The Days of a Man 1:1891 



Hamilton, its culminating point, 4440 feet above 

 the city of San Jose, bears the famous observatory 

 founded by James Lick, of which more presently. 

 Close beside it, and nearly as high, is the twin 

 peak, Santa Ysabel, still dark with chaparral of 

 evergreen scrub oak. What an asset to California 

 are the Spanish names scattered by Father Crespi 

 around each of Portola's camping grounds! 

 Monte Etched against the sky, straight north from 



Dxahio Stanford University and visible from every angle, 

 rises Monte Diablo itself, a rocky cone 4000 feet 

 high, and our best point of orientation, because other- 

 wise one never knows which way is north from Palo 

 Alto. In this valley, neither ridges, streets, nor build- 

 ings are set on the square; even the compass betrays, 

 for it responds to the magnetic north, here at its 

 farthest — seventeen degrees — from the North Star. 

 "The Devil's Ridge" with its tawny summer 

 cloak of ripened wild oats, overwashed at sunset by 

 translucent amethystine hues, faces in impious con- 

 trast the dark, purpling slopes of the Holy Cross. 



By July the local wild flowers are practically 

 past, but our brief visit the preceding March had 

 revealed California's amazing resources in bloom. 

 The Most showy of all, and flaring in every field where 



golden not routed by the plow, crowds the golden poppy 

 — Eschscholtzia calif ornica — the Copa d^oro of the 

 Fathers, with great orange cups which drink in the 

 sunlight but close with the shadow. Behind its 

 som.ewhat uncouth scientific name lies a romantic 

 incident. In 1817, while on the way to explore the 

 North Pacific, Kotzebue's vessel, the Russian 

 Rurik, cast anchor off San Francisco. With the expe- 



C 390 3 



poppy 



