THE NAUTILUS. 



31 



COLLECTING SHELLS IN A CORNER OF THE SIERRA NEVADA. 



BY JAS. H. FERRISS. 



Prospects along the southern border of Arizona in the summer 

 of 1916 were a little warlike; thus myself and family, two of us, 

 joined with Prof. E. E. Hand, zoological instructor at the 

 Wendell Phillips High School, Chicago, in a vacation to Cali- 

 fornia. The hikers of the Sierra Club were ready for their 

 annual July tramp and we joined their ranks. At Bakersfiekl 

 we dropped off for a day's collecting along the banks of the 

 Kern river. 



That night the club, 260 strong, was overtaken and no further 

 opportunities for collecting were conveniently at hand until we 

 arrived at the forks of the Tulle river the next evening. We 

 left the railroad at Springville in Tulare county. 



This conservation club of nearly 2,000 members, Jos. Le- 

 Conte, jr., President, and Win. H. Colby, Secretary, seems to 

 feel it to be a part of their work to show the way to the Cali- 

 fornia mountains, to make them accessible and popular, and in 

 this until his death a couple of years ago, John Muir was their 

 leader. The membership is principally Californians, San Fran- 

 cisco and Los Angeles predominating. Our own state was well 

 represented in this outing, for there were sixteen of us from 

 Chicago and Joliet, 



These annual excursions show the way to good health, the 

 big trees, the highest mountains and the great canyons and do 

 much to make California attractive to the globe-trotter. We 

 ascended the Kern river Canyon, climbed Kaweah Peak, Mt. 

 Whitney and the Kearsarges, opened the Muir trail and crossed 

 over the range down to Independence, Inyo count} 7 , in the 

 Owen valley — a snowbank in camp every night but the last, 

 when we needed it most. 



It was a delightful journey with delightful people, and the 

 rivers and snowbanks were crossed without accident. It was 

 the seventeenth year under the Colby regime, and practice has 

 made the arrangements so perfect there was no jar in the pro- 

 gram. Next July we ascend the middle fork of Kings river. 



