all,
Loudly to the shore cries the surf upon the sea;
Hear, Nature wide and deep! after man's mad festival
How bitterly my soul cries out for thee!

HERMAN SCHEFFAUER,
in _Of Both Worlds._

MARCH 8.

Across the valley was another mountain, dark and grand, with flecks of
black growing _chemisai_ in clefts and crevices, and sunny slopes
and green fields lying at its base. And oh, the charm of these
mountains. In the valley there might be fog and the chill of the
north, but on the mountains lay the warmth and the dreaminess of the
south.

JOSEPHINE CLIFFORD McCRACKIN,
in _Overland Tales._

The furious wind that came driving down the canyon lying far below him
was the breath of the approaching multitude of storm-demons. The giant
trees on the slopes of the canyon seemed to brace themselves against
the impending assault. * * *

At the bottom of the canyon, the Sacramento River here a turbulent
mountain stream, and now a roaring torrent from the earlier rains of
the season, fumed and foamed as it raced with the wind down the canyon
hurrying on its way to the placid reaches in the plains of California.

W.C. MORROW,
in _A Man: His Mark._

MARCH 9.

THE ROCK DIVING OF MOUNTAIN SHEEP.

On another occasion, a flock ... retreated to another portion of this
same cliff (over 150 feet high), and, on being followed, they were
seen jumping down in perfect order, one behind another, by two men who
happened to be chopping where they had a fair view of them and could
watch their progress from top to bottom of the precipice. Both ewes
and rams made the frightful descent without evincing any extraordinary
concern, hugging the rock closely, and controlling the velocity of
their half-falling, half-leaping movements by striking at short
intervals and holding back with their cushioned, rubber feet upon
small ledges and roughened inclines until near the bottom, when they
"sailed off" into the free air and alighted on their feet, but with
their bodies so nearly in a vertical position that they appeared to be
diving.

JOHN MUIR,
in _The Mountains of California._

MARCH 10.

The ridge, ascending from seaward in a gradual coquetry of foot-hills,
broad low ranges, cross-systems, canyons, little flats, and gentle
ravines, inland dropped off almost sheer to the river below. And from
under your very feet rose range after range, tier after tier, rank
after rank, in increasing crescendo of wonderful tin