Vardel Falls, heart of Big Basin. between Los Angeles and Pasadena some eighteen years ago; about two hours were consumed on one of the dustiest and most disagreeable journeys of its kind in the State. Pasadena was in the throes of transition between a sheepranch and an orange grove- neither one nor the other. Los Angeles was provincialism embodied, neither wholly American nor Mexican, but a perplexing mixture. Now, there is an electric mountain railroad clear to the summit of the Sierra Madres Range. Electric cars every 15 minutes in all directions between Los Angeles and Pasadena. Two transconti

nental railroad lines-local trains every half hour-a city and suburb of a hundred and fifty thousand people.

But we hear some good, conservative citizens observe: "No Los Angeles boom in ours." Fortunately the furore and unavoidable temporary collapse of a mere boom is not needed. Inevitable economic forces, operating with the irresistibility, and very often as silently as the law of gravitation, have decreed that between the head-waters of the Missouri, east, the city of Mexico, south, and Sitka, north, the scepter of commercial empire shall be enthroned at and around the bay of

San Francisco. It is not the superlative genius of its citizens, nor their superior enterprise, that is bringing about this result, but simply a clearly defined commercial destiny. Even as we write, plans are being perfected for the first tunnel under the bay to connect the suburban railway system of Oakland and Alameda with the city proper. Electric motors on unobstructed rails have already attained a speed of close on to a hundred miles an hour.

It is in view of all these contingencies. not in the air, but materializing now, every hour of every day right before our eyes, that we claim this entire region as part and parcel of our own San Francisco suburban area. In view of all these, and other perfectly patent factors impossible to enumerate here, how utterly paradoxical and puerile becomes the opposition of two of the leading morning papers of San Francisco to the purchase on the part of the State of what is known as the "Big Basin" woods. The "Basin" is the

But to

last stronghold of the sequoias, only about some three thousand acres, but a veritable cathedral of redwood arches: the final one remaining between the Golden Gate and Santa Barbara of an almost continuous coast forest which was here only seventy years ago. In addition, it is topographically the very waterfountain of Santa Cruz, San Mateo, and Santa Clara Counties. The latter especially is in urgent need of every additional cubic inch of water obtainable. the coming millions of inhabitants around this bay these woods and hills should be held as a sacred heritage in trust. The advance echo of their coming is far more audible than when Henry Clay halted on the head waters of the Ohio, some three generations ago, and kneeling close to the ground, looked out over the grand scene before him-requested his companions to leave him there for awhile "listening to the tread of millions to follow." They came even sooner than any expect ed. The difference between that day and

most ludicrous of its kind on record, cannot stop the onward rush. She is in the midst of it now, without fully realizing its meaning. So the opposition to the purchase of these magnificent woods by the State is intrinsically fully as absurd as was the opposition on the part of the would-be very wise editors and wiseacres generally, thirty years ago, to the purchase of the lands that now constitute the chief public asset of San Franciscoits Golden Gate Park. Then, as now, "the land was worthless, anyway, utterly inaccessible. City would never reach it," etc. How sagacious these counsellors must appear to-day both to themselves and their friends! It is predicted with perfect faith in its realization that in ten years more Boulder Creek town, as

along the valleys and mountain slopes hele referred to. The greater portion of the interior valley areas of Santa Cruz County has been stripped of its first great crop-its choice redwood lumber. This was simply an inevitable commercial necessity. Withou' this commercial invasion this whole region would yet remain an untouched wilderness. But the country now faces a transition era. The great northeastern base of the imposing Ben Lomond Range at the foot of which Boulder Creek town is located, contains on its very crest at nearly two thousand feet elevation, the index of the volume yet to be inscribed on every hill and valley of this entire section. The wines produced on this summit, which, by the way, is a perfectly level plateau, have achieved