, 5 o Life in the Open 



being the highest mountain in North America from its 

 immediate base. Other peaks are measured from the 

 sea level ; but this stupendous shaft rises clear eleven 

 thousand feet over two miles into the air from its im- 

 mediate base, and affords one of the most profound 

 and comprehensive views in the world. At a single 

 sweep of the eye, the mountain-climber can face 

 desert, ocean, and garden ; almost every physical con- 

 dition known to man is in sight. To the east lies the 

 Colorado desert, its pallid yellow sands drifting into the 

 distant haze. Here is the chasm of San Gorgonio, an 

 abysmal gulf yawning nine thousand feet below. Be- 

 yond rises, sentinel-like, San Jacinto, with rocky flanks 

 hiding groves of pine, beautiful glens and streams, 

 a wonderland shooting upward ten thousand feet within 

 five miles. 



I have approached these mountains from the desert, 

 where the stupendous masses of rock face a temper- 

 ature menacing in its heat, and look down upon one of 

 the most desolate scenes on the habitable globe. No- 

 where is there a greater contrast than this heated wall 

 of rock of San Jacinto looking down on Indio and Sal- 

 ton and the Salton sink, the bottom of an ancient sea 

 two hundred and eighty feet below the level of the Gulf 

 of California, and the region just over the divide that 

 forms the splendid park region of San Jacinto Mountain, 

 with its brooks, forests, and lakes. The most stolid 

 mountain-climber is awed and silenced at the peaks, 

 ranges, chasms, and gulches that stretch away before 



