18943 Forest Reserves 



his signature. Meanwhile the condition of the state 

 treasury was such that he felt obliged to make a 

 choice between the two. Having been called in to 

 give my advice, I suggested that the investigations 

 could wait; while, on the other hand, any delay 

 in connection with the proposed forest might be 

 fatal. My argument won the day; the Big Basin 

 was accordingly purchased, officially rechristened as 

 the California Redwood Park, and later enlarged to California 

 10,000 acres or about fifteen square miles under the 

 supervision of Charles B. Wing, 1 the leading worker. 

 That term I use with deliberation, for besides the 

 time and labor necessarily involved in general ad- 

 ministration, the professor must periodically marshal 

 his volunteer student clans, and rush over to fight 

 the disastrous fires which each fall menace his beau- 

 tiful forest. 



From 1904 to 1908 it was my pleasure to assist 

 an ardent mountain lover, Mr. S. C. Hain of Tres 

 Pinos, in securing for the people as a Government 

 Forest Reserve a singular district known as the 

 "Pinnacles," lying in the Gavilan Range on the 

 line between San Benito and Monterey counties. 

 There the mountain ridge of yellow Miocene sand- 

 stone has been scored into deep gulches worn by 

 the long action of small streams unaided by frost 

 or ice. These cuts are very narrow and irregular, 

 scarcely widened even at the top, and the cliffs 

 assume varied fantastic and picturesque forms. The 

 forests are of little consequence, being of scant oaks 

 and digger pines; but many rare flowers are found 

 in the tract, and some of the precipitous walls bear 

 nests of the great California condor Gymnogyps 



1 See also Chapter xvm, page 442. 



CSI93 



