PART I: CALIFORNIA CONDITIONS. 



CHAPTER I. 

 INTRODUCTORY. 



California has grown superb flowers ever since creation. Following 

 that event the local growth of plants was observed to be so fine that 

 California was among the sites proposed for the Garden of Eden. Other 

 considerations were, however, against us. It had been decided that 

 the course of empire should move with the sun westward. To secure 

 westward movement of a race of beings planted on the west coast 

 of a continent would necessitate the creation of creatures with an 

 original aspiration for fins rather than for wings, which would change 

 the plans for a birthplace of the human race, from a garden into an 

 aquarium. Because of such difficulties California was not chosen for 

 the Garden of Eden, and a less beautiful site in Asia was decided 

 upon, since men could trail out in all directions from their birth-place, 

 and, having circled around enough to test their legs, finally strike out 

 upon the great pedestrian excursions which led stragglers to the shores 

 of narrower oceans which they could conveniently cross, while the 

 great central movement westward through Europe had an open course 

 upon dry land. Those who had zealously advocated California as a 

 site for the Garden consoled themselves with the reflection that after 

 all it is not what is given a man at the beginning, but what he finds 

 for himself that satisfies him. The wisdom of this thought now clearly 

 appears. The race has proved so forgetful of Eden that no one knows 

 now exactly where it was, while California stands clear in the eyes of 

 the world as the point most desirable to attain for the fullest joys of 

 living. 



And yet, in spite of such a concession that, according to the pre- 

 vailing opinion of mankind, California missed the location of the 

 Garden of Eden, there is still ground for contention that we amply 

 possess it. Prof. Edward Robertson, of the University of Chicago, 

 claimed recently that Eden was not intended to have definite bounds. 

 "It is evident that the whole narrative is a figure of speech," says 

 Professor Robertson, "enshrining the doctrine of an irresponsible and 

 sinless state in which man was created, whence he passed into one 

 responsible and sinful. From what we can gather, there appears to 

 have been no definite location of the garden in the mind of the nar- 

 rator. His pleasure garden is an ideal locality." The argument seems 

 to be that every man can have a Garden of Eden under his hat if 

 his heart is right, and one can have no dispute with that doctrine. 

 But that does not at all dispose of the real existence of such a place; 

 in fact it only makes it surer, not only that there was such a place, but 



