CHAPTER XII. _Mountain Barriers._--The western mountains--Saddles

and passes--View from mountain top--Looking toward the peaks--Lost streams--Avalanches and bowlder-beds--Ascent by the arroyo--Growth of the stream--Rising banks--Waterfalls--Gorges--Ascent by the ridges--The chaparral--Home of the grizzly--Ridge trails--Among the live-oaks--Birds and deer--Yawning canyons--Canyon streams--Snow--Water wear--The pines--Barrancas and escarpments--Under the pines--Bushes, ferns, and mosses--Mountain quail--Indigo jays--Warblers--The mountain air--The dwarf pines--The summit--The look upward at the sky--The dark-blue dome--White light--Distant views--The Pacific--Southern California--The garden in the desert--Reclaiming the valleys--Nature’s fight against fertility--The desert from the mountain top--The great extent of desert--The fateful wilderness--All shall perish--The death of worlds--The desert the beginning of the end--Development through adversity--Sublimity of the waste--Desolation and silence--Good-night to the desert 213

THE DESERT