e eye for many miles. The visitor
approaching by automobile sees it hours away, and its growth upon the
horizon as he approaches is not his least memorable experience. It has
the effect at a distance of an enormous up-pointing finger which has
been amputated just below the middle joint. When near enough to enable
one to distinguish the upright flutings formed by its closely joined
pentagonal basaltic prisms, the illusion vanishes. These, bending inward
from a flaring base, straighten and become nearly perpendicular as they
rise. Now, one may fancy it the stump of a tree more than a hundred feet
in diameter whose top imagination sees piercing the low clouds. But
close by, all similes become futile; then the Devil's Tower can be
likened to nothing but itself.

This column is the core of a volcanic formation which doubtless once had
a considerably larger circumference. At its base lies an immense talus
of broken columns which the loosening frosts and the winter gales are
constantly increasing; the process has been going on for untold
thousands of years, during which the softer rock of the surrounding
plains has been eroded to its present level.

One may climb the hill and the talus. The column itself cannot be
climbed except by means of special apparatus. Its top is nearly flat and
elliptical, with a diameter varying from sixty to a hundred feet.

PINNACLES NATIONAL MONUMENT

[Illustration: _From a photograph by Tibbitts_

PINNACLES NATIONAL MONUMENT]

[Illustration: _From a photograph by N.H. Darion_

THE DEVIL'S TOWER]

Forty miles as the crow flies east of Monterey, California, in a spur
of the low Coast Range, is a region which erosion has carved into many
fantastic shapes. Because of its crowded pointed rocks, it has been set
apart under the title of the Pinnacles National Monument. For more than
a century and a quarter it was known as Vancouver's Pinnacles because
the great explorer visited it while his ships lay at anchor in Monterey
Bay, and afterward described it in his "Voyages and Discoveries." It is
unfortunate that the historical allusion was lost when it became a
national reservation.

Two deep gorges, bordered by fantastic walls six hundred to a thousand
feet high, and a broad semi-circular, flower-grown amphitheatre,
constitute the central feature. Deep and narrow tributary gorges furnish
many of the curious and intricate forms which for many years have made
the spot popular among sightseers. R