ebrated rock
in the Sierra, at least. The view up the canyon from this spot has few
equals. The view down the canyon is not often excelled. When the day of
the Kings River Canyon dawns, it will dawn brilliantly.

V

The western slopes of the Pacific ranges, from the Canadian border
southward to the desert, carry the most luxuriant forest in the United
States. The immense stands of yellow pine and Douglas fir of the far
north merge into the sugar pines and giant sequoias of the south in
practically an unbroken belt which, on Sierra's slopes, lies on the
middle levels between the low productive plains of the west and the
towering heights of the east. The Sequoia National Park and its little
neighbor, the General Grant National Park, enclose areas of remarkable
fertility in which trees, shrubs, and wild flowers reach their greatest
development. The million sequoia trees which grow here are a very small
part, numerically, of this amazing forest.

These slopes are rich with the soil of thousands of years of
accumulations. They are warmed in summer by mild Pacific winds heated in
their passage across the lowlands, and blanketed in winter by many feet
of soft snow. They are damp with countless springs and streams sheltered
under heavy canopies of foliage. In altitude they range from two
thousand feet at the bottom of Kaweah's canyon, as it emerges from the
park, to eight thousand feet in the east, with mountains rising three or
four thousand feet higher. It is a tumbled land of ridges and canyons,
but its slopes are easy and its outline gracious. Oases of luscious
meadows dot the forests.

This is the Court of King Sequoia. Here assemble in everlasting
attendance millions of his nobles, a statelier gathering than ever bowed
the knee before human potentate. Erect, majestic, clothed in togas of
perpetual green, their heads bared to the heavens, stand rank upon rank,
mile upon mile, the noblest personalities of the earth.

Chief among the courtiers of the king is the sugar-pine, towering here
his full two hundred feet, straight as a ruler, his stem at times eight
feet in thickness, scarcely tapering to the heavy limbs of his high
crown. Largest and most magnificent of the Pacific pines, reaching
sometimes six hundred years of age, the greater trunks clear themselves
of branches a hundred feet from the ground, and the bark develops long
dark plates of armor. So marked is his distinguished personality that,
once seen, he ne