The San Francisco call., 1909-11-27
By HAROLD FRENCH

y
what life means to millions Of plain
dwellers in our own United States who
have never looked up to mountain or
out upon an ocean? No great city in
the world can boast such lofty peaks
within its borders as can San Fran
cisco. Five of its SUBMITS exceed 800
I. feet in elevation, while a dozen more
are over half a thousand feet high. An
easterner would call them full fiedged
mountains. although out west any crest
of less than 1000 feet is referred to as
a hill. Al more expressive term has
been applied to them by the veteran
pedestrian. Professor Knowlton, who
has dubbed them ''n1ountainettes
Bestonss famous Bunker hill only
rises 110 feet above the Charles river,
while the historic height of Arthur's
seat in Edinboro town towers just S22
feet above the Firth of Forth. The
seven hills of Rome are mere mounds
compared to our "mountainettes.''
EXPLORING THE SIERRA DEL SAN
FRANCISCO
The Spanish word sierra, signifying
a serrated mountain ridge, may we'll
apply to series of saw toothed sum-
mits grouped slightly to the south of
the center of the city and county of
San Francisco. You may attack these
heights from many directions, but to
me the most interesting route is the
most gradual ascent Commencing on
the south side of Haight street near
Baker. you may plunge right into a
natural forest of oaks. among whose
fallen, crinkly leaves and acorns the
sweet young grass is ankle high. A
woodland path leads you upward
through the pines and Expresses of
Buena Vista park until you emerge
upon it's fiat and circular summit 4S3
feet in elevation, from which you may
enjoy wonderful panorama of the far
spreading city. Buena Vista, meaning
beautiful view" is a we'll chosen name
for this delightful little park of %
acres, which deserves better apprecia-
ton by the public. Less than half a
mile to the southwest, as you follow
the ridge top, you will come to Mount
Olympus, 47S feet high. Where former
Mayor Sutr0'S statue of liberty looms
above the quarried crags overlooking
the Mission valley. This statue has been
of quite romantic interest to me for
nearly 20 years, since 1 read a fasci-
mating book entitled "A. d. 200e," writ
ten by Alvarado Fuller, then a lieuten-
ant In the regular army. The hero is
supposed TO discover some wonderful
properties of ozone which enable him
to sleep in chamber deep in the ped
estal of the statue from 1887 until the
year 2060, when he is awakened after
the manner of the hero of Bellamy's
Looking Backward and Equality"
JASPER AND GOLD QUARTZ
To the south of Mount Olympus
Seventeenth street is cut deeply
through exposed strata that is an in
teresting study of mountain structure
The rock is kind of sandstone known
as red jasper and owes its ruddy COM
plexion to a large percentage of the
red oxide of iron or hematite. / learned
my first lessons in mineralogy on this
~ ! an 90 of
ing away the shoulder of Clarendon
heights and grading the blocks of land
now covered by hundreds of homes
Below the great round reservoir on the
road up to Twin Peaks, the bursting
dynamite shattered the rocky ribs of
the mountain and revealed small veins
of quartz in which gold to the value
of a few dollars per ton was discovered.
There was not enough to pay profit if
it were mined, but the fact was proved
that the precious metal exists in small
stringers of quartz in these red hill
sides. You win notice how the beds of
jasper are lying in places just as they
were deposited, while elsewhere they
are contorted in curves or dip in steep
angles according to the pressure ex-
erted upon them by the movements of
the earth's crust as it contracted and re-
adjusted itself in bygone ages. Almost
the entire mass of the Twin Peaks
range is composed of jasper, which in
the Sutro forest is more of the ribbon
structure and of vaFiegated colors. Few
massive rocks are more beautiful than
these ribbon jaspers, with their alter
mating seams of green, red, white.
brown, gray and yellow. The storms
have polished their pearly surfaces un-
til they resemble chalcedony, agate and
onyx, their first cousins by chemical
relationship. Later articles will give
some simple suggestions for those who
would study mineralogy and geology
by field methods of observation, but in
the meantime 1 would strongly advise
you to study the splendid specimens in
the exhibit of the state mining bureau
in the ferry building. The curators
there fo1. the