THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



golden coast exactly matches the poems 

 of Joaquin Miller and tales of Bret 

 Harte. Its wonder and mystery loom in 

 those distant mountains. Any fortune 

 might be hidden behind their barriers. 



Every point and inlet — San Diego, San 

 Pedro, San Luis Obispo, Arguello, Con- 

 cepcion — recall the padres and bearded 

 Dons. Sir Francis Drake, in company 

 with two centuries of Spanish navigators, 

 missed the Golden Gate. But times have 

 changed, and today one can sail on a 

 splendid ocean liner from New York 

 through the Panama Canal to the Golden 

 Gate in 17 happy days. Slipping through 

 the heads one morning, should you come 

 by water, you come suddenly upon a sight 

 that causes you to rub your eyes and look 

 again to make certain that it is not a page 

 from the "Arabian Nights." 



CAN THINGS! UNRIVALED BE PICTURED IN 

 WORDS ? 



How shall one describe it, this won- 

 derful city that is a fitting setting for the 

 crowning jewel of all the expositions. A 

 walled town of the Orient, its green and 

 golden domes, mosaic towers, sculptures, 

 arches, and old ivory facades loom in 

 shimmering mists of color. The basic 

 colors are blue and gold — the gold of Cal- 

 ifornia's hills, blue of her sunny skies — 

 and these were chosen wisely, for they 

 belong to the Orient, where violent color 

 is quickly toned by the sun to soft pastel 

 shades. 



The pale greens are those of ice. Those 

 swelling green domes might have been 

 quarried from Sierra glaciers, the gold 

 from California's mines. The limestone 

 ranges of Monterey lay just such fagades 

 along the sea. 



The Mojave Desert inspired the ambers 

 and those pale golds. Bound into a whole 

 by the spell of color, the Exposition sits, 

 indeed, like a great gem in its setting of 

 street-crowned hills. Whether seen from 

 above or viewed from the sea, the first 

 effect is the same — of beauty, elusive, 

 mysterious, aloof. 



Very fittingly, the California Host 

 Building, which rambles in the happy 

 mission fashion over five broad acres, 

 stands on the "Marina," a beautiful es- 

 planade that runs for a couple of miles 



along the Golden Gate. Low and wide 

 in the main, it rises in the center to upper 

 stories with bell towers surmounting a 

 chapel front that carries, somehow, a sug- 

 gestion of the desert pueblos. 



YESTERDAY AND TODAY 



Its back wall is almost washed by the 

 tides — the same tides that brought Fa- 

 thers Cambon and Palou ashore in the 

 boat of the San Carlos to establish the 

 presidio and mission of St. Francis de 

 Assisi two centuries ago. What a differ- 

 ence between this superb building and 

 the block-houses and log chapel within a 

 stockade they erected on this very spot ! 

 Yet it is the lineal descendant of the 

 solid structures they erected later. Juni- 

 pero Serra would have delighted in this 

 building. One almost looks to see him, 

 with his friend and faithful lieutenant, 

 Palou, pacing the cloisters that surround 

 a flowering patio. 



The eight exhibition palaces are com- 

 modiously arranged in a vast quadrangle 

 that is situated between two great ave- 

 nues and bisected down its length by a 

 central avenue which is stopped at each 

 end respectively by the gigantic Hall of 

 Machinery and the Palace of Fine Arts. 

 Looking down this central axis from the 

 south end, the eye beholds a vision of 

 courts and connecting Venetian gardens, 

 court after court, seen through gigantic 

 arches crowned with heroic groups, and 

 stopped over half a mile away by the 

 lovely Palace of Fine Arts. 



THE AWE OE PEREECT BEAUTY 



The vision excludes, at first, all else 

 from the mind but the awe inspired by 

 perfect beauty ; and when it is ready to 

 take cognizance of other things, the next 

 great impression is of the surpassing fit- 

 ness, perfect coincidence of the event and 

 the place. If you came by water, the 

 long white wake of the ship down the 

 Pacific to the canal remains fresh in your 

 memory. If you came overland by any 

 of the splendid scenic routes, then, seen 

 through great arches, frequent glimpses 

 of the Golden Gate compel perpetual 

 recognition of the great economic fact 

 behind all this beauty — the opening of 

 the Panama Canal. 



