Mountain canyons are always beautiful. No matter how rugged the scenery is, Dame Nature is such a finished artist that she paints the most huge rocks, or the most gnarled and twisted trees, so that all the human painter can do in order to become famous is to properly interpret and place on canvas the touches which nature has imprinted on the landscape. At best man is only a copyist; all his "creations" and "interpretations" are suggested to him by some manifestation of the Great Creator painted or impressed on some canvas hung on the mountain sides, or in the valley, or on the ever restless waves of the sea. It is in the solitude of the mountains where the finest inspirations for the artists are to be found. Here he is alone with nature. Here the grandest exhibitions of the titanic power of the Creator are manifest, toned and modified by the beautiful tints of flowers and ferns.

In this climate the summer is a season of rest for all natural vegetation, except in the mountains. Only where man has reversed the course of the seasons do we find growth and development. But even then the canyons possess wonderful beauty, although the songs of their brooks are sung in minor tones. As compared with the brown and parched valleys their cool retreats are refreshing. In winter, however, they possess their greatest charm. Then nature is busily at work. The rock gives out bounteous streams of water, which leap down their mossy sides, singing as they go joyful anthems and imparting to every kind of vegetation the moisture which gives them renewed life. Where the landscape has been brown and bare comes the rich green of a new life, the very rocks putting on a richer coloring by absorbing their quota of the vivifying fluid.

Many people climb to the summits in order to get views of the canyons, imagining that from such heights can be found the best vistas of their caverns. They thereby get a beautiful glimpse of the dark recesses below; but one must see the canyons from their depths in order to fully grasp their beauty and grandeur. We now get close to nature, and she talks to us in a language which all can interpret, and what glimpses of the outer world we see are toned and made mellow by the setting of rocks and forests which are blended by the variegated colors of brilliant green and the "sere and yellow leaf" of those trees which cannot overcome their hereditary nature and sleep while all other vegetation is bursting into new life.

Professor Lowe, having the eye of a true artist, laid out bridle paths, built stairways and walks, and, without disturbing nature, made access to the canyons along the route of the Mount Lowe Railway easy and pleasant, either on foot or on saddle animals. One can spend days and weeks with pleasure and profit in exploring these recesses, with the advantage of having a home at night with all the conveniences of urban life, at no greater cost than when stopping at hotels in the valley. Visitors should therefore come prepared to prolong their stay until they have leisurely roamed over all the paths and explored the canyons which constitute the itinerary of the Mount Lowe Railway, and not be satisfied with a cursory glance at the wealth of scenery which is so easy of access, especially when its hotel accommodations are superior to all others in Southern California and at no greater cost than in the valley.