GEOLOGY 137 



cheer to man and beast who travel the long and rough, yet 

 scenic road across these reserves from San Mateo to Cebol- 

 leta. 



Many of the Spanish land grants growing valuable timber 

 are apt to be bought up by private parties like the one men- 

 tioned above. If this be the case not only will the state or 

 Federal Government be great losers in the future, but they 

 will experience the same difficulty that many other states are, 

 to their sorrow, experiencing, that is, from the fact that of ten 

 these, private lands are contiguous to reserves, the govern- 

 ment will have to give private interests fire protection in 

 order to conserve their own. It is a menacing problem, one 

 which should be handled by state and Federal authorities 

 while the remedy is applicable. Once these areas are de- 

 nuded by fires or injudicious removal of the timber by private 

 parties or corporations then what is now valuable and 

 producing land will, in a few years, become vast stretches of 

 barren rock. When the protecting blanket of stately trees 

 with their mighty roots cementingand holding the loose mantle 

 waste in place, are once removed, and when the protect- 

 ing covering of grama and nolinia grasses become inoperative, 

 due to the lessened humidity, due in turn to the removal of 

 these forests, the unequal rainfall that will then take place, 

 will remove in a few years the soil that has taken the weath- 

 ering processes of centuries to form and only hard, black, 

 barren lava will remain to tell the story of man's indiscretion. 



ACROSS THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDE 



As viewed from the car window at Gonzales the Continental 

 Divide will not awaken any superior interest. A very gentle 

 slope, an increase to some degree in the number of pinions 

 and scrub cedars, the labored puffing of the engine giving 

 way to the greater rumble as increased speed accompanies 

 the descent on the opposite side and the backbone of the 

 continent may seem after all a very insignificant affair. But 

 he who follows the winding wagon road skirting at times 

 perpendicular walled arroyos or creeps along between rock 

 walls on one side and a sheer descent of one thousand feet on 

 the other, he who climbs inclines so steep and long that the 

 fagging team refuses to go farther without frequent breath- 

 ing spells, or when the crest of the hill is attained finds only 



