ mention him first, because so much would depend on him) was from Ger many. The oldest one in the crowd is editor of the St Paul Pioneer Express, Minn., Nova ScOtian by birth; of the rest, two were from Massachusetts,, two from Connecticut, and one each from New Jersey, Indiana, New York, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Minnesota, and two from Ver- mont. The objective point to reach was at the base of the mountain, some fifteen miles distant, where noun tain torrent leaps and plunges down a canyon, to be lost at last in the Santa Ana river, that finally finds it's way to the Gulf of California. A part of the drive was to take us across the Wash, section had become curious to see, because as 1 had been going about Redlands to see how they did things, and enQuired where the sand was found for clustering, the coarse gravel for concrete, the coarser sand for imita- tion Tagging, the stone fumes to car ry irrigation water, as well as to build coping, the invariable answer would be Ut comes from the Wash," until I made up my mind the Wash must be a valuable deposit of material for building and public improvement pur- delegated herself to blow the horn, and we started off. jolly crowd. The first part of our drive took us through the business part of the city, past the Caso Loma, one of the leading hotels of California. On past that, we drive past many ranches with their varied growth under extensive culti vation, until we reach the border of what is called the Wash, to find an abrupt wall of solid earth some fifteen feet perpendicular, down through which a gradual descent is made to the grade below, and we find ourselves on the bed of what was once a vast inland sea. Miles in extent, there are mill lions of acres of what looks like irre- claimable land. But I am sure that that vast area, lying under the shadow of the great mountain range, is to be of more value to Redlands in the years to come, than if it could be reclaimed and covered with luxuriant growthS of citrus fruits. Bearing upon it's surface, evidences of the awful convul- siOns of nature in the centuries long past, it is an interesting study to who- ever will stop to give it thought. On it's outer edges, mile or more in width, are stretches of sand fine enough for the most delicate of work, showing where the water had quietly drained away without much disturbance; then comes "a coarser deposit of gravel, un- til at last as we near the center of the bed, there must have been one grand final rush of water that carried along with it all but the rocks and bOulderS, on to the sea, leaving an immense quantity of rocks, rounded in all conceivable forms and smooth as if done by hand, simply waiting to be shaped by the builders eye and hand, for the use or the busy people who
 
 land for a home for themselves and coming generations. The finer sand, for plastering, the coarser sand and gravel for concrete walks and the boulders for coping, for fumes for ira gation, and the heavier granite for building purposes. On this vast area | no vegetation of any use can grow, but in it's way it serves some great economic purpose of nature as we'll as furnishing material for mans conven- fence.
 We had crossed the Wash once be- fore when the bed of the Santa Ana river was dry, but at this time heavy cloudburst of the night before had caused quantities of water to come down the mountain sides filling the river bed with an immense volume of
 water, through which our horses floun- dered to the other side. Once across the Wash and we open into vast | c+ro of country eYtendinu nm tO the