side by side with sagebrush desert as yet not under irrigation, the principal product of which is 'Spanish Bayonet.' It is worth a day or two to take a look at the ancient waterline still to be seen high up on the mountainous cliffs and to get into an argument with your friend as to whether that beautiful expanse a mile or so to the side is really water or a mirage. You'll have at least one satisfaction in knowing that others have been as certain as you that it was a lake and didn't hesitate to leave the car and walk toward it with a view to proving their case only to see it recede as they apparently drew nearer. Emerging from the desert, the road crosses the mountains near Riverside and leads back to Los Angeles. Now you may either take the train or you may motor all the way to San Francisco for the price of your train fare, running for the greater part along the beach and visiting California's ancient capital, Monterey, with its stark, staring, stunted, and altogether picturesque cypresses along the shore. Also, you will have a chance to call at several of the ancient Franciscan Missions along that old-time trail, 'El Camino Real,' the King's Highway, now one of the most attractive and comfortable motor roads in the Golden State. Lacking a visit to one of these exquisite old missions, you will not have seen California. And if you're not careful, you'll miss your steamer that's precisely what California means and it has taken you less than a week to gather in impressions that will last a lifetime.

The Santa Fé Route lies next to the north. Like most of these great across-the-West lines, it starts at Chicago, only we are going to do it differently on this particular jaunt. We will take either the Burlington, the Union Pacific, or the Rock Island to Denver, thence over the Denver & Rio Grande to Colorado Springs where we will have one day at

Pike's Peak and one in the Garden of the Gods. Resuming our journey we catch the Santa Fé at La Junta, thence into the very eye of the West. If there's any desert scenery on the face of the earth to rival that of the Santa Fé in New Mexico and Arizona, I don't know where it is. Believe me, you won't read any novels while passing through that country. A few miles from the little station siding at Adamana, Arizona, will be found in great profusion the brilliantly colored, petrified trunks of prehistoric trees, familiarly known as the 'Petrified Forest.' Many millions of years ago, this portion of that wondrous country, including thousands of acres of forest land, being subjected to a shrinking of the earth's crust, caved in to an estimated depth of ten thousand feet and the sea flowed in. Being covered with a deposit of silt and silica for a few millions of years following, the trees became petrified. And then, old Dame Nature reversed herself. She just pushed that great sunken area, covering about three hundred thousand square miles, back into its original position and the sea flowed out into what is now the Pacific Ocean. The action of the elements in the æons that followed swept the greater part of the silt deposit away and left these beautifully colored stone trees exposed. They are composed of agate and carnelian and, before the National Government set the place aside as a public park, a number of Arizona's enterprising citizens carried away tons of the colorful material which was later made into table-tops and put on the market. Take it from me they are worth seeing as they lie there on the ground beneath the entrancing blue of an Arizona sky.

Just a few hours westward from Adamana brings us to Williams, junction point for the most wonderful and terrific natural upheaval in the world: the Grand Cañon of the Colorado, formed by the same cataclysm that created

the Petrified Forest. This is no place to attempt any description of that unspeakable gorge, two hundred and fifty miles long, from eight to thirteen miles wide, and over a mile deep. Light and shadow are its divinities and colors are created there that have no existence in any other portion of the known world. To pass that spot by on your way to the Coast would be an indictment of your sanity. Better one brief day on its indescribably wonderful and terrifying marge than to miss seeing it altogether. Having 'done' Los Angeles and Southern California while on the Southern Pacific, we will stay right on the main line of the Santa Fé until we get to Madera, a brief twenty-four hours. Here, through the Wawona Gateway, we are ushered into the workshop of the Almighty Himself: the oldest living things in the world: the Mariposa Grove or Sequoias, or the Big Trees, many of which are known by scientists to be over three thousand years old. The overpowering magnificence of these Godlike trees, which tower between three and four hundred feet in the air, is so tremendously impressive that the metaphor used above is not at all out of place. You almost expect to hear

the rushing garments of the Lord

Sweep through the silent air, ascending heavenward.

Yea, verily - a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand.' And- one day is all you can give to it; then that ravishingly beautiful 'Horse-Shoe' motor trip through the forest of the Sierra, to Yosemite Valley that exquisite gem of the California wilderness. Two days, at least, here, my friend, and then, once more the Santa Fé at Merced Station for a night's ride into San Francisco. The same itinerary may be duplicated on the Southern Pacific, and the sum total of extra time you have given to this little diversion from an otherwise unbroken trip on either road

is seven days. Think it over and ruminate upon the unescapable fact that you'll be a long time dead.

In event of your already having visited these scenic glories, you might like to touch at Salt Lake City on your way west. With Denver as your starting-point, you can take the Denver & Rio Grande road for a thrilling trip through the Royal Gorge of the Arkansas River, south of Pueblo, over a hanging bridge where the railway tracks are suspended over the rushing river from either side of the narrowed gorge, where there is about enough room for a railway train to pass. An eerie place where the roar of the torrent drowns that of the train. A stop-over of one day at the Mormon Zion is mightily worth while, thence across Salt Lake (America's Dead Sea) on one of the most celebrated railway trestles in the world the Lucin Cut-Off of the Southern Pacific — and you start climbing the Sierra Nevada, stopping a few miles short of the summit at the little town of Truckee. Here you leave the steel highway for a glorious three-day motor trip amongst the mountain peaks, around Lake Tahoe, sixty-three hundred feet above sea-level, down into the Tuolumne Grove of Big Trees and into Yosemite Valley, thence to San Francisco, and all planned in advance, with tickets issued accordingly.

Now, let us assume you never have seen the mighty Columbia River or the pigmented waters of Crater Lake in Oregon. The Union Pacific Road will start you either at Chicago or Denver for an unbroken run through Colorado, Wyoming, into the heart of the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho, through the Cascade Range in Oregon, and will deposit you at Portland after a two hundred and twentyfive mile ride through the majestic cañon of the Columbia, with the river on one side and the famous motor highway on the other. Thence you may proceed south for a twentyseven hours' ride over the Shasta Route of the Southern

Pacific for San Francisco, exclusive of a brief two days for a motor trip to one of the wonder spots of the West - Crater Lake. You leave the rails at Medford where a big comfortable motor awaits all trains, and are whisked off into the mountains, spending the night at the Lake Chalet, picking up the train service next day at Klamath Falls. This wonderful body of water, with its startling blue and green and violet coloring, lies in a great pit created by the wrecking in prehistoric times of the volcano Mount Mazama which, according to the geologists, once had an altitude of fourteen thousand feet above sea-level and eight thousand feet above the surrounding country. One day, many æons ago, about six thousand feet of the peak crumpled into its crater, probably on account of the withdrawal of the lava in the interior. The crater, which now stands about two thousand feet above the tableland, is six miles long by four wide. No one knows where the water comes from that fills it. It has a depth, however, of two thousand feet and is surrounded by walls from six hundred to two thousand feet high. Despite its great elevation, it has never been known to freeze. And, while it has no visible outlet, it's waters are always fresh. Yes it's very much worth while seeing.

Even Yellowstone Park with its mighty geysers may be included in just such an itinerary as we are discussing. There are several ways of reaching this wonderland. One from Cody, Wyoming, via the Colorado & Southern Railway, north from Denver. This is a most interesting ride through the Bad Lands of Wyoming. Another entrance is from the west via the Union Pacific lines from Pocatello, Idaho. The most direct route, however, is over the Northern Pacific, starting from St. Paul. You can be dropped from your car at the very gateway of the park itself, at