Notes and Correspondence. 71 



dangerous precedent, and is a tremendous price for the nation 

 to pay for San Francisco's water, and the burden of proof 

 that it is necessary is upon those who advocated the grant. It 

 is not enough that it should be thought merely desirable. 



It is idle to attempt to discredit such defenders of the public's 

 previous rights in the valley as John Muir and many other 

 members of the Sierra Club and other like organizations by 

 calling them "sentimentalists" and "poets." Cant of this sort 

 on the part of people who have not developed beyond the pseudo- 

 "practical" stage is one of the retarding influences of American 

 civilization and brings us back to the materialistic declaration 

 that "Good is only good to eat." Most of those who oppose the 

 grant live in San Francisco and vicinity and are deeply interested 

 in the future of that redoubtable city; but they know the grow- 

 ing vogue of the few camping-grounds of the health-giving park, 

 into which, in the torrid and dusty summer, the people of the 

 lowlands swarm in "the pursuit of happiness"; they know the 

 exceptional beauty of the Hetch-Hetchy, only surpassed in the 

 Sierra by the neighboring Yosemite and by the distant and not 

 easily accessible King's River Canon; they know, also — to meet 

 on its own ground the argument of cheapness — the money value 

 of California's great natural attractions and that once to destroy 

 the beautiful valley floor by flooding will be to render it irre- 

 coverable. 



There is one ground of hope that the danger may be averted. 

 By the time it can be demonstrated that Lake Eleanor is not 

 adequate, it is likely to be generally recognized that a pure 

 water supply need not depend upon mountain resources, but 

 may be obtained by filtration from streams of less pure quality. 

 Meantime the citizens of San Francisco, who (alone of Cali- 

 fornians!) are to vote upon the question, will do well to exhaust 

 every other possibility of meeting their needs before giving their 

 consent to the ruin of one of their imperial State's greatest 

 natural treasures. We are confident that this issue would be 

 the one most approved by the officials at Washington, who, from 

 conscientious motives, have given assent to local official demands. 



An Interesting High Sierra Trip. 



On August 23d our party of six and pack-train left the Giant 

 Forest. Our route took us via Rowell Meadows, thence over the 

 (upper) trail through a forest of tamarack, via Williams Meadow 

 and Sugar Loaf Peak to Scaffold Meadow. From Scaffold Meadow 

 we made our way in Roaring River Canon over a deserted 

 miners' trail, up the left branch of the Roaring River (shown 

 as Cloudy Canon on government maps, but changed in the last 



